The past 3 years have been amazing and I wouldn’t change a thing! Dedicating those years to seeking Christ and really focusing on my relationship with him has made all the difference. I’m not saying that this kind of thing is for everyone, or even anyone else, this was just the way things needed to go for me. These years have been jam packed with healing, growth, learning, revelation, self-discovery, forgiveness, correction, adventure, change, joy, and love.

As I walk into whatever is next, I’m excited and a tad nervous, but I’m definitely different.

I will miss my new friends, buy I’m working on plans to stay involved at some level. I have learned a lot this week, gained a better understanding of the challenges that face lower income communities and the people that live there. This week has been quite refreshing and energizing as well. More ideas and dreams have been birthed in my heart and I have a lot more to pray about.

Today I was in the kitchen again in the morning, helped with Safe Haven check-in for lunch, went back to the kitchen to assist with cleanup and dinner prep. Then I filed paperwork for Safe Haven.

It was fun being in the kitchen again, they’re a colorful, fun bunch of people. I love being in a big kitchen again too. It was also cool to see some faces at lunch that I recognized from Tuesday. The check-in seemed to go much quicker and smoother as well, which is less frustrating for the guests.

After lunch I got to finish cleaning out the refrigerators that I started on Monday and finish removing tags from the backpacks for the kids. Then I headed over to CORE, the after school program and started working on organizing their library. I have a feeling that I won’t get to finish that job and it irks me. I love books and encouraging kids to read so it would be great for their library to be ship-shape, but I only have two more days and I think tomorrow is already filled up with jobs.

Looking forward to tomorrow, I’ll start out in the kitchen again, if Chef Tony needs me. Then help out with Safe Haven lunch check in, and afterwards….filing!

So, for my first day I did quite a hodge-podge of tasks. I started in the garden, doing a little weeding and gathering and helped get started watering. Then I moved into the Resource Center where I got to give out back-to-school backpacks out to families in need. The afternoon was filled with cleaning: sweeping, dusting and cleaning out refrigerators (that last one didn’t get finished today). Tomorrow I will probably be working in the kitchen and I might be helping out in the daycare/preschool Wednesday.

City of Refuge is located in a needy part of Atlanta and is home to several ministries; women and children’s shelter, after school program, feeding the community several times a week, job skill training, GED classes, a health clinic, just about anything you can think of. I am looking forward to the rest of my week and learning more about this incredible ministry.

“Just as the education of nerve and sinew is vital to the excellent athlete and education of the mind is vital to the scholar, education of the conscience is vital to the truly proactive, highly effective person. Training and educating the conscience, however, requires even greater concentration, more balanced discipline, more consistently honest living. It requires regular feasting on inspiring literature, thinking noble thoughts and, above all, living in harmony with its still small voice.

Just as junk food and lack of exercise can ruin an athlete’s condition, those things that are obscene, crude, or pornographic can breed an inner darkness that numbs our higher sensibilities and substitutes the social conscience of “Will I be found out?” for the natural or divine conscience of “What is right and wrong?”

In the worlds of Dag Hammarskjold,

 You cannot play with the animal in you without becoming wholly animal, play with falsehood without forfeiting your right to truth, play with cruelty without losing your sensitivity of mind. He who wants to keep his garden tidy doesn’t reserve a plot for weeds.

Once we are self-aware, we must choose purposes and principles to live by; otherwise the vacuum will be filled, and we will lose our self-awareness and become like groveling animals who live primarily for survival and propagation. People who exist on that level aren’t living; they are “being lived.” They are reacting, unaware of the unique endowments that lie dormant and undeveloped within.

And there is no shortcut to developing them. The law of the harvest governs; we will always reap what we sow—no more, no less. The law of justice is immutable, and the closer we align ourselves with correct principles, the better our judgment will be about how the world operates and the more accurate our paradigms—our maps of the territory—will be.”

I could go on and on but I won’t. I’m excited to integrate these lessons into my life, with greater awareness and understanding, and see what the results are down the road.

Roger, sings about glory, one song, one glorious contribution to the world before his departure from it. His death presses on him due to the fact that he has AIDS and he doesn’t know how much longer he’ll be here. He fights against utter despair, trying to find a reason for whatever time he has left. I can’t imagine the hopelessness he feels, my troubles shrink in comparison and yet I have felt what he’s singing about, although less desperately, and so his song resonates with my soul.

Mimi struggles with addiction. When she tries to fight it, the dealer is there in her moment of weakness to lure her back in. Her addiction destroys her relationships and almost kills her. Watching the performance I was overwhelmed with her bondage and feelings of powerlessness. Again, I’ve never struggled to the extent Mimi does, but I’ve experienced bondage, to sin, bitterness, anger, despair, fear. As I watch her weakness and struggles, my heart aches for all of the people for whom this is an everyday reality.

The homeless people who sing several times about Christmas bells that are ringing, but not for them. The hardness of heart that can come in when you’re constantly overlooked and ignored, again, something I’ve experienced to a lesser degree.

I think everyone can identify with these characters to some extent. Who of us hasn’t struggled with despair, bondage, desperation, fear, feeling worthless, hardness of heart. And yet it’s so easy to have contempt for others or overlook the needs around us everyday. Seeing Rent again reminded me to strive to be compassionate and gracious with others but I know that only Christ can accomplish this. So I purpose once again to let Him do His work of grace in my heart, knowing that tomorrow morning I’ll need to purpose all over again.