Meet me in Portland

Roast here in the summer light

See you in the evergreens

I will catch you down on the Northeast side

-M.Kearney

My thoughts are many and I don't know what order to present them in. My heart is heavy with a kind of joy that is only attained when choosing to move toward hardship. In nearly four months of human rights work, my battles were almost entirely waged against fear.
Anxiety is a kind of elusive thing, not knowing its there at all until it strikes at the most inopportune moment. Like when starting a new position, or right before the big speech that I thought I was perfectly comfortable giving until I'm tripping over the intro.
I hate that.
I didn't know I cared so much about what other people thought of me too. I hate that I was   fearful of terrorism, sometimes in terrible ways picturing, what it would be like to blow up. But to face the fear, to rely on public transportation day in and out despite this persistent, gutwrenching strain, I learned to let it be.
When I fear much, truth has left me. God's character becomes hard to grasp and I go scrambling for earthly comfort, friendships, distractions, anger, anything to alleviate myself of the fear. It's really been incredible to become aware of this weakness. More incredible to realize just how many in this world are building their lives so as to avoid ever encountering it.
I am entrapped in this broken condition in which I find myself yielding to fear. But I am called to bear a different yoke. That of  hope.
 In Zechariah 9:12 it is written:

Return to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope.

I am irresistibly bound to this verse, returning to the triumphant echo of it's prose repeatedly. In the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, I am sealed with an inheritance of glorious hope. And what choice do I have as a child of the most high, but to look toward this hope with confidence?

None.

Jesus said, "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."
He is preemptive to correct my most natural tendency, to worry, to fret and cry out in moments of fear. Like the disciples on the angry seas, I too watch the waves of this world wreak devastation and wonder if they will swallow me whole. But what sweet joy when He orients me toward His goodness again.
Anticipating the familiar faces I had longed to see for months, I sat on a commuter flight from Seattle to Portland when a kind older gentleman took his seat next to me. His name was Terry which was his segue into the usual, tidy airplane conversations that so often occur. I told him of my time in D.C. with IJM, doubtful if he had ever heard of it. His silence suggested otherwise as he turned to me intently and said, "well, you should know that I'm the uncle of Gary Haugen, founder of IJM."
More shocked than I could express, I said, "Imagine that."
I know that it was not mere coincidence that Terry sat next to me at the conclusion of one the most meaningful seasons of my life. He was there to confirm what I should have known all along, that life with the Holy Spirit is ever onwards and upwards. 
The Lord delighted to send me off with a commissioning of his comfort. With a heart full of gratitude humming to the drone of the southbound plane, I looked out the widow at snow capped mountains and smiled. It wasn't just leaving D.C., I was coming home and hope was following me.