I love Christmas and always have. I was one of those kids who could hardly even sleep on Christmas Eve. I love spending Christmas with my family, because they are the funnest people I know, and although Christmas was a little different for me this year, it was just as special.
This year I wasn’t able to spend Christmas with my family back in Kansas, I was able to spend Christmas with an incredible, loving family that Father has given me on this side of the world. As I look back over the past 6 months and remember all these people have done for me here, I am overwhelmed with love. I have experienced and seen on a daily basis a love that is not of this world. I am so incredibly thankful for the people that have been placed around me in my time here. Christmas this year was unforgettable.
Being here for Christmas also gave me all kinds of opportunities to love people and to share with people. You can’t get away from the meaning for Christmas and I was constantly reminded of that during this holiday season. I am humbled by thinking about the Mighty King coming in such a way. I am brought to tears when I think of why he came and what he did. How can you not share this story with people around you? How can you not long for others to experience the love and mercy that comes from Dad? We were given the greatest gift of all time and I got to spend this Christmas telling people all about it. How undeserving am I? But how good is He?
I wish I could convey, in a way that is understandable, the experience that the last 6 months of my life has been, but it can’t be put into words. The things I have learned, the ways I have grown, the ways I have been challenged, the ways I have been blessed and the ways He has been glorified! He was proclaimed and people began to follow after him, and for some reason, I was allowed to be a part of it. He is good.
Now, my journey here comes to an end. How can I say goodbye to this place, to this work or to these people? My heart is so full because of everything the Father has done for me in this time; I can’t even fathom what leaving will be like. I ask that the Father will continue to show these people the price he has paid for them and that he will call hearts towards him. I ask that as I leave, he will show me what the next step he has laid out for me might be. Where is he calling me? Where can he be glorified?
“Oh! Praise the one who paid my debt, and raised this life up from the dead!”