“This love is not for cowards….”

It’s not.  

I stood in Juárez, México this weekend giving a home to a family that lost their husband/father two years ago to murder.  I stood in that completed home after a week where I didn’t know if those walls would be built.  After some threatening phone calls to a friend in Juárez and countless conversations with another friend that works for homeland security, we decided that this build would go on.  And every person that came to construct that house into a home didn’t just show up, they fought to be there.  They drove across the country, with their children, with strangers and in their own faith to show this family an unconventional outpouring of love.  They fought to go to a city where no one else wants to go, to give of themselves, to a family that they had never met, but one desperately in need of hope and restoration and a reminder that God has not forgotten about them.

After seeing a picture of myself reading scripture in a room with tear streaked faces, I know that there is more truth to the words written on my shirt than I will ever know.  We coined this phrase about the city of Juárez, but truly, it is about God.

This Love…. Is Not For Cowards.

Although the people in that room may have seen a person standing before them leading in confidence and in faith, I see a girl from GA that has fought with everything in me for this life; for this Love. I have given up other love on this Earth for this one. I have chosen to live beside families of a different culture rather than my own. I have risked my life to show others life. I have given up my dreams for a silent confidence that I can’t seem to put into words. 

I stand in front of you and look strong; but I am only strong in Him.  I am broken; daily.  I am flawed; more than you will ever know.  I am longing; with all my soul.  I am questioning; everything.  I am seeking; when my eyes close, and when I wake.  I am hopeful; for all that my heart aches and yearns for that I may never know.   I am convinced, that this Love… this Love is not for cowards.