Heartbreak Warfare.

The past week I've been feeling something building inside of me. It wasn't necessarily a good or bad feeling, I just knew something was brooding in my heart and I couldn't figure out why it was making my emotions feel so up and down. I am tired. Sad. Angry. Happy. Content. Confused. Hurt. Unbelieveably faithful. It's so hard to figure out what I'm feeling and why I'm feeling it. I'm constantly surrounded by people I don't truely know and I see things everyday that hurt just to look at.

Our team has been unbearably separated and distant and hateful with each other for a while now, and on Tuesday during Discipleship class with Pastor Mario we laid it all out in the open. Everyone let it be known how they were feeling towards everyone in the group. It was decided that the boys are going to move out. It will give us girls a better chance to bond and get to know each other without the distraction of testosterone overload hanging around, and it will give the boys a chance to just be boys and not feel so suffocated by six girls. We also decided that switching roomates for a week would be a great way to get to know each other more personally. I'm paired up with Tiffany for the time being, and when she found out she had to room with me she claimed to be having a panic attack in her mind. I don't know why anyone would be afraid of getting to know me, but it's all good now. The change in the atmosphere of the group is tangable. Everyone's attitudes are already changing for the better. We're all 18 or 19 years old, so we all just have a lot of growing up to do. We have to learn how to accept each other and love each other even when we don't understand. We're called to, so we must do it.

The past week has been pretty standard. Our routine here is pretty monotonous unless something special is going on. Mondays we hang around the house and get some rest. Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays we have school until 12:30 and then either Discipleship, Evangelism, or Seminary classes until 2:30/3:30. Wednesdays we go to school, and then attend church at night. Saturdays we go to the Rescue Ministry for the homeless and attend youth group at night. Sundays are consumed with church and evangelism. This past Sunday we teamed up with one of the daughter churches, Iglesia Bautista La Gloria, to go out in the community and share our testimonies door-to-door. Katelyn was my partner, and her stage fright got the best of her. She's constantly having to battle it and I sympathize with her so much. I remember days in middle school where I would turn bright red in front of my class and rush through presentations so I could just sit down and have everyone stop looking at me. I decided to ease her of her misery and shared my testimony with all of the houses willing to hear. It is physically and emotionally draining sharing the story of your life. Everytime you share it you have a new hope that you will touch your audience and that they will come to know Christ, and everytime they turn you away (not necessarily impolitely) you feel disappointed. I know that when the day comes where my story leads someone to their salvation, every failure and rejection will be made worth it.

The kids had a teacher work day today so they didn't have classes. We, however, still went to school for Seminary and Spanish class. Our Seminary teacher was unable to show up because he was called into a meeting, and one of our Spanish teachers was a no-show, so we sat around for four hours and had only one hour of classes. Somehow I didn't get frustrated at the way the day turned out. Our church is located right next to a poor area. Our classroom is on the top floor, so while the others were on their computers, Wes and I stepped out and sat by the back stairs. All I did was let the wind blow through my hair as I observed the community below. The houses are literally stacked one on top of the other and children run through the alleys between buildings. Some of the men down there have an aura of such anger surrounding them. I don't know what they've been through. I don't know their circumstances. All I know is that I wish there was something I could do to strip them of their anger and fears. I wish I was more than a inexperienced eighteen year old girl. That building feeling of something I've been having all week finally exploded in my heart. A sense of complete calm and serenity has washed over me and I know that God is preparing my heart for the day when I'll have the means to help these people. I'm going to change the life of someone someday. God has it all figured out, so I have no need to worry.

I complain because we have so much downtime and that I thought I was going to be experiencing life changing events. I was so consummed by my disappointment in the excess of bordum that I never realized how much this truely is changing me. I am letting the control of my life slip through my fingers and into God's open arms. I am letting my pride fly away on the wind and not letting petty thoughts poison my mind. I am figuring out that I have so much to offer this world because of the chances I've been blessed with. I am looking out my windows and seeing the hurt of the world. I'm letting myself be changed, because if we never let the things that make our heart ache truely change us, then we are lost. I am becoming who I am meant to be, one day at a time.

All for His Glory,
Taylor