The pain found in joy?

the dull rumble of voices and baggage moving. someone laughs off in the distances they recall a story; someone walks by speaking with a British accident, another in Russian, one in Thai. the song plays on repeat in my headphones as my fingers run across the keys to the beat of a thousand thoughts. my life feels a bit like an airport these days, i feel like i don't know who i'm sometimes, i'm Canadian? but i mean i have lived and traveled in so many places in the world in the last two years. i have seen everything from cultural Thai dancing to Riots in the streets of Uganda. i have seen albino babies then they vanished in a country that considers a black baby that's white (black albino) the greatest sacrifice. i have lead worship; I have been the quest speaker. I have met Government officials and been an Assistant to great Godly men. i watched the sunrise in more then one country in one month.

so why am i writing? what words do i have to give right now that are wisdom? i could quote the bible, tell you how everything's going to be ok, but is anything really ok? and do we really want things to be ok? i didn't travel the world because my life was ok. i traveled around the world because something was missing and i wanted to find out what it was. i have witnessed beautiful moments in these travels, but i have lots of regrets. i regret how i treated my team on outreach in Thailand. i regret that it took me more then 4 months to work out my problems with one guy. I regret the way i treated the people i worked with in sound and music in Uganda.. what is the point i'm trying to make? life, life is short, life lasts but a moment, i have witnessed this first time, in one year i have gone from being in a relationship to being broken, i have gone from having not spoken to an important person in my life for more then 7 months to talking to them almost daily. i have healed from the brokenness, met new people worth investing life and time in. all in a year. i have watched riots erupt from peace, and peace erupt from violence. i have witnessed Gods protection. but one moment that reminds me of how life is so short is a story that has always been in my mind. when i was in the hospital in Uganda i met an old man on his bed. i led him to Christ in what i truly believe were his last moments, i'm not a doctor, nor can i say that he didn't get better and leave the hospital, but i can tell you that i felt death waiting for him, i could tell his body was as tired as his soul, i also had a strong sense that god was calling this man home. its an eerie story. sure i didn't witness his death, but i saw a man at the end of his life, having run for so long from God and from Death and here they were on his proverbial door step knocking. Life is short it lasts but a blink of an eye. i lived in Thailand for 9 weeks. here i'm at the end of it. I can't believe I am already heading back to South Africa. there is so much in this year i wish i had done differently, i wish i had loved more. I wish i served people more, I wish i had cared more. I wish with all my heart i had spent more time with God, more time trusting. I wish i had opened up my heart to the world around me and allowed myself to bleed again. what would have happened, what would have changed?

Burundi - November 2010, on the river that feeds into lake Tekynika

We all hate those moments where we are having a great time and time goes by so quickly. I hate them too, but I also found a way to enjoy them. when I am in those moments that i don't want to end. i just take a picture. i keep it stored in my mind right next to the chords to The Scientist by Coldplay or Hey There Delilah by Plain White T's. I will never forget the moments sitting on the beach in muizenberg learning a new language and listening to the ocean crashing into the beach as if to give a loud protest, that the sand shouldn't be there. or to look at the stars and how they refused to be overtaken by the night sky. When we were created in Gods image we weren't given a promise life would be easy or full of Good times. but if you look around you i think we can all agree god never meant for life to just be full of hard times and bad times. i think there is a mix. i think that we can look at life and be sad because life hasn't worked out the way we thought it would, or we can look at life and each moment and find the joy, the joy that is found in pain. I remember the night i was walking a friend home and she saw a little girl and she was so scared of one person that every time she saw anyone she didn't know she thought they would kill her. she fell on the ground crying as a child walked by her. i was so angry, so broken in that moment for this grown women. brought to your knees by a child.....what must fear like that feel like? but i found joy in that moment because in that moment i decided i was there and witnessed this great atrocity on her life so that i could be the change i wanted to see in the world, in that moment i began to watch out for this women with my life. and to pray for her and seek God for her, as the days turned to weeks and the weeks turned to months, things came to a pivitol moment, when the man that scared her came into the house and threatened her she coward in fear, i stood in the gap for her, i stood between her and this man, i was ready for any punch any pain that would follow. i witnessed a fear i had never seen in that moment, worse then before, i saw a child in the women as she hide behind me, i was so angry, how could one human hate another so much that they would cause this fear in someone. again i resolved to stand with my friend through this trial and the days turned to weeks and the weeks turned to months and as i stood with her i saw the child disappear behind a strong women. with a faith for God i had yet to see anyone trump. she began to walk herself home, she began to stand up for herself. not every moment works out this way. sometimes it really is hard to see the Son through the clouds, but i think its enough just to try to enjoy every moment and find life in the bad moments. i think that if we can learn to do that in this short life, we can truly say we have overcome. i think we can be a light to a world covered in darkness.

So here I'm the Christian traveler, sitting in an airport in Thailand, i'm tired, my body doesn't care about time zones anymore, i hear tribal, national, what ever kind of languages more then i hear English. i have regrets but i choose to say this is the moment i get up and try again. because Jesus is always standing in the gap like i did for my friend. hes always there and committed to helping us. even the small moments count, one last mini story. i remember in a village in Uganda a women brought me her child that was less then a year old, and as i held this small child in my arms i can't tell you the joy i felt, such a tiny thing, so innocent. so fragile, it trusted me to keep it from getting hurt in the moments i held it. isn't that kinda like us with God, we need to trust him, to know hes always got us in his lap, in his arms.