I feel different.

I have not written much concerning my trip to Honduras. It was the best week of my life. I was stretched and changed. I saw God in an entirely new light, I had not idea so much could happen in 10 days. But I cannot write about it, I cannot form the words I want to say. I cannot pin point it but I am different now. Something has changed, I have struggled and wrestled and fought with the words but they will not come out. I feel different. I look at life differently, I look at the church differently, I see international missions differently. I honestly cannot tell you what happened exactly but somewhere between taking off in Dulles airport on July 18th, 2014 and landing in the very same airport on July 26th 2014- Something was different, something inside of me had radically changed.

My heart was stretched and pulled and broken in so many ways I could never undo them nor do I want too. My heart is so radically different and I am trying desperately to untangle the webs of change that I have not yet been able to discern. As I untangle the knots and sift through the thoughts that flood me whenever someone asks me to tell them about the trip, I feel uncomfortable.

Uncomfortable. Guilty. Uneasy. Frustrated. 

These are the emotions that overtake me. When I think about what I saw, the children I held in my arms, the way so many people live with so much less than what I have. It makes me uncomfortable. When I walk out of my room in the morning with 3 pairs of boots asking my roommate to select the shade of brown that goes best with my outfit, I feel guilty. When I throw away food that went bad before I could get to it, I feel uneasy. And when I look around at the church I worship in, I feel frustrated.

It is not just my church frustrates me, it is the American Church or maybe the first world church. The fog machine and light show church. The broadway level worship productions. The committees that fight over budgets and propose capital campaigns for new pews and refinished stain glass windows. The churches that have so much and are still unhappy.

I do see things wrong in the church here, I do think we are not doing enough. I see overindulgence in unnecessary luxuries in the church while others are suffering to even have enough food. However, sometimes I wonder if the problem or the source of discomfort lies not with the church, but within myself.

Maybe it is a change in heart or calling. I never felt called to international mission, I had no interests and I am honestly not sure why I signed up but since the day we arrived, I made plans to go back.

Perhaps this time, this uneasiness, this period of spiritual anxiety is an urging from God to continue to pursue international missions, to go back to the place that changed me.

It is possible the discomfort I am experiencing here is to push me further from what was once my comfort zone and closer to the place I have seen God the most. The things I once clung to, now make me frustrated and guilty and maybe that is a sign.

I am working through the uneasiness, I am praying about the frustration and I am yearning for discernment. I just know that I feel different and I am not so sure I ever want to feel 'normal' again.