Fire.

I’ve been pretty down lately.

I look back on this last field service, and I focus my eyes on individual incidences... Like every time I walked through a fire, I see where I didn’t choose the best thing; maybe I wasn’t kind, gracious, or patient.  Maybe I said something that I shouldn’t have or didn’t work hard enough.  Maybe I missed an opportunity to speak life because I was so focused on my own self and the fire around me.  I had some really bad leadership moments and some even worse follower moments.  Maybe I took my eyes off Jesus, or the good things around me, or the tremendous favor and blessings that are all over the place.  And I see each one of those individual events as a failure.   Sure, there were some good ones in there too… but it’s the ones I regret that are the most prevalent as I look back over the field that was the last ten months, so I tend to see it all as one big failure.

But when I was running yesterday, something shifted. 

A change in perspective can change everything.

If I can swoop out; back up far away from each individual fire where I didn’t do as well as I could have or should have or wished I had…  If I can flap my wings, soar up in the atmosphere and look at the whole field service instead of each individual fire, what do I see?  I see a field on fire… and me on the other side of it. 

I did make it.  And I am still standing.  And looking at the horizon, the future spread out before me full of unknown adventures and joys and fires and freedom.  I made it through the field.  The rubber on my shoes may be melted and my eyebrows singed, but each one of those fires has made me stronger; both more aware of my own strengths as well as the things I need to work on. 

I might not have killed it in every fire I faced this year.  I know I hurt some people.  I know I could have handled some things better.  I know I missed out on opportunities to love and serve and shine light into dark places because of my own selfishness or neediness or whatever other ugly thing was surfacing.

But I still made it to the other side.  And that is pretty freaking awesome.  So instead of loitering around in the darkness of regret and failure I’m going to stand up tall and revel in the joy that is having survived, that is having friends on the journey, that is looking back on the countless lives impacted by the blood, sweat, and tears poured into this island and her beautiful people. 

You are strong, in my brokenness

Sovereign over every step

Even in the fire I'm alive in You

{Alive in you by Jesus Culture - played on repeat these days}