Growing up in the LORD... Bronx, NY (2002, age 19)

I enjoy looking back through my first days as a Christian, and seeing the work of the LORD in my heart and life. Reminisce with me, if you please. These journal entries were written in the first few months that I lived in New York. I'd been committed to following Jesus for about a year (beginning September of my senior year of high school when my friend Jessi began discipling me. I graduated in June and moved to NYC on 16 August 2002).

Excerpted from Journal on 22 August 2002 (six days after moving to the Bronx):

This book [The Pleasures of God by John Piper] is so awesome: How much more I need to delight in the glory of God and His Son and creation. His sovereignty is so amazing. I pray that I would trust it already. I feel these uncertainties that to me ARE indeed uncertain, but to God are already solved and complete and GOOD in Him. I pray that I would feel wholly certain in God's certainty.

23 August 2002:

Right now I would like to go for a long bike ride through country roads, run the three mile circle around my neighborhood, listen to nothing but the birds and the wind.

The pigeons are taking their bath in the rain puddle on the building across the street. Six of them. As always, I hear cars, alarms, people yelling, talking, car doors slamming, a truck backing up, Julie eating an apple. I am homesick for quiet.

26 August 2002:

I feel like God is placing it on my heart to help the nations of this world. To help the children. To show compassion and find the justice in foreign policy. To bring love and compassion to foreign policy. To spread the love of Jesus Christ. To write about what's going on in the world and how we need to help. To learn the cultures, beliefs, histories, politics, arts, musics, dances, sports, the lives of the world so that I can be one with them and show them Jesus. Or tell them about Him. If I can up and move to and live in New York, I can do it anywhere.

Here I have at my fingertips so much information and people of so many cultures. I need to get to the museums and library and start learning. There are so many facets of human life.

I'm feeling like one of the hugest reasons God brought me here was to show me where to go next. So with God's will, if He has it for me, perhaps I go to school next year, graduate in three with my class, and begin world travels. Hopefully with a husband who also wants to share Jesus with the world. But it is all God's will and plan. So I will pray and stay in the Word, and He will reveal my path to me.

20 September 2002:

I'm reading Luke for my devotions this week. I love reading about Jesus. I wish I could read about His life growing up! But I don't know where it'd be. I guess in the four apostles - or maybe apostle is the wrong title... anyway...

28 September 2002:

How often I sit and think about my life - where I've been and where I hope to go. And I'm so grateful that God is a part of me now. Showing and teaching me always, giving me perspective and, hopefully, wisdom. Do I dwell too much on the past? Reminiscing about old friends and memories. It's very different to be in a place where people don't know me. I grew up in a school with the same kids. We knew each other not just by face or name, but by person. To start fresh is difficult. I like the person God has molded me into, so the "clean slate" appeal is rather irrelevant. I like small towns - quiet, privacy, intimacy, closeness... It is a completely different culture from the city. I look forward to settling there someday and raising a family.

I am glad, however, to be sampling a taste of this life. Glad that I now know it's not my preference! :) Sometimes I close my eyes and imagine I am sitting on the big rock under the stars, and I can hear the tree frogs and crickets and whip-or-whills and smell the grass and trees on the breeze. Feel the light wind across my face and through my hair. Only to be awakened by a car alarm or swearing mother lost in hopelessness and rashing out as her only release. And my heart aches and cries and longs not for my own peace, but for hers. And for the children who are helpless and just as lost as their mom. Love is not too much to ask for, but is so often too much to give here. So I pray. Because what else can I do?

8 October 2002:

There is a dog in the building who never makes any happy sounds. He howls so sadly. It breaks my heart and I want to kidknap him and bring him to New Hampshire.

I'll continue sharing more excerpts from this journey in the coming days.