sometimes i cry.

yes, it's true. i cry. sometimes it's just tears welling up. sometimes it's me screaming and throwing things and being a completely and utterly and certifiable lunatic. today, i cried about 4 times. it was just one of those days.

cry #1. i was laying in the fake-n-bake for the first time ever, and i realized that i had just wasted an hour of my life waiting in line to sit here and burn. i was stressed out and couldn't stop going over my to-do list in my head. and although "fake-n-bake" was on said to-do list, it was taking too much time and wasn't as significant as other things on the list.

cry #2. i was driving back from dinner with my sister and my madre. although it was a mostly good dinner, my mom asked a lot of intense questions about lebanon that i didn't want to answer. my only response was, "call my director" or "i have faith." which, in truth, i don't have a lot of. i have just enough to keep me from throwing in the towel right now. she was asking me a lot of negative questions (well, in my mind negative--not encouraging to say the least) about the political climate and things like that. all i want her to do is say, "i'm proud of you for following Jesus." that's all i want her to say. but instead, she wants information. i completely understand why, but at the same time, i'm completely riding on faith here, and would like her to do the same.
as i said in yesterday's post. THIS WAS NOT MY IDEA. this was God's ridiculous idea. and i have enough faith to know that whatever He is crazy enough to bring me to, He's strong enough to bring me through. my mind goes in circles of "worst case scenarios" all day long, but in the end, i know that i'm doing exactly what i am supposed to be doing. unfortunately, i can't get my mom completely and totally 100% on board with me, and it was frustrating. hence, cry #2.
cry #2 then continued when i went to my mailbox today to find $150 of support waiting for me. that number grew to $200 soon after when an envelope was waiting for me on my desk later. although there aren't words to describe my excitement at more people taking a chance on Jesus and helping me out, but a small part of me was hoping that after my freakout yesterday, i was going to find $1000 waiting for me in that mailbox. but there wasn't. and it was a bit disheartening. i should know better than to try to be manipulative with my freakouts, but i was hoping to trick the universe into lots of money out of my freak out yesterday.

cry #3. after a very convicting bible study, three of my baby girls came and sat in my room. my amanda is the most excited person on the planet about my adventures to lebanon, having been there herself and having a true heart for the middle east. my kaitlyn is trusting Jesus to raise $2500 for her to go to Ohio this summer on Summer Project; we share the same financial burdens and discouraging adult voices in our current life. my ashley is just beautiful. we don't see each other enough during the week so the past few weeks she's been sticking around after bible study just so we can spend 15 minutes together.
my amanda brought her laptop full of pictures of lebanon for us to go over and discuss so she can show me where God is going to grow me this summer. while going over the pictures, we discussed the current political climate and what that could potentially mean for me. it stressed me out more just thinking about it and my kaitlyn was displeased as well (my ashley might have been too, but she didn't talk alot about it). we eventually moved to a list that i'm making of mailing addresses of my contacts for my kaitlyn to send to given that she has no church family of her own. she protested a bit at the beginning but i insisted that my people loved me enough to love her and help her out.
eventually, we somehow got on the roll that i rarely sleep. and i mentioned that i take a sleeping pill every night because starting about a year ago, i stopped being able to turn my brain off and could really never sleep. my amanda asked what did i think about...and for one of the few times in the last three and half semesters, i let my baby girls hear what truly goes on inside my head.
i talked about how i think about the $6000 i need for lebanon. i talked about how i need to spend more time with them, but can't because of school. i talked about how i have a list of 18 girls that need to be followed up with but i can't because i have to do school. i talked about how i'm going to campus outreach tomorrow in order to hopefully meet at least one more girl so i can be down to 17. i talked about how i might have to quit my job to go to lebanon. about how i have to do summer school after lebanon. which starts the day after lebanon. i talked about how even if i can work, they aren't going to like me every much because i can only work part time for 5 weeks because of school but then need the rest of the year off because of vegas/leaders retreat/student teaching. i talked about how i sat in one of my classes today talking about student teaching and got insanely stressed out. i talked about how i have barely had time for my regularly coming girls because of outreach with new girls and how guilty and horrible i feel about that. i mentioned how thinking about one of them makes me think about all of them and how much i love them and worry about them. this truly is a vicious cycle of my life. this is what i sit in class all day thinking about. this is how my brain works.

then, my darling, beautiful, adventurous, loving, compassionate baby kaitlyn sat on my floor and started to cry. like, legitimately, started. to. cry. not small tears. not just welling up. but fo'real crying. she started off into a similar ramble of how so many people have told her that summer project is a horrible idea and she'll never raise the money and how then i come up with this list of potential ministry partners and how when she thinks about summer project she now thinks about me getting kidnapped or something horrible happening to my hannah (who is going to argentina). she starts talking about how she would listen to my stories about clearwater and think that that was exactly the sort of stories that she wanted, but no one believed her until she told me and now i'm working so hard to make it a reality for her. she started talking about all of the emails i send and how much i love them and how much i want for them to love jesus and how even though i'm overwhelmed, she never would have known if i hadn't said anything because i just don't tell her those stories. and she was talking about how she knows that the $15,000 my bible study is trusting Jesus to bring in for summer projects this summer is going to become a reality because i prayed for it.

she ended with this:

"the moral of the story is...thanks."

i cried. i only cried a little bit in front of her, but the minute she left, i cried a lot. she doesn't need to thank me. i do this because i love her more than words. i want her to go to ohio more than i want to go to lebanon. i cried because i am so completely selfish and everything i do for these girls is because i want to make sure i know i love them. and maybe in return they'll love me. i cried because for some crazy reason, that beautiful woman of Jesus has a little bit of faith in me. i cried because i have been so self-centered with school lately, that i forgot to go to Jesus and spend time with Him. but this precious baby girl of mine has been talking to Jesus a bunch and she has more faith than i do. maybe not in herself, but for some reason, in me. but i have faith in her. and i have faith in Jesus for him to work miracles through her.

the reason that i'm raising support right now is to go to lebanon. that reason might change and it might be for me to give it all to my baby kaitlyn so she can have her own adventures. right now, i'm not sure of the final reason. i know that i am supposed to be raising support, without question. but i've been questioning a lot, unfortunately. i can't say that's going to stop, because i'm human and i enjoy being in control and flipping out when i'm not. but i know that i'm doing what i'm supposed to, and the moral of the story is...i'm going to be content doing just that.