Kisses from Katie

I started reading a book that was suggested to me by a close friend. She told me that Katie and I seem to share a lot in common in our blogs. After reading 72 pages from Kisses from Katie today, that little light in my heart that beats for the sands of the Sahara is a bit brighter because He is calling me back. This dear believing sister, Katie Davis, is an inspiration to me. As a young twenty-something, she is the mother of several little girls, living in a country far away from home. She loves because Christ first loved her. She said "Yes" to God when things seemed impossible. She understands suffering and, while we have never met, she is someone who shares a passion to see the Gospel touch the lives of others through love and I can't wait to debrief with her in Glory. Here is what she wrote:

Most days, I wished I could wake up under my down comforter in a house with my loving family, not all by myself. Sometimes I just wished I could hang out with my little brother and his buddies, eating junk food and laughing late into the night. Sometimes I wanted to spend hours upon hours talking with my best friends about boys and fashion and school and life. I wanted to go to the gym; I wanted my hair to look nice; I wanted to be allowed to wear jeans. I wanted to be a normal teenager living in America, sometimes.

But I wanted other things more. All the time. I wanted to be spiritually and emotionally filled every day of my life. I wanted to be loved and cuddled by a hundred children and never go a day without laughing. I wanted to wake up to a rooster's crow and open my eyes to see lush green trees that seemed to pulse with life against a piercing blue sky and the rusty red soil of Uganda. I wanted to be challenged endlessly; I wanted to be learning and growing every minute. I wanted to be taught by those I teach, and I wanted to share God's love with people who otherwise might not know it. I wanted to work so hard that I ended every day filthy and too tired to move. I wanted to feel needed, important, and used by the Lord. I wanted to make some kind of difference, no matter how small, and I wanted to follow the calling God had placed on my heart. I wanted to give my life away, to serve the Lord with each breath, each second. At the end of the day, no matter how hard, I wanted to be right here in Uganda.

Opportunities to make someone else's life better were so much more attractive to me than the thought of the comforts I once knew. The longer I stayed, the more I realized that deep fulfillment had begun to swallow my every frustration. No matter how many contradictions I struggled with, how difficult certain situations were, no matter how lonely I got, no matter how many tears I cried, one truth remained firmly grounded in my heart: I was in the center of God's will; I was doing what I was created to do."