undivided devotion

I now live in Alaska. It snowed a couple times this week, also known as September . Two weeks ago, after a challenging and confusing summer, after a wonderful goodbye party thrown by my mom and sister, I boarded my first flight to my destination: sweet, small little Galena, Alaska. After five flights, four time zones, fainting twice on one flight, one hotel room, a buffalo burger with a friend, jet lag, and a 16 passenger plane, I made it. I was picked up by my dear friends Amanda and Jake, and  they showed me around my new home while filling me in on what life has been like in Galena. Flying somewhere over Canada. Flying into Anchorage, AK Little 16 passenger plane you cannot stand upright in. Somewhere between Fairbanks and Galena It is small village of about 500 residents, on the Yukon river, and is surrounded by marshland - hence, the only flying in and out the village. I was amazed at the fact that the season of fall was in full force while at home,

This summer has been hard; I will admit it. It is interesting to think back to the spring and hear what I was saying then, "I just want to exist  this summer, to be ." My desire was to not be bound by school schedules or demanding jobs, but to merely exist as a person. Well, that's what I did. And, to be honest, I did not handle it well. I moved home for the first time in three years. I live in my childhood room and sleep in my childhood bed. I work a few hours a week in a job that is nowhere close to what my degree was in. All of this is fine, it's a blessing, it is necessary. My days consist of not much. They are not that productive, or even measurable. I do not have a job, apartment, car, ministry, or relationship to impress people with. And I have not handled it well. Until recently, I did not realize how much of my evaluation of myself is measured by these things. In school, I always had the fact that I was going to Bible school as my go-to to impress oth

I don't want to be here, but there is nowhere better to be. Seasonal homelessness. Yes, this house has aged photos of a face vaguely resembling the one I now carry. Yes, my name covers many legal documents and child-etched crayon drawings that are found within these walls. Yes, these books filling shelves, spanning years and basic knowledge, are mine. Yes, these people, called family, have opened their arms in the most welcoming way they are able, yet I do not know how to accept the embrace. But this is not home, and I frustratingly cannot fathom why. It should  be. It must be home. Yet, it is not. What word can you put to the feeling of wanting to run blindly in every direction all at once, yet your feet feel stapled to the ground beneath you? Discontent. How does one fight for contentment? How does one really learn to wait on the Lord, to rest in his refuge? To exist in profound contentment upon who God is? I want it. I want to be still and know he is God. Yet,