first post from the new apartment

I've moved back to Raleigh North Carolina into a new home, an apartment I share with one other wonderful girl. And since Ive been back, I've been extremely anxious. I think that a lot of that anxiety stemmed from fear of being alone. I was terrified about my mom leaving, scared about being so far off campus, and have filled every second since Ive been here with people and being on campus and worrying about not having a enough to do, and just being here alone, but today for the first time I am. Alone in the apartment. And as I have spent the morning drinking coffee, journaling, reading ezekiel, I realized that I have been fearful for nothing. My favorite thing in probably the whole world is to be with God. And now I have this space where I can. Whenever I want for however long I want. I refuse to feel guilty about spending hours just here with the Lord. On the contrary, it is the single most important thing about my life. He is lord of my life. And the more time I am able to spend with him, the more I am able to be like him and to submit to his will and to get to know his word. I think this summer, I forgot that. Always with people. With family, mission teams, haitians, friends. And most of my life, I am not going to have hours to spend with God. Because very, very soon. I'll have a job. Or kids. Or all those other crazy things adults have. Which is wonderful. But for now, I don't. And I am going to take advantage of that. 

I fall for the lie all the time that the more I have going on in life the better I am. My life is about jesus. Thats it. Its not about the best job, being in shape, good grades, helping people-those are part of life with jesus, but first and foremost its about him. The first commandment, according to jesus, is to love God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength. The second is to love your neighbor as yourself. Thats the whole law summed up, he says. Because God is able to love people in a way that I cant. I cant save anyone, and I have no heaven to send them to even if I could. Thats one of the biggest things I learned from haiti. 5 weeks is a pretty short amount of time in the length of a life. If I go and say "depend on me" I'm setting them up for destruction, because I'm not staying. I'm only there for a little while. No one should depend on me. But if I say, as Rev. Louis Collins said in a gorgeous sermon a few weeks ago, "I don't have a heaven to put you in. I just have a Savior. And maybe you'll find what I have found."