I should be sleeping.

When it's late like this, I think too much. I think about things that make me melancholy like Preston or England. I've been sorting through my music for the last few hours because I have a show coming up on Wednesday, and I came across an old song by Paul Simon: Kathy's Song. There is a line in it..."And from the shelter of my mind, Through the window of my eyes, I gaze beyond the rain drenched streets To England where my heart lies..."

It is strange when you love a place that you know you don't belong in. In some ways it's like loving someone you know isn't right for you. It's not that I don't fit in with England. Oh contrare! It simply means that England is not where I belong...for now. Even if my heart is there in many ways. I also love Tacoma and I'm glad to be here.

And someday...I'd like to go to the far reaches of the earth again...even farther...to places like the South Pacific...maybe Vanuatu. I still dream. I still hope and pray and wonder and dream.

I still dream.

Constantly I am faced with this question of singleness...and given enough time (though it rarely takes much), the answer goes back to praising God for it. I have to know, without a shadow of doubt, that if I do marry, it will be a part of my calling. How can I put marriage above being a missionary? I know with such certainty that I cannot. No matter how hard I try, no matter how often I wander...(prone to wander, Lord, I feel it)...God always brings me back to that night in a parking lot in a city called Seattle...the night He made it clear that I am called to be a servant of Jesus Christ...a missionary. How well have I stewarded what I've been given in light of this calling? In truth, not well.

I am in Tacoma, an amazing place to be a light of Christ. Yet my thoughts wander...from the shelter of my mind, through the window of my eyes I gaze beyond the rain drenched streets to England where my heart lies...and to other places...to the whole of Europe, and to Africa...and to the South Pacific.

May I praise and honor God from where I my feet are already planted.