i feel like i need to share my heart tonight. this is an email i just wrote to one of my most trusted comrade in arms. and i know that i can equally share it with you... or at least i hope someone will read this that will pray for me.

"it's late and i need someone to talk to.

i need to be raw.

i'll be frank, i'm terrified of being wrong. i'm terrified i'm wrong in staying. i'm terrified i'm going to disappoint God.

here's the thoughts that have been running through my brain:

1) i've had big opportunities come my way during my walk of faith. there's been italy, becoming a missionary with ashley, joining new mission systems international my freshman year plus all of the random radical ideas i've had and tried to put into use... and all of these things never happened. throughout thinking about this my thoughts wander to "am i too eager to jump right in?" "why haven't these ever happened?" "i've seen God confirm these things right and left and still they didn't happen" "did i miss what God was trying to show me, teach me in the middle of those things?" "can i really hear God as well as i thought?" "why did these things come up if they never really happened?" this THOUGHT as a whole has been a deciding factor in me staying. part of me fears that i was too afraid to go through with anything so God told me to just not do it. so i decided to stay reguardless of my emotions because i can't bear not doing something again...that i thought God was wanting me to do.

2) i can help but be helplessly in love with these teenagers and so passionate about their potential. but i wonder "am i one of the answers in their future?"

3) i don't want this to be about me but am i abandoning the will of God? is God's will more rigid or more abstract? if i'm outside of His will (though still pursuing His kingdom) will He still provide for me?

4) has he pulled back to test me or have i stopped listening?

5) i can't bear the thought of going back to jbc. i know if i go back to jbc i'll get back into the rut with school and work and the ridiculous things that happen there... i feel like i've grown so much by not being there..like i've escaped from prison. and i feel like i'll actually learn stuff by doing classes online. i'm just not a classroom person. and i'm so over the drama. i just feel like by being outside of the "bubble" i can be more effective for the kingdom.

6) 98% of everyone i tell questions me (whether close to me or nearly a stranger)

i feel like i've thought of every side of the coin about every thought i have about this...

...i'm so confused. i'm so scared i'm going to disappoint God. i'm trying so hard to be right in this. i can't bear to see this end up being like everything else. i know what certain answers should be but everything has become really muddled together.

i'm terrified of what will happen after next wednesday. if the door closes, i'm going to feel momentarily lost. i know i'll pick myself up and dust myself off..but for a few days i'm going to be at a loss. lots of crying. honestly sometimes i really worry that if i stay and i've somehow deviated from God's plan...i'll never find it again. ridiculous i know.

i'm embarased to write you such an email as this. cause i want nothing more than for you to view me as someone whose grown and is right on track with God's will... but then again that's the confused me talking. i really want to make you proud of me. i think that's what makes it hard, not the making you proud of me part, but the idea that i'm doing something so wrong by staying here. like i'm being rebellious and i'm falling away ....which couldnt' be farther from the truth. whether i indeed am truly following God's will or not i am staying because i want to lift up teenagers and see them bloom into the leaders i know they are. i want nothing more than to to pour into their lives, see them grow, learn from them, fight this fight with them... that's when it gets hard. can i truly disappoint God in what i'm doing?

waiting to hear these answers. please pray i keep open to Him."

thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts and my heart. and for any prayers you may lift up in my honor, thank you from the bottom of my heart.