Lately God has been bringing me through a lot of emotional realizations. The first realization was that I have been engaging in some pretty serious self-loathing throughout the years. At first I thought I only hated parts of myself. Specifically I hated how dependable I am because I often feel used by other people because of it. So I have been asking God the last few weeks what other parts of myself I have tried to separate from myself, and two weeks ago, he told me. It was at team time one night. We were doing “private corporate worship.” This means that we all get out our iPhones/iPods...

Two weeks ago God showed me that I have been hating myself for at least seven years. I hated a lot of parts of my life when I was going through them, but then God showed me that my self-loathing wasn’t just in the past, it was still happening. Not that I still hate every part of myself. It’s a rare night now that I give into the despair and speak the word worthless over and over and over again. But I still hate myself. To be specific, my past self. After a lot of people give their testimonies they say, “But you know if I could do it all over again I would, mistakes and all.”...

In another post I talked a bit about my depression. Well, it’s time to talk a bit more about it. In high school I was severely depressed from my sophomore year onward. In college I have been less severely depressed. Let me give you an idea of what “severe” and “less severe” means. In high school starting from maybe halfway through sophomore year to the end of senior year suicide was not a monthly thought for me, it was a daily or hourly thought. I would dream of ways to end my life. Ways that would leave as little mess as possible. Ways that I could disappear completely,...

Yesterday I looked into a mirror for the first time in one month. I have to be honest, I did not look too hard. I avoided my scraggly beard and moustache, ignored the burn marks on my lips from eating too tart mangos, and merely swept my gaze across my long, windblown hair. Instead I looked only into my own eyes, because they are one of the few parts of me that I actually like. God has been dropping some bombs on me lately, and now I am going to share them with you. He has been telling me to be vulnerable, but I did not know that vulnerability would mean God revealing things I never wanted to...

This week for ministry I’ve been helping the ladies in the kitchen. From cleaning, to preparing vegetables, to sorting through rice…and God has shown me some pretty cool things in this time. The ladies seriously take so much time to prepare amazing meals for us. They could totally just give us cereal every morning, sandwiches for lunch, and something for dinner. Instead, they prepare meals like fresh corn tortillas with eggs for breakfast, fried chicken with rice and beans, and potatoes for lunch, and a nice meal for dinner. Everything they make is fresh, nothing processed. Not only...

Forgive my grammatical errors, I`m typing on a spanish computer so spellcheck is red underlining every word. First, a little about what Ive been doing here. Last week I worked in the garden. We cleared out all the dead plants and then Ellario, the awesome maintenance guy here, tilled the soil with a tractor. Then we raked all the dead grass out of the soil, that took a week. This week Im on the painting team, were (I cant put in apostrophes on this keyboard) painting a house that will be for missionaries when it is finished. Each day we spend an hour with the kids here, from 4 to 5. Playing...