What I REALLY Want

I am currently reading Kisses from Katie, a book about a Katie Davis who started Amazima ministries in Uganda.  She left behind her conventional, comfortable American life to answer the call she felt.  What started out as a year of service in an orphanage became a lifelong commitment and her permanent home.  In one of the opening chapters of the book she talks about sometimes missing things about her old life, some of the conveniences of westernized society.  I just have to share her reflections about why her desire to serve in Uganda far out-weighed those wants for an easier life.

I would be lying if I said I didn't miss the comforts and the people of my old [life] desperately 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 thoughts 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.  (Kisses from Katie, 24)

THIS. IS. MY. HEART.

But seriously, I have read this passage at least six or seven times now and it gets me every time.  It is one of those sections where I toss the highlighter aside and throw some brackets around the whole thing with a big "YES!!" written in the margins.  Maybe Uganda isn't the place of my heart's content, at least not right now, but this soul-deep fulfillment in serving the Lord with every ounce of my strength, effort, and energy is exactly what I want.  Sure, when I think about my future I would love to have a family one day and fulfill my childhood promise to give my mom grandchildren to love on and absolutely spoil.  I would love to get married and have my daddy walk me down the aisle and share a tear-filled dance to I Loved Her First.  And I would be lying if I said I wasn't still holding on to those hopes, but so much more than that, I want to live a life that is gloriously exhausting from serving the Lord.  I want to live and love recklessly because I don't think my heart could be satisfied any other way.