my calloused feet and too tender knees

I love the line that I used as the title of this entry. I don't pray enough. You know that verse about praying without ceasing? I don't have any idea what it would mean to pray for even 10 minutes without ceasing...my mind wanders so often and I am distracted from my task at hand. I hate that in me...I hate the battle that happens in my mind every time I attempt a prolonged time of prayer. It seems weird to ask for prayers that I might be able to pray, but that is what I am doing. My knees are far too tender.

I meant to write a bunch of things that have inspired and/or convicted me, but alas I left my journal in the intern office...hopefully those rascally boys don't get to it...

Seriously though, I love all the people I am working with. It's awesome to see God use each of them...it's awesome to learn with them and pray with them and sit on a porch at midnight and talk about how great God is...and to laugh! We laugh all the time...these are some of the coolest crazy people in the world...I'm certain I'm the crazier for the twelve-hour-plus days we've spent with each other. And I'm okay with that.

I will leave you with some words from the great poet Pablo Neruda...I managed to get Allison hooked on him tonight so I thought it fitting...

...stand up,
you, stand up,
but stand up with me
and let us go off together
to fight face to face
against the devil's webs,
against the system that distributes hunger,
against organized misery...

...there's nothing else i need anymore...

Snapshots of my life as of late:

God is everything. I am only a barefoot nineteen-year-old girl standing in front of a class of children whose pasts are filled with more hurt than I can imagine. I am inadequate. I am more than inadequate. I am nothing.

My heart has been stolen...irrevokably. I love these kids with a passion I can't describe...and I break for them with a pain I can't describe.

God's plans are bigger than mine.

I'm more content than I've ever been. I'm more exhausted than I've ever been. And it's a good feeling to be exhausted working for the kingdom.

Sin is sneaky. Yeah. Really sneaky. It attacks when I'm not looking, lies in ways I forget to look for, and is bent on ruining my witness. Oh God, guard me in the shelter of Your wings!

I want today, tomorrow to be a time for dancing and laughing and embracing, but I can't demand my times. My times are in His hands. And that's where they're the safest.

"Let us know; let us press on to know the LORD;

His going out is sure as the dawn;

He will come to us as the showers,

as the spring rains that water the earth." Hosea 6:3

Amen! Come quickly Lord Jesus!

Much love...from the depths of my heart...

Jillian Rose

For the Bellinghamsters

Today was the first official day of interning. It was, as my new roommate (another) Allison would put it, amazing. We've got a lot going on this summer, but the coolest part about it is that it's not just busy work. Everything we're doing is merely letting our light shine so that others see and glorify God. As Pastor Joe said this morning, the awesome thing about light is it's purpose is not to display itself, it's to show something else.

So the main reason for this post is cause I need y'all to pray. A lot. Our tutoring program starts tomorrow and it will be awesome but I'm not ready. Mentally or emotionally. miriam threw me off the deep end (for which I love her dearly) and then drew a picture of me drowning. Well, it looked so awful (me drowning) that I decided I must swim. So pray that I do. Thanks!

Oh! And fireflies (or lightening bugs, if you chose to call them that prosaic name) are amazing.

Much love...