It can only grow from here.

i must be honest. a few months back i was distraught. i was completely freaked out. how could i move across the ocean to a continent i’d never known? to a people who were vastly different than me in culture? to a land that i’d barely heard of before?

this new land was a home i knew i was destined to. i just knew it. ever since those days africa haunted me. yes, at first it felt horrible. those eight or so years ago, my heart was cold. i wanted to go to india, not the continent of africa. no, Lord. please, anything but africa. and i pushed it away. and that’s the lovely convicting power of the Holy Spirit at work.

i knew then that something was wrong in my heart and it needed fixing. i couldn’t bring myself to love the faces of the children that invaded my mind. and fast forward years and years, things were finally set right in my heart. i was broken over the love God has for everyone. and how He created each and every one of us, and oh how so wonderfully. not only was i broken, i was in love. with africa. africa had my heart and mind. i allowed what God was trying to do years ago come to fruition. His love for the african people was flooding my life and washing away the years of bitterness and hate i had held in my heart.

now i couldn’t shake this continent. it was in my dreams. my writing. my every thought. and again, it had come throught the children of the land. just as before when i had haulted it. that, ladies and gentlemen, is beauty for ashes. i no longer held that hate in my heart, but began to open my eyes. and my mouth to speak against the hate. i was free. His truth was setting me free, link by link. the chains that used to bind me so tight were being broken. God used those precious little faces to open my eyes a little bit further. to get a spark started in my heart of what Love truly was. and how i’d been missing it. it was only the beginning. i was still seeking that Love i knew must exist. that unconditional love that He had waiting for me, His beloved.

day by day, month by month my sight was becoming clearer. i had met people who were on fire for Him and i now knew why they were on fire. they had a grasp on this Love. i just had to allow myself to go there too. to revel in the Love and the promise that He will never leave me nor forsake me. in the message He had written so long, long ago. the message that He is still saying today and still holds true. i truly found it this summer. i mean truly, truly found it. through tears and surrender, that Love that i wanted so badly, i have it now. more than anything, i know He loves me. that in itself empowers me. and He is faithfully showing that love to me each and every day -without fail. more than anything i needed that Love that He had reserved just for me. everyone does. and i’m not just speaking of flippantly saying “Jesus loves you”, but of truly believing it, and letting it empower you beyond anything you’ve ever known before. letting it soak deep down in your soul and heal the heartache, the brokeness and parts of you you’d always thought were there to stay. and then comes dying to self and becoming a dead man walking. giving everything over to Him and allowing Him to live through you. to be selfless and surrender. to lay yourself on the altar and sacrifice yourself. He is nowhere near finished with me. i’m still human, and i fail from time to time. but there’s His love and that, my friends, is promise.


“As surely as the sun rises,
He will appear;
He will come to us like the winter rains,
like the spring rains that water the earth.”

Hosea 6:3



“I will heal their waywardness
and love them freely,
for my anger has turned away from them.
I will be like the dew to Israel;
he will blossom like a lily.
Like a cedar of Lebanon
he will send down his roots;
his young shoots will grow.”

Hosea 14:4-6