Tag: Prayer

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“This is the way, Pioneer”

“Open your hands, child. Your ‘kids’ are not yours; they never were to begin with. Give them back to me. I’m the One who can, and will, take care of them.”

I’ve experienced my fair share of heartbreak over my Street School students, but leaving them to come to Alaska last fall felt like the thing that was going to rip my heart out all together.


At the end of last school year, Eli, the other English teacher, sat across from me and said the words I’d been thinking for months, but had been too afraid to verbalize.

“If I leave… and if you leave… Who is going to love these kids? They’re so hard sometimes… But I love them so much it hurts. Is it possible that someone else could love our girls the way we do? After all, they’ve become our girls… And they so desperately need to know that they’re loved.”

Those words echoed in my heart for months and shifted into fears over time. That fear gave way anxious tears that further distorted my vision. I began to see my students as far more fragile than they were and I stopped seeing Jesus as the powerful, risen Savior who came (and always comes) for God’s children in love.

I was afraid He would somehow abandon my students. Or worse, that my pre-Alaska goodbyes would become the last words I’d ever speak to them. After losing a student to gang violence last year, I was so scared that any goodbye could become permanent, and thus, I held my kids close.

So when Jesus called me to walk away from the job that had become my passion and the kids whom I saw myself as the protector of, I fought Him. Hard. But we all know how the story went… Ultimately (and albeit a bit begrudgingly) I hugged the students who held my heart and I got on a plane with their sweet, handwritten notes and gifts tucked in my pack.

God loves these kids more than I do. He won’t let anything happen to them that’s outside His will. He’s a Good, Good Father; His provision and providence puts my earthly mom-brain to shame. It will be okay. I prayed and pep talked myself all the way home on my last day of work and often over my first few months in Alaska. If I’m being honest, I still struggle to lay my DSS students at Jesus’ feet every time I see something worrisome on social media or wake up to see that I missed a call from them in the middle of the night.

At those times, the beautiful gift of my students’ continued relationship and trust, even 2,500 miles away, seems a bit like a blessing and a curse. But I cherish those random phone calls, even though my selfish heart breaks a little with each one as I wish I could offer them more than a simple prayer from the other side of a phone or computer.

Which begs the question: Why does prayer seem so insufficient to my momma-heart? Why do I believe that I could provide anything better than Jesus if I was physically present with them? I’ve wrestled with these questions as I’ve sat speechless, staring at Facebook messages and texts, wishing I could do something more than point them to Jesus in the middle of the night when their worlds are falling apart.

It was on one such night when I stumbled upon Annie Jones‘ “Oh, Pioneer: Song of the Unseen” while I texted back and forth with one of my old students. She writes,

“We are lampposts lighting the way for the lost and curious ones. Saying, ‘This is the way, Pioneer. The Good Life begins Here.’

This manna, falling from the sky as promise, is enough to satisfy our hungry lips. Mouths begging for more. Spirit breathing. There is plenty. How mystery sustains the most savage of a soul.

Come close to this, Pioneer.

Learn the language of your seeking, savage heart.

See what we are made for: breaking bread and drinking wine underneath stars with our Creator. A shared communion of enoughness. Giving thanks for our unknowing of the gentle way ahead, unfolding as we sing through momentary mystery. The Journey. There is nothing more spectacular to Belong to.”

Staring at the poem in front of me, I could hear Him, plain as day: This is what I’ve called you to. You are not your students’ protector or savior—I am. You are not the Light; you are simply a lamppost– a loving, encouraging voice along the way who can call into the darkness and say, “This way, fellow Pioneer. Come this way; it’s beautiful and Light on this path with Jesus.”

~

Nearly a year had passed since Eli and I sat starting at each other across her classroom table, wracked with the fear of the unknown for our girls. A few months had gone by since the winter night when I first read that poem. But not two days after I pulled it off the shelf to re-read it over spring break, a Facebook message between one of our former students, Eli, and I came across the screen of my phone:

“Hey guys. I decided I want to give my life to Christ but I need help. I really don’t know how to do this on my own.”

I blinked the tears out of my eyes and read the message at least five more times before letting out a weighted breath I didn’t even realize I’d been holding in for nine months.

“I told you I would take care of ‘your kids’. I love them more than you’ll ever be capable of. You can breathe and continue giving them back to Me.”

All too often my momma bear perspective skews my view of God and elevates my own power, protection, and love. But praise God for the moments when He reminds me that there is nothing that I do ever do to change or protect my students’ hearts; it’s Jesus’ love, His Spirit, His grace, and His acceptance that softens hearts, changes minds, and protects us all in the meantime.

May we as Christians, disciple-makers, teachers, parents, and momma-brained individuals learn to give the ones we love back to Jesus in prayer every day and instead call out the words of Annie Jones:

“It is this way, Beloved.

Here you will be found.

The search is over.

Hallelujah.”

~

“And I am sure of this, the He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Christ.”

(Philippians 1:6)

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Losing Jesus

“When the Passover Feast had ended, as their family was returning to Nazareth, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know it, but supposing Him to be in the group, they went a day’s journey, but then they began searching for Him among their relatives and acquaintances, and when they did not find Him, they returned to Jerusalem, searching for Him. After three days they found Him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions…”

(Luke 2:43-46)

“They lost Jesus? Wouldn’t that make Jesus’ parents… bad… parents…?” Trevor looked around at all of us as he spoke, clearly choosing his words carefully.

Andrew, our TLC Bible teacher, and I locked eyes across the giant classroom table and smirked, clearly thinking the same thing—How do we navigate this? Andrew laughed and forced out an, “Uhm, yupp…” Before I stuck my foot in my mouth, adding, “I guess losing your kid for a few days probably wouldn’t qualify you for parent of the year…” (I’m nothing if not terribly awkward as a teacher.)

“What?!”
“How the heck would you not notice your kid wasn’t with you for a whole day?!”
“How do you leave your kid in a totally different city on accident?”

Questions and comments poured out before Andrew redirected the conversation back to the day’s study of Luke. But hours and weeks later, Trevor’s question stuck with me.

How often do I lose Jesus and go a whole day (or multiple days) before realizing that I’m not with Him?

It’s a murky question if you want to get all “theologically technical” about it. I know that, as a believer, His Spirit is always with me, but I can guarantee you that I’m not always with Him. Sometimes Jesus goes left while I wander right, completely lost in my own plans and short-sightedness. Sometimes, like Mary and Joseph, I keep walking long after He has stopped somewhere, and I don’t notice until I’m an embarrassing distance away.

My wandering is rarely intentional. (Although my heart occasionally reminds me that my sinful ability to run from God and hide in the darkness of my humanity is still well in tact.) No, usually I lose Jesus doing “good things”.

I’ve lost sight of Jesus in serving people, in religiosity, in the church, in my job, in relationships, in transition, in busy seasons, and all too often, in my own selfish ambition. It kills me to admit, but my heart is no where near stayed on Him the way I wish it was. You would think I would have this whole “following Jesus” thing down, since I’ve jokingly been called a “professional Christian”, or more commonly, a missionary. But the hymn “Come Thou Fount” is still the one written in and on my heart: I’m prone to wander, Lord I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.

And unfortunately, I typically don’t realize I’ve wandered away until I try to quiet myself before Him and feel distant, confused, or alone. In this place my prayers are stilted and repetitive. I feel stuck, frustrated that I can’t find Him or figure out how my heart got so far away from Him in such a short time. It’s in those moments that I’m reminded that finding Jesus isn’t something I can do in my own power. It’s not that God has not hidden Himself, but I can’t find my way back to Him on my own anymore than I could’ve originally reunited myself to God while I was yet a sinner. That is why Christ had to come– to reunite our flighty, sinful hearts with His complete, steady One.

I sat the tiny attic space above my bedroom that I’ve affectionately deemed as my “Jesus Loft” last week. After a whirlwind few days, I felt frustratingly far from God. I journaled. I read. I tried to sing to my favorite worship songs downloaded on my phone. Yet nothing seemed to draw me back into intimacy with His heart.

Exasperated, I chucked my pen across the loft and said out loud, “I give up. I don’t know where You went or how I walked off for the trillionth time. But I need you. I’m sorry I suck at following You, but I need You to come back for me. I lost You somewhere and I need You to find me yet again.”

I wish I could say that the heavens opened up that night or that my house shook with the audible voice of God, but the truth is that sometimes you just need to pray and go to sleep, trusting that Jesus will come for you in Love and His perfect timing.

After a few days of trying to be obedient in faith and praying my weird, stilted prayers (still feeling rather blah), Jesus met me in the lyrics of Steffany Gretzinger’s “Pieces” while I stood at my kitchen sink and washed perfectly ordinary dinner dishes.

Daughter, I don’t give My heart in pieces.
I don’t hide Myself to tease you.

My love’s not fractured
It’s not a troubled mind
It isn’t anxious, it’s not the restless kind
My love’s not passive
It’s never disengaged
It’s always present
It hangs on every word I say
Love keeps its promises, it keeps its word
It honors what’s sacred, cause its vows are good
My love’s not broken
It’s not insecure
My love’s not selfish, My love is pure.

As the song goes, His Love is always present, never disengaged. Even when we feel lost or He feels far off, He is nearer than we can see or believe. I don’t understand the phenomenon of His Love, but the cry of my heart stems from exactly that place of confusion. It’s a cry of frustration at my lack of faith and understanding— one that imitates the father of the demon possessed boy Jesus encountered in Mark 9. It’s a prayer that seems so repetitive and so over prayed as someone who feels like she should have it all together, but simply doesn’t…

Lord, make my heart believe.

Would You help me to see and know that Your love is always present, always pursuing me, never broken or disengaged?

Jesus, we long to believe that while we may lose You, You have never lost us. You are always pursuing us with Your perfect love, Your sweet Hesed.

“For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.”
(Luke 19:10)

 

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When the proverbial plane crashes

I knew the Lord had brought me to Alaska, but the end of first semester was a train wreck. (Or to be more “bush-correct”, you could say it was a proverbial plane crash.) By the time it was over, I was beyond burnt out. I was struggling with what I can now recognize as compassion fatigue and PTSD. I was spiritually overwhelmed, constantly feeling like I was losing the battle against the strongholds of addiction that raged in my house. By the time I’d realized just how far in over my head I was, it was too late. My little TLC plane had fallen out of the sky and was in flames around me.

I sat in our house with my face down on my kitchen table and my hands entangled in my hair, sobbing at one in the morning. Every few minutes I would catch a word or two from the serious conversation between my boss and one of my students in the other room.

I pulled my face up off the table and caught a glimpse of myself in the window. The woman staring back at me was gaunt; the way her black mascara had dripped over her sunken-in cheeks scared me. I stared in shock. Who is that woman in the window? That can’t possibly be what I look like. I tried to turn my head to examine myself from another angle but my muscles were so tense my neck wouldn’t turn. Instead I laid my forehead back on the table and ugly-cried until my stomach hurt. What are you doing Lord?

Eventually I ran out of tears and simply stared at the grain of the wood in my table. I couldn’t figure out where my “good” God was. I couldn’t bring myself to believe that He would ever lead me (or had actually led me) somewhere that felt so unsafe.

Lord, have mercy. Please. Where are you? I pleaded on repeat, as if those were the only words I knew. The first half of David’s Psalm 77 rang in my ears.

My boss eventually emerged from the other room. Lowering himself into the chair next to mine, he asked how I was doing. Unhealthy. Unsafe. They were the only words I could choke out, even though I knew they didn’t make sense as an answer to his question. I tried to focus on the logistics of what I needed to do with my student, but as his lips moved, my brain wandered. I’m ‘doing Your work’, Lord. You brought me here. You gave these girls to me, and me to these girls. Yet I feel like I’m dying. How could you let this happen?

It’s every missionary’s worst nightmare—that moment when the prayers for protection and safety, the ones that people back at home prayed over you before you left, seem to have worn off.

In that moment I was left to wrestle with the fact that because God is sovereign, that this was exactly where He wanted me. He knew this would happen. He knew I would feel unsafe. He knew it would be dark and I wouldn’t be able to sense His presence, but somehow I had to trust that He was still there…

He had called me to the depths of myself—my deepest fears and wounds—in His loving goodness, for His ultimate glory. I knew the theology, yet there I was, weeping, begging God to show up and replace my suffering with a feeling of safety, even though I’d always said I would do whatever it took for the people around me to know the love of Christ…

~~~

Around these parts, we pray for our pilots in church on Sunday and before almost every meal. To us they’re not just pilots—they’re family, my friends, my friends’ husbands, my bosses, my students, me.

I’ve learned a lot about trusting the sovereignty of God from hearing pilots and their loved ones pray. Our pilots all have their fair share of plane crash stories—some minor, some major, all mildly terrifying. Yet when they pray, they ask for wisdom as they fly, not for safety, even though many of them understand what it feels like to be in a plane that’s going down.FlyingSidewaysThese men and women have been there; they’ve felt a complete lack of safety akin to what I felt in December.

They’ve all said, “Yes Lord, I want to follow you. I want to serve the people of Southwest Alaska by bringing them their groceries, the fuel they need to survive, and their loved ones, no matter the cost.” (After all, none of us could live and minister where we do if it wasn’t for our valiant bush pilots.) And thus, we cover our pilots in prayer, just as my church family in Colorado prayed for me as they sent me out as a missionary.

But even within that covering of prayer, many of them have walked away from a plane with it’s landing gear folded or it’s wings ripped off.

They know what it’s like to question God’s plan with every fiber of their being while simultaneously fighting to trust the theology and truth of His sovereignty. They’ve managed to praise God just moments after feeling the least safe they’ve felt in their lives. And they still wake up every morning and fly despite all of this because that’s what God’s called them to– even when it feels dangerous.

The prayers of our pilots have challenged me to stop praying for safety, and instead pray to be exactly where God wants me to be— even if it seems horrible and hard, maybe even traumatic at times.

What if we all prayed that way? For wisdom rather than safety, for His will rather than our own? It seems strangely reminiscent of The Lord’s Prayer if you ask me…

After all, Jesus never promised His disciples they wouldn’t suffer or be unsafe (Look at the life of Paul if you doubt me.) Similarly, the Lord never promised David that life, even life as a king, would be easy. (The beginning of Psalm 77 is pretty solid evidence that it wasn’t.) But God did promise He would be David’s refuge when the excrement hit the stone-age ventilation system… He never promised me that living in Alaska would feel safe, but through His word He has promised to be my refuge and physician when my proverbial plane crashes and I’m left climbing from the burning wreckage.

~~~

I woke up the morning after our proverbial plane crash, disheartened and dehydrated from crying every spare ounce of fluid out of my body. But being the stubborn woman I am, I was determined to salvage something (anything) from the wreckage. I threw my Bible and journal on the table I’d wept on just hours before, and got brutally honest with the Lord: “I don’t feel safe. I need to feel safe if You want me to stay here.”

Do you? Is safety the call I’ve put on your life, Kacy?

Etched below God’s rhetorical question in my journal are the words that I pray I’ll be able to live my life by, everyday–

Alright Lord, things might not “get better”. I’m coming to terms with that. It’s a very real possibility that You’ll continue to ask me to walk into (and live in) places that are hard and desolate, almost completely devoid of light, and call me to expose all of my pain so Your light might shine through this brokenness.

You might not deliver me from living in an unsafe environment, but I know this mess is a part of Your plan. And Abba, if You are going to use this hot mess to draw people in and glorify Yourself, then dammit, this is exactly where I want to be; safety or no safety…

“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsake; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in You.”

(2 Corinthians 4:8-12)

 

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Rising: Post-Alaska plans

Can I just say, I’m astounded by the amount of food that teenage guys and men in their early twenties can eat without it affecting their waistline at all. Sometimes I sit at “family meals” here at TLC and just laugh to myself as my boys, fresh from their carpentry and aviation jobs, scarf down plate after plate of dinner.

To keep up with their voracious appetites (and because we don’t have the luxury of buying bread from a grocery store) I spend one, sometimes two afternoons a week baking bread for my students and staff. My students have gotten spoiled with homemade bread for sandwiches, toast, and to eat with the copious amounts of homemade soup that Tom and I feed them, and as much as they joke about becoming addicted to my “white people” cooking, I absolutely love having the time to spoil them a bit by baking them bread “with love”.

On a more selfish note, I love that my afternoons of baking give me an excuse to blast my worship music and twirl in my oven-warmed kitchen like a fool while breathing in the sweet scent that reminds me of my Tia’s kitchen on holidays. Baking has always been a stress reliever for me and I absolutely love that it’s become a part of my job description for this season of life.

RisingThe alchemy that occurs when I pour the ingredients into a mixing bowl, knead the dough that subsequently forms, and watch it rise in the ancient metal pans I found at village swap-meet astounds me. It just doesn’t make sense to me, this magic of baking, but it’s taught me a lot about life over the years. And if I’ve learned one thing this year through baking enough bread to feed a small army every week, it’s that you can’t rush the process.

When I try to hurry through my “memorized” list of ingredients, I inevitably forget the salt.

When I get over ambitious and try to make all six loaves at once, at least two somehow get screwed up.

When I convince myself that I need to rush, I don’t let the dough rise for long enough and my bread loses its beautiful, smooth top and its light, fluffy texture.

For someone who is, in the words of my car-obsessed grandfather, “All gas and no breaks”, spending time allowing my bread to rise seems like a waste, but it’s essential. The sitting and waiting, the patience, the “down time”… it’s essential in baking bread and I’ve been reminded that it’s essential in my walk with Christ.

In the last week or so, the Lord has brought me to a place of “rising”.

Since roughly December I’ve felt like someone put my brain inside my Kitchen Aid and turned it on high. As March has approached (aka the time of year when teachers usually begin signing their contracts for the next school year), my post-Alaska plans have been at the forefront of my mind. And in the last few months, the Lord has dumped what feels like nine million opportunities in my mixer with me and watched as I’ve spun and stressed and struggled, trying to figure out which is the “right choice” for the next season of life. Stressing and edging God out of the equation is so often my default reaction to seasons of change, even though I know deep in my heart that all I need to do is quiet myself before Him and ask (slash trust Him) to lead me.

I debriefed all of this with one of my most dear friends today (while our day’s worth of bread rose). She laughed and fed me the exact advice that I’d given her last summer when she was stuck on spin-cycle with Jesus.

“I don’t think God is going to tell you where He’s leading you, Kacy. I think He’s just going to let you sit and enjoy your time with Him, and then He’s going to take you there. I think you just need to wait and see; be silent and follow as He leads, one step at a time.” (Ironic advice given the number of times Exodus 14:14 has come up in our conversations with and prayers for each other throughout the last several months: “The Lord will fight for you; you need only be silent.”)

As I sit at my kitchen table this afternoon with pans of bread slowly rising next to me in my window sill, I know this to be true. This is to be a season of patience and listening, waiting and “rising”– not hurrying to get to the next thing on my to-do list or rushing my proverbial “baking”process… (or running full speed ahead into the obscure darkness, which almost seems like a shame because I’m SO much better at all of those things. #sarcasmfont)

I’m not gonna lie—I’m hungry and am anticipating eating the magical smelling bread next to me, almost as much as my heart is anticipating seeing what the Lord is going to do with my life next. As it currently stands, there’s a very good chance that three new countries and the ability to help found a non-profit that Denver drastically needs are in my immediate future… But all of that seems to be another blog for another time. Plus, I need to get off my tush and put this next round of bread in the oven before no one has anything to eat for dinner tonight.

I would love it if you would join your hearts in prayer with me as I wait and “rise”, sweet friends. Jesus is up to something… I have no idea what it is, but in the words of the United Pursuit song that I love so much, I know “It’s gonna be wild, it’s gonna be great, and it’s gonna be full of Him.”

PS: If you need to find yourself needing to breathe and pray, to quiet yourself and bake some bread today, here is the recipe that I’ve fallen in love with, courtesy of the lovely Mrs. Sarah Wardell.

Basically Manna from Heaven Recipe

  • 3 c. warm water
  • 2 tbsp. active rise yeast
  • ¼ c. agave or honey
  • ¼ c. coconut oil
  • 1 tbsp. salt
  • 5-8 c. flour

Mix warm water, yeast, and agave in your mixer for roughly a minute. Let the mixture sit for a few minutes to allow the yeast to proof. Slowly mix in the flour, oil, and salt until your dough forms. Mix/knead the dough with a bread hook for five-ish minutes. Spray your bread pans with non-stick spray and allow the bread to rise for thirty minutes. Bake at 375* for thirty minutes. Makes two sandwich loaves. (Disclaimer: This temperature and time works well here at sea level; you might need to adjust it a bit if you’re baking in the high-altitude promise land of Colorado.)

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Banana Bread Therapy

At the end of an exhausting week, I feel like I only know three things:
1) I want to follow Jesus
2) I’ve over extended myself this week to a point of being too tired to do a whole lot of anything, including following Jesus…or anyone, anywhere.
3) Banana bread & worship music refreshes my heart and soul.

bananabreadtherapy~

Cooking and cleaning have always been my weird coping mechanisms. That’s right, I said cooking. Go ahead, laugh, I’ll wait.

…

Okay, now that those of you who know me well have gotten a good laugh in, and those of you who don’t know me are confused, allow me to explain:

Historically, I’m not a great cook.

While I come from a family full of wonderful Mexican-American women who are master chefs and bakers, I technically was raised three hours away from them by a woman whose idea of cooking involved taking something out of a store bought freezer bag and putting it into the oven. So naturally when I got out on my own, I didn’t have the first idea of what to do in a kitchen.

I’m talking the “I’ve burnt Malt-o-meal” level of not knowing how to cook…

Thankfully over the last few years I’ve figured out how to prepare not only edible food, but really delicious fancy meals that I never would’ve thought possible.

(Unfortunately I didn’t acquire this talent until the year after I taught a cooking class at DSS. Consider this my formal and utmost apology if you were one of the students who suffered through that hellish year with me… Y’all seriously deserve an award for not killing me; especially on the days when I gave you knives & that became a very real possibility.)

Anywho, even before I actually knew how to cook well, banana bread was a simple enough recipe that I could whip up a batch without giving anyone food poisoning or burning down my house (both solid benefits in my opinion).

The simplicity of the recipe also allowed for me to accomplish something while not using a whole lot of mental power– banana bread provided me time to process and pray.

I’ve made banana bread at weird times in my life:

There’s been grief banana bread when I processed the deaths of my grandfather and best friend, and again when I lost custody of my god-kids.

There’s been worried banana bread when I’ve sobbed and begged God not to take my mother away from me because of her failing health.

I’ve gone on banana bread baking binges during times of stress (Usually during undergrad and grad school finals when I probably should have been studying. C’est la vie.) and extreme anger (Some girls destroy their ex’s belongings, some bake bread. Sue me…)

In the weirdest way possible, banana bread is the way that I connect with God when I can’t really figure out what else to do.

And at the beginning of this week, in true “God knows” fashion, a ridiculous amount of bananas were donated to the school. On Monday, when the bananas were still ripe and delicious, I didn’t think much of it. But then again, at that point in my week, I was still rearing to go…

But slowly, as God has shown up dramatically in more areas of my life and the school this week, the enemy has slowly begun to beat the living daylights out of me.

The last three days of my week have been annoyingly marked by spiritual attack. Thoughts akin to You’re an idiot. Why on earth do you even work at the Street School? You’re not doing anything here. You should just leave. You’re worthless. You couldn’t even be a good mother-figure, that’s why God took away your kids. Why are you taking care of Hailey? You’re terrible at this. mixed with incessant and unexplainable car problems left me exhausted and crumpled into a heap by this morning.

“Coincidentally”, shortly after confiding in a friend this morning that I felt beat down, I glanced over and noticed those same bananas sitting on the snack shelf in my classroom. In just a few days time, they had gone from the perfect snack to slouchy, brown banana-bread-only material (an amusing metaphor for how I felt this morning). In that moment, I knew exactly how I would be spending my night.

And so, this afternoon I bagged up the squishy banana mess, grabbed the few cans of the disgusting unsweetened apple sauce that someone brought me from a food bank a few weeks ago, and I headed home.

With my hair thrown up into a bun and worship music blasting, I went to work– mashing, mixing, and stirring– praying and arguing with God out loud like an absolute nut, alone in my kitchen. Within the hour, my house was filled with the familiar smell of banana bread and my heart felt a million times lighter.

However, the struggle still isn’t over.

The grief of losing my god-kids still hasn’t subsided even after four years, and given what week it is, I don’t expect it to any time soon. The fear of my car imploding and not having money to replace it still lingers in the back of my mind. But the beautiful pictures of God drawing my students to Himself, bringing ex-students back to the school to heal old wounds, and breaking down walls within my own heart that I didn’t even realize existed has silenced the nagging voice of the enemy and reminded me that I am exactly where I’m supposed to be right now.

“Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
    the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
   His understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint,
    and to him who has no might, He increases strength through banana bread.”

(Isaiah 40:28-29…mostly)

 

If you need banana bread therapy too, I highly recommend this recipe. It’s healthy, sugar free, and FREAKING AWESOME.

Also, if you intend to use the above recipe, I agree with Kathryn Bronn’s assertion that you can never have too much cinnamon. You can read about what God’s teaching her in the kitchen, by clicking here. She’s marvelous; you won’t regret it.