This, my dear friends, is life.

Life can, and does, happen in a flash. You can wake up one morning in a beautiful state, working the dream job that you've been praying for since you received a calling into youth ministry missions when you were 16, and by the end of the night, you're booking your flight home due to health concerns. The weeks to come, you suffer from extensive physical and emotional pain, constantly questioning why God would make such an amazing thing happen only to have it taken away so quickly. You wonder why you went through such trouble to get to such a trip, to have something so simple make it be done. In the days and weeks to come, you question everything. Well, mostly everything. The one "thing" that you literally CANNOT question because it keeps getting shoved in your face every waking moment is God's love for you. I'm going to quit talking in third person now. If you're close with me at all, you know how much I was looking forward to this trip. You know ...

"Only through Christ are we victorious" is the phrase that kept running through my head and completely overtook my prayers a year ago, to the day. For so long, I tried to do it on my own, potentially including God a little here and there. Every single time I got up close and personal with the giant in my life, the overwhelming addiction that I fought for 7 years, it was much more than I could face. "I can never do this" I told myself over and over again as for 7 LONG years I fought to no end, leading to exhaustion and questioning what else to do. I tried counseling, meetings, nothing seemed to work for more than a couple of months or so. God finally gave me a smack across the face whenever He revealed to me that I would struggle with this for the rest of my life if I didn't completely surrender this giant in my life. He continually showed me that healing was possible, if I wanted it. Time and time again, I asked for healing from this, however, I asked for heal...

My heart is ready. My body is prepared. My soul is longing to serve in different, unique ways. Doing construction based work on a small team in a small town working with teens in the Adirondack mountains? Count me in. While there were some personal challenges to overcome during training, I never thought I would be coming back to Kansas before August. We arrive on site, and I immediately notice that something just doesn't feel right. I thought it was just due to exhaustion. I press on, because I'm ready. I'm ready to get to know this community and love on them in whatever ways and tell them the gospel first with my actions, then with my words. I'm so ready. The hours go on, and I notice myself growing sicker and sicker. Nope, press on. I'm ready. I notice that I only feel extremely sick while at the place we're staying and where my workspace is at. Ignore it. I'm ready. It wasn't until making a phone call home that I find out what the cause of...