Malachi to Matthew

Funny how opening remarks are rarely used to communicate anything rather than a desired emotion or temporary image of self-actuality. What happened to simplicity? "Hi, I'm (insert name) and I'm writing to share with you about..." Instead, we give and get all this gibberish referring to what we'd like people's first impression of us to be, shaping and influencing their perception of our character based on what information about ourselves we choose to release or share. I know, because I'm doing it right now.

In a sense, I'm making my first real visit to the core of my personhood since the day my parents bought me a television. Selling everything. Moving halfway across the globe. Really beginning to pray and cry and celebrate and repent for the first time. So if you plan on reading further, then welcome. You get to figure this out with me. I believe in spiritual rebirth, but that doesn't happen to be what I'm experiencing at the moment. Rebirth implies the death and resurrection of a spirit; I've already experienced that in my lifetime. I'm in the thick of something that's more than a transition and less of a self-discovery. I'm at the moment in a Cameron Crowe movie when an Elliott Smith song fades in, bridgind the gap between empty vessel and self-actualization.

So all this makes me sound somber and empty, which couldn't be further from the truth. Despite the fact that I've worn out my welcome and my reputation here in Fayetteville, I'm tasting and living a type of healing that I've never had before: submission, sacrifice, and fulfillment. I've lived a life of idolatry for longer than I can bear to admit to, and God has been faithful to cut off each of these from my life. Worship of Campus Crusade and self, worship of romance, worship of material wealth, of wisdom, of entertainment, of accumulation. I have been a slave to these things, and many more. My pride and my passivity have carved out an empty altar in my heart, but that altar is burning.

So I don't know how to tie all of this together without writing out a 45 page blog that nobody I know will ever read, much less digest. If you have in fact decided to devote yourself to understanding me within the context of what I share here, please know that I love you. I mean that. I love you, and thank you for keeping up with me, for praying for me as I hope you will, and journeying across the world with me in my heart. I will not lie here, I will not exaggerate, and I will not hold back. I am opinionated, and I am educated, and I am a fool were it not for the Holy Spirit. However, the world has been changed as much by the hearts of wise kings and prophets as much as it has been by foolish tax collectors and fishermen. I've never collected taxes before, but I have devoted a year to hiring truck drivers, and I think it's a fair consensus that the two occupations are conjoined somehow.

So I'm quitting my job, selling my possessions, and moving to Nepal to work in an orphanage. The whole situation screams of twenty-something wanderlust with a hint of "Seven Years in Tibet." I'll give you the full breakdown of my decision process, my motives, and the extent of the emotional/spiritually journey in a later blog because its all just truly beginning. For now, know this: the path I've chosen isn't a lark or an escape. I'm not reacting on a whim. Jason (the beautiful roommate) and I have devoted the last six months of our lives to pondering the meaning and the timing of why God has called us to this country and to the Children's Welfare Center. I've weighed the costs, I've measured the heartbreak, and prayed for strength and wisdom without ceasing. I'm as prepared and unprepared as one can possibly be. Time to plunge.