journal: tracked.

Good morning!! This blog has been a long time coming. It is different from my usual posts, in that it is merely a recount of journal excerpts from my life. I have always been a journaler, and I'm so thankful. A lot of times God takes us on journeys and we don't even realize we are on them until we have come to the end. I think that my life has been that way. The following excerpts show a glimpse of the journey God has had me on for the past 5 years, and how amazing He fits everything together. This journey entailed many sleepless nights which did not feel good at the time. But I am still clinging to Romans 8:28, "He works all things for the good of those who love Him!" I know this is true.


January 9, 2006:   “.. nothing is really wrong, but nothing feels right.”

February 2006:  “I have been looking for something to make me happy… it’s nowhere. It’s not in my friends, a lover, a busy schedule, my family, work, or myself. I cannot find it anywhere, and I’m tired of looking.”

February 3, 2006: "The Butterfly": "The graceful butterfly lands gently upon the fragile flower, pauses briefly only for a moment before fluttering, unsatisfied, to perch upon the next sunshine hungry plant. She searches diligently for the perfect place to rest but that place is nowhere to be found."


May 2006:   “I ache to the depths of my heart … when will my emptiness be filled?”

May 2006:    “This sucks. Life sucks right at this moment, and I have no idea why, or how to fix it.”

September 20, 2006:  “Why am I not happy being an 18 year old college student, living the college life, like the rest of my friends?”

December 21, 2006:  “I just want to start something new that will put some meaning in my life.”

January 16, 2007: “Where do I fit in and who fits with me? Where do I belong and whats my destiny?”

September 22, 2007: “I’m suffocating and I can’t stop. I just want it to stop… I can’t breath.”

May 5, 2010:  “… I don’t know, and that’s why I feel weird. Weird and empty. I feel like something is missing and I can’t figure out what it is… I have eaten ice cream, bought fish, planted a garden, painted… but nothing is filling the space. I can’t figure out what is missing.” 

August 16, 2010: "I feel God calling me to a life of mission work, either international or  innercity... either way it is making it hard for me to live my daily life without feeling like something is missing, like I'm being slowly suffocated by the mundaneness (if thats a word) of my life. I know there is a reason I'm stuck here, but I feel like I'm on a hamster wheel, getting no where. My environment is changing ... but its like it's not real. Nothing is affecting me, and it feels like I'm affecting nothing." 

August 21, 2010: "Jesus the only good in me is You! Use me to bring you glory. Use me up! I want to be poured out like Paul!" 

September 13, 2010: "I feel a call from God to be radically different, to live a dramatically different life than most people. Not to pursue a husband, family, stable career, and comfy life. But rather to get on my hands and knees with the most outcast and forgotten people and serve them with all my heart ... I am not the only one to say yes to the call, and as an imitator of Christ this is what I must do, as He did when He was called to be crucified ... I have committed my life to Christ and I will live out whatever plans He has laid for me!"

February 24, 2011: "I feel somehow disconnected, like things are happening and I don't even care. I am indifferent. God, PLEASE break my heart! Shatter it for whatever breaks yours. Show me where my passion is God, unnumb me so I can FEEL again!"

March 7, 2011: ".. but I still feel frozen, numb, and unaffected. Nothing is breaking my heart. ... I feel like I have a frozen smile, like nothing is affecting me. I'm praying that God would break me... "

March 12, 2011 (first day in Haiti): "Landed in Haiti: check. Made it out of the crazy airport without too much harassment: check. Picked a cot just inside a breezy balcony: check. Held a 23 day old orphan while she slept for 2 hrs: check. Heart broken for this nation: check."

March 12, 2011: "How can I go home and live knowing kids like Kimberly are here, just dying for the physical touch of another human being. How can I live like that? How can it not break my heart in half every time I think of it?"

March 13, 2011: "I am literally in love. I don't know how I'll leave and still function ... I feel so much like I fit here, like I fit perfectly. Like I can see myself waking up here every morning and loving people all day long."

March 15, 2011: "I feel like I fit here. I always feel out of place in the States, so lonely because I feel different from everyone around me. But here, I fit. I feel at home, or as at home as I can on this Earth ... This is where I do not feel numb. Kimberly, Isaac, Melissa, and Junior.. they break me. Thank you Lord!"

March 16, 2011: "I said yesterday that I fit here, and it feels more true today. I just fit. I've never woken up in the US and felt at home, but here, I do. I feel like this is the closest to home I can get until I'm in Heaven, and I never want to leave."

March 16, 2011: "I prayed before we came that God would 'break my heart for what breaks Yours...' and He has. Thank you Lord that my heart is broken for Haiti. Lord let me NEVER lose this passion, this feeling of peace and just feeling like I am as close to Heaven as I can get here Lord."

March 19, 2011 (plane back to America): "Since I was young, ... a recurrent theme is that something is missing. My whole life I have felt just a little bit off, like something is just not quite right. My whole life. But this past week when I woke up in Haiti, I felt complete. The missing piece seemed to be found. The hole was nonexistent. I was whole, and my heart was able to fill to capacity. I've never felt that before."

March 21, 2011 (2nd day back in America): "I cannot function here ... In Haiti I have never felt more at home and here I have never felt more out of place."

April 3, 2011: "I was thinking... since I have felt what it feels like to fit, I don't feel stuck or frozen anymore. I don't feel like I'm on a hamster wheel."


Praise the LORD that He works in my heart even when I cannot see it!