cry inward

This blog entry represents the first of what will hopefully be many entries that are to come while preparing to leave for Sierra Leone, as well as from Sierra Leone when I'm there. I will be in Sierra Leone from August 15-December 15 with Word Made Flesh (WMF) as a Servant Team Member (STM). I will be working amongst the poorest of the poor in Freetown, the nation's capitol. This brief explanation hardly explains anything so if you’d like to hear more about what I’m going to be doing feel free to call me. I’d love to talk with you.
Today I got on to the WMF website (www.wordmadeflesh.com) and was reading the prayer letters that have been posted by the Sierra Leone staff. I can't describe how it felt to read about the real struggles that the staff is enduring. The most beautiful part of it was reading about how they have come to understand what community is. One staff member spoke about how she has realized that she cannot treat the Sierra Leoneans, that they work with, as apart from this community. Rather, they are a gift from God, people that the staff need to include in this community.
A community is not just a body of people. It is a body of people God has willed to bring together for the purpose of being the incarnation of God's love. We MUST let our community, whoever they may be, know that we recognize our need to be held in God's love by them.
One of my greatest anxieties over this trip has been in regards to what, until today, I could not put to words: my outward cry. One of the staff quoted Henri Nouwen said in his book The Inner Voice of Love: "A split between divinity and humanity has taken place in you. With your divinely endowed center you know God's will, God's way, God's love. But your humanity is cut off from that. Your many human needs for affection, attention, and consolation are living apart from your divine sacred space. Your call is to let these two parts of yourself come together again. You have to move gradually from crying outward—crying out for people who you think can fulfill your needs—to crying inward to the place where you can let yourself be held and carried by God, who has become incarnate in the humanity of those who love you in community. No one person can fulfill all your needs. But the community can truly hold you. The community can let you experience the fact that, beyond your anguish, there are human hands that hold you and show you God's faithful love."
This quote has finally given me a phrase that describes one of my greatest struggles. That is, what at times has seemed to be incurable, my struggle with "crying outward". I all too often have looked to fulfill my need to feel God's love by searching for acceptance (and what I often mistook for love) from people. It was so relieving today to finally have an expressible way of explaining what I have been dealing with. Through the journey God has taken me on this past year, I have come to know that it is God's love that I have been so desperately longing to feel. This is all quite ironic to me because the answer has been so simple. Sometimes, however, it just takes looking at the gem from a different angle, to see it glisten.
It amazes me that I am learning so much and I haven’t even left yet. I am SO excited for all that God is going to continue to do this summer and while I'm in Sierra Leone!
Having said all this, I want to encourage us to strive to cry inward. Cry to our loving Heavenly Father who is always strong and only wants to lavish his love on us. Even today, it has been so refreshing to be able to cry inward as I see the dark parts of this world. Temptation and discouragement is everywhere if we do not let God be who he is, our salvation from all of it.
While I am still here, in the US, and able to easily be in contact with everyone, I ask that you feel free to get a hold of me to talk about what is going on in your life. Because once I am over seas, being able to talk to you is going to no longer be a priviledge I have. So please e-mail or call me if you want to.

Cry inward!

HaleyKate