I am a mess.

The holiday bustle is finally over. The dust has settled on life again and I feel myself becoming uneasy with the mundaneness of day to day life as an adult. I feel myself becoming jaded and hardened to heartache. This isn't a new thing for me... not by any means. It's a constant battle that I fight.. to remain sympathetic and empathetic and compassionate in the face of so absolutely many disappointments and tragedies and just rainy seasons of life in general.

It's easy to do, you know... to become numb to pain when you see it day in and day out in all areas of life. Taking care of sick people and panicked families, it's easy to forget that they really are sick and panicked. Helping inner city kids with homework because their parents aren't home or don't care, it's easy to forget they are hurting kids in need of role models and direction. Watching the news and reading articles about murders and kidnappings and theft, it's easy to forget these things are not normal and not okay and not what was intended for humanity to endure. Seeing pictures and reading blogs about natural disasters and third world countries, it's easy to forget there are real people suffering real unbelievable circumstances all around the world.

It's easy to sit in my one bedroom apartment and watch Grey's Anatomy and Revenge and cook my supper and have ice cream for dessert and feed my cat and take hot baths and light candles and waste my life feeling indifferent because this is just the way things are or it seems impossible for things to change. But this is not what God has for me. And I know that. And I know that every time the dust settles on my life, these feelings resurface and I have to get real and get my guard up and acknowledge the angels rallied around me and go to war.

I have to get on my face and seek Christ. I have to get out of bed and off the couch even on rainy days and pursue relationships with believers. I have to get up early to pray before work that I can be a light and not just another person trying to get through the day. I have to go out, even when I don't feel like it, in the community and find people who have lost hope and tell them of the ultimate Redeemer. I have to serve and get on my hands and knees in the name of Jesus, picking up the pieces of my life and the lives of others that have fallen all apart. I have to love people where they are, because this is what reminds me that we are all in this together.

This is what reminds me of the way my Savior loves me, right where I am, 24-7.

So I think I'll do just that. I'll get up off this couch and I'll go places and love people, people I miss and people I haven't met yet. I'll get out of my bubble and out of my comfort zone, and I'll be intentional with my time.

I'll go to Knoxville and visit Calvary where I have family that I miss more than words can explain. I'll go to Johnson City and see my sister and her husband, because they can't get home as often as they'd like. I'll go to Chattanooga and see my brother and his new fiance, because it's important to keep up with each others lives in different cities. I'll go to Texas and see my cousins and my friends at seminary and my baby girl [whenever she gets there]. I'll go to Haiti where a big majority of my heart still is and hug the necks of all the people I love so much there. And I'll go to the Women's Retreat in a few weeks at New Vision, even though I don't know a single lady at this huge church I'm making home. And I'll go to Spring Valley and try to make Christ famous by identifying real problems with real solutions in impoverished communities.

I'll book flights and mapquest directions and hit the road, on my off days of course. I'll go about loving with my whole heart, not just the parts that are inclined to love.

Yes, this is what I'll do. Right after I finish this bowl of ice cream and the latest episode of Emily Owens M.D.

Lord, help me, for I am a mess.