You are not. We are not.

You are not without need, He says to me as I walk barefoot through the sand dunes. I'd done 14 miles without my shoes so far, why was I having so much trouble? You are not without need, He says as each blade of dune grass is sharper and sharper on my feet. You are not without need, He says as I stubbornly stop, refusing to take off my pack, but putting on my newly purchased hiking shoes.

I had done 14 miles in the dunes and in the woods, maintaining the rear counselor position so that the 15 6th graders doing the hike could have an encourager always at their rear. But, this wind was difficult and the shore line was non-existent. My feet needed a break from the frigid lake temperatures so I cut into the dune line the kids were following. For some reason the dune grass was bothering me. I had taken time at the last base camp removing splinters from my feet and had to walk carefully to avoid getting any more. Walking carefully was making me fall behind. Although I wasn't the last, there were a few kids behind me with our final counselor, I was definitely hiking slower than I wanted. It wasn't really a time that I was seeking the Lord. My mind was blank, really, just focusing on the hike and the wind and getting where we were going. I was holding my sandals and just pushing. I was going to not care about the dune grass. You are not without need. You are not without need. So, I put them on and finished the hike.

It wasn't until a week later when this sentiment, this one truth became important and now, a few weeks later, when it is a constant, rhythmic mantra coursing through my mind.

You are not without need. The helper. The hand to hold. The deep rooted surety that we are sons and daughters of the King. You are not without need. The comforter. The adventurer. The fulfilling peace of the Holy Spirit. You are not without need. The encourager. The reminder that we are all broken and all put back together. You are not without need. The challenger. The voice that tells you change is good because God is good. The whisper that puts you on the track to be all that God intended when he created you.

You are not without need. And you are not without promise. Take this moment to acknowledge your thirst and find Him; to understand your need for living water and find Him. Because this is His promise, "I will make you lie down in safety. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know [me]."

God does not say that He might do what is good. He never once says that he might get around to showing us the clear and perfect path. He never says that he'll let us wander and drown for a bit until he feels ready to force us in the right way. He says that he will. He will  be your safety, your righteousness, your faithfulness, your justice, your love. He will.

Will you be deeply needy and allow Him to be all that He promises he is? Will you submit in humility that God's will is so much better, so much sweeter, so much grander than the small ideas we could ever imagine for ourselves? If you have that want, find the need and let Him fill you up.

A Practice of Faith:

You thought you wanted them, the questions about your time in Uganda, but as they fly at you the panic makes your heart beat a little faster, you aren't sure. No matter how many times you've heard the most annoyingly general inquiry, "How was Africa?" you still don't have an answer. Debrief taught you to have a planned response, but each time you forget what you meant to say and have to decide again how you will, in one or two sentences, describe the experiences that left you sobbing uncontrollably on the dorm step, or the incredible laughter you had with a roommate that was so joyful it made your heart explode, or to explain how the challenges of what you thought would be your career destroyed your confidence and rattled your belief in God. So, you take a breath, look wide-eyed at the half-curious person and say, 'It was great!' or maybe if you really like them you spice up the adjective by saying, 'It was really great' and wait for their reactions. Do they inhale as if to ask you another question or do they nod, drop your gaze, and move on to the thing they actually wanted to discuss. You hope for the former. You hope you'll be able to tell them that it was the most challenging experience you've ever had but also the most life giving thing. You hope they will want to hear you talk about the days spent in the classrooms, or the dinner you made for all the roommates or the trips to the market with other girls from the program. You hope they want to know that God stripped you of everything you relied on so that when you came home you were left with nothing but a need for him. But, they don't. So you move on with them. You write it all down though because you want to remember. Quickly, heart-breakingly fast this grand adventure, this life-changing experience stops being the thing you are doing and becomes the thing you did. Every new day is just 24 hours separating you from the sun, the red dirt, and the brown skin. How do you handle the end of it?

I sat and journaled and cried because my people didn't ask and I found it hard to honor my time there without telling stories. I felt guilty each time I started with a 'when I was in Uganda...', but I remembered the whole Ugandan journey was about digging in. I realized that digging in is really a practice in faithfulness. We have a faithful God who was here in the pages of my journal among the pressed leaves and dried flowers, even in the smell my pages had adopted from four months in a foreign world. I began to understand that God is faithful so that we are faithful. I came home to no job, no school, no functioning car, and a heart that hadn't been ready to leave yet. I was unsure of God, unsure of my belief that He was tangible, existent. I instantly went from routine, homework, responsibility, and intense independence to nothing but reliance on my parents for transportation and endless hours of free time. God was carving out space for Him. He was telling me, 'That nothingness you feel? It's room for me" He was telling me, 'You can't find me if you don't seek me.' He said, 'You can't know me if you don't open your heart and your hands to my plans'. He said, 'You can't follow me unless you take a step' and I said, okay. 

At first, it was easier to live in that wildness, to thrive in the high of the nothingness and to avoid His gaze. He kept carving, stripping, and calling me to Him because he is Elohim. I can't tell you what has happened because words aren't enough, because it is deep and still unknown but He calls us to be obedient and I've often believed it's that JUMP of faith, the here is ALL OF ME, but really we don't know what that looks like. I'm only 21, I don't know what ALL OF ME is. I don't understand how things will go or end. So you take a step, you write down how you drank too much and kissed a boy and then you did it again. You write it down and realize that isn't the wildness you crave. You realize your life needs to reflect the faithfulness of your creator and to honor the work He put into designing your heart and its desires, and to whittling away the things that hinder His goodness. As five weeks without a car goes by and you've now spent most mornings finding peace in His presence you feel changed because God is good. And then one morning you are talking to the newest good thing in your life and decide to put away your phone because you want to be with Jesus. You walk into that space He made and God says, "Receive it. My Grace. My Love. My Truth as I pour them over you like water. Here is my Presence. My Peace. My Goodness as I see you taking my hand. Here, Receive my Calm. My affirmation that your fear has no place because I have won the battle and lead you to where I want you."

I guess I just want to share that 6 months ago I was giddy to leave for the trip of a lifetime. 4 months ago I experienced the refinement of God. I was stretched, broken, and built up. (Almost) 2 months ago I came home feeling empty, rebellious, and apathetic. Today, though, I am singing his praises. God is Faithful so that we can be faithful. He is all about holding hands, walking slowly. About putting down roots in a dwelling place and experiencing harvest. He asks us for trust, for the reaching out to touch his robe, the willingness to cross the lake into an unknown place, and the ability to follow and do as he did.

he is the faithful father so take a step. 

"Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and will not be afraid; for the Lord God is my strength, my song, and has become my salvation" 

Waking Up in Amsterdam:

I woke up in Amsterdam and took a walk to find coffee and chocolate croissants. It was a brisk walk not because I was walking quickly but because the cold could be seen on my breath and my cheeks turned pink. My nose hasn't been cold in months. As I walked, I found myself thinking over and over I woke up in Amsterdam. This trip, just a short excursion before returning home, was expected to be an adventure. It's our first time in Europe and we had sights to see and places to explore and things to drink. Instead, Andrea got sick and spent yesterday sleeping on the couch of the hostel and then 8 hours in a hospital bed. 

After months in Uganda learning about expectations and letting go of plans I found myself frustrated, anxious, and antsy. I wanted this trip to be a BIG thing. My first time in Europe. Acting on my adulthood, being able to make all my decisions and navigate public transits and canal roads without help. I was defeated yesterday, yet, today I woke up in Amsterdam. 

There's a common phrase used to comfort people about God's new mercies every morning. A lot of times this verse is used as a blanket statement to console someone instead of truly confronting their need. Today I'm finding it exceptionally true. The conviction that I could continue in my 51 hours frustrated that it hasn't gone as planned and letting the change in plans ruin the entire experience or I can get back on my knees and thank God that she doesn't have Malaria, and for the many people praying for us at home, and that our luggage isn't lost, and that we are still waking up in Amsterdam. 

We finished our semester at Uganda Christian University on the 13th of December and spent 5 days in debrief with each other reflecting on our time and preparing for re-entry. To sum up my experience: Mukono, Uganda had a lot to teach me about letting go of expectation. To hope for God's plan to work out instead of hoping for what I wanted. I learned to embrace the tension of wanting my own plan and desiring to be in the will of God. And I did learn. I learned to dig in. I learned to push passed frustration, or sit in it for awhile and learn from it. I learned to be present with God and with others and surrender. I've found that while letting go is harder said than done, it has to happen. Simply put, we can't let go and still expect. We can't hope for the thing we are trying to let go of because it will be impossible and we'll end up defeated. heart broken. angry. We can't expect God to teach us and grow us and reveal himself to us if we are not willing to see what he has to share.

This morning I woke up in Amsterdam. I had coffee and a chocolate croissant. I smelled winter in the air and was glad for it. Here's to optimism, to new mercies every morning, to a God that blesses us and is faithful even when we're denying him, to finding freedom because we truly surrender, to the new day, and to waking up Amsterdam. 

A dryer time:

I am tired. I am tired of praying without answers. I'm tired of realizing my heart has dirty motives. I'm tired of being wrong. I'm tired of realizing I'm just trying to get something from God. I'm tired of burden and I am definitely tired of rice and beans.

I keep thinking about my history as a swimmer. There was a part of my 500 yard race, at about minute 5, where I would get this tired but have to keep going. It was then I would have to remind myself to kick harder, pull faster and catch my competition. In the last 100 yards I had to drive, deprive myself of oxygen and use my last bits of energy to finish hard into the wall. This tired is a lot like that tired. But, God, he hasn't given me a finish line. He never said pray for a few weeks and I will miraculously save your Grandma's cabin. He never said seek me in the mornings and find your bills paid for. He never said knock and the door to your new car will be opened to you. He just said that I would find him. He promised in finding him I would have satisfaction and joy and peace and hope. Not that he would give me those things through other means, but that He embodies those things.

There is a common theme in the Church of Uganda. Pray, seek, believe and God will bless you. Songs are often sung with lines like, "wonderful things will happen to you if you have faith in God". But my weary heart knows God doesn't promise "wonderful things", he promises nearness, refreshment, faithfulness and understanding. He promises to be our satisfaction.

I recently sent a frustrated message to my greatest friend that expressed my anger towards God. I had been praying for weeks that God would change my Grandma's heart about selling her cabin and had not felt anything from him. I told her, "God is nowhere to be found in any of it" and she graciously corrected me, "He is. If only it was for you to seek him." When I responded with, "It's not enough," she merely asked, "Is it not?" Is it not enough that God would put this in my life and drive me to wake up early every morning and seek him? Oh, my heart. Out of pride I didn't respond. She was wrong. God had left me. But, really, I was wrong and it was enough. He brought me to him to show me sin and to root it out. Is it not enough that I would seek him? It's enough. He is enough. My prayer is that I, that we, would stop trying to get things from God. That we would pray not with the hope of an answered prayer, but with the knowledge that God will show up and the belief that it is enough.
It's his love that showed me my pride, and his grace that brought me to him. This is enough. The sun is shining and that is enough.

I've got 34 days left in Uganda and I want it to be enough; for me to have learned what God intended, for me to walk away from here knowing more about myself and him. I believe this will be true. But, I've still got 34 days. Each day, let's wake up and say, Good morning Jesus, let us acknowledge that what he has in store is more than enough. What he has designed is good and perfect. What he will do is welcome and that we are ready to walk with his hand in our own.

A Mzungu Walk:

If I told you I woke up a few days ago believing that God didn't exist you would be shocked. Maybe you wouldn't believe me. But, it's true. That is the place I am in.

Here I am, Shanna Christine Johnson, the girl who was going to fall in love with Africa. With Uganda. She was going to build schools and change the world. But, here I am in a place so uncertain. God is  ripping down walls of understanding. The things I knew to be true about myself are not so clear. The hopes and dreams I had five weeks ago are pretty much non-existent and as a result I am weak. My heart is so sensitive to emotion and discovery. I am resistant to the change, to the refinement that is happening. But, if we are true to God, faithful to his individual work then this process is what we crave. Right? What I have learned is that there are two words God is putting in front of me on a daily basis (for months, actually) . These are discipline and freedom.

If we are disciplined how can we be free? And if we are free how can we be disciplined? On one hand discipline requires a list of shoulds and should nots. It demands boundaries on our lives to create a faithfulness to Christ and His desire for our lives. And on the other, freedom requires that we are open, we throw out the shoulds and should nots in favor of acknowledging salvation as a gift of grace that cannot and will not be earned. Freedom expects that we release our cares and trust in God's infinite power and wisdom, not as a cop-out or an I don't know to the hundreds of questions we have about eternity and sin and grace and faith but as a surrender to our human finite minds and the Creator's supernatural, beautiful, all-knowing one.

And that folks is where all the doubt and all the fear is beginning to be cast aside. Discipline and freedom link arms at surrender. Where there is discipline there is a humility to the desires of God and a laying down of the things that muddle and distract our understanding of Him, of the true things of Christ. Where there is freedom there is a surrender of striving. Here we give up our hard work, the notion that we are earning our ticket to heaven by not sleeping with our boyfriends and praying in the morning. Here is the laying down of the "I'm better than you because I've spent my whole life doing it right" idea or the feeling that we deserve it.

Surrender brings forth life because as we sit in the presence of God, out of discipline, we realize His conviction and his blessing and it brings freedom. We rid ourselves of the burden of attempting to earn the one thing that can never be earned.

I am sitting on top of a mountain overlooking a city that is eating away my sense of self. I see a place I don't fully understand, thinking that if I came to this place to learn this one truth I am blessed beyond comprehension. With this nugget I will welcome the hot, raging fire that promises to turn me into gold.

"Jesus said to them, do you not say, 'There are yet four months, then comes the harvest'? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes, and see that the fields are white for harvest." 

John 4: 35

Uganda Be Kidding Me:

It's a life I've started living. One so completely different from the hundreds of days passed. But, one that is teaching me so much about the hundreds of days to come. To tell you that I love it here would be a lie. But, I would also be lying if I told you I hated it.

The cold showers are a shock in the morning, so I take them at night. I started working out before hand so that I would be hot enough to be able to grit my teeth and bear the daily ice bucket challenge.

I'm sure in a few days I'll have raw knuckles, and eventually calloused fingers from hand washing clothes.

I'm already surprised at the amount that I crave rice and beans come meal time. It's quite incredible the way your perspective changes when there isn't a snack aisle to walk down or a hundred and two bread choices. Just rice and beans and the occasional watermelon. The choices melt away and you resign yourself to enjoying the steaming hot food in front of you.

I've been in East Africa a little over two weeks. The first night I walked into my room after 24 hours of traveling and almost fell to my knees in a panic. I was terrified at the prospect of living in an old fashioned room with a wool blanket and barred windows, squatting over toilets and eating only starch forever. So I called out to my empty room God, be near to me. Please God and I fell asleep crying. Then things got better. There are 18 girls here and we are slowly developing a routine. I spend so much more time journaling and I am taking life by the day.

In 17 days, I have experienced powerful things. A 10 day trip to Rwanda broke open my heart and then healed it right back up again. The power of God is real even oceans away. I saw that humans have the ability to do the hardest things like forgiving and befriending men that killed their families. I've experienced meaningful, human connections with so many people like Jean-Paul teaching me a Rwandan dance without being able to exchange a language. Or participating in a nationally mandated work day which promotes peace and community.

While there hasn't been deep profound revelations  about who I am or what my future will entail, I am expecting to learn and to be influenced by the red dirt and intense rain storms. To be changed by the home-stay coming up next week and the little babies trying to fit into their mother's shoes. I expect to walk through a refining fire which will show me that after 20 years of learning things I still have so much more to discover. I am expecting that the next 4 months will decide passions and joys in my life.

"May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit"

God says he will do it. He will refine us. He will heal us. He will restore us. He will reveal his promises to us. I know this because he is doing it. I feel him doing it all the way here in Uganda. He is near and far and all around in every moment. It's like waking up to rain that sounds like wind in the trees. It's like being filled with breath. A peace that comes with trusting where he has you for the time. So go on tomorrow believing that he has you in a moment, in a place, on a path to bring His kingdom forward. Over oceans or just down the road His power is tangible.

Days:

Sometimes you just have to know what to come home to.

Today it was turning off the overhead lights, lighting candles, turning on the Christmas lights and blaring Will Regan radio on Pandora.

Today was the cry-in-the-bathroom-at-work-and-then-again-in-your-dad's-arms day.

Today I was so aware of my selfish and graceless heart. It was not giving the man on the street my lunch (even fully contemplating it twice), or rolling up my window at a red light to avoid the man holding a sign, or ignoring my co-worker because I didn't have the patience for her socially awkwardness, or snapping at someone important to me because she wasn't loving me well enough.

Today was: I worked for my lunch, I don't have spare cash because I need it, I'm better at this job than you, I'm a better friend than you.

Today was consumed with me, me, me.

But, really. Today was God knowing better than that. Selfish and graceless is the exact opposite of the picture He shows me on a regular basis. You might wonder what the first song that played off of the Pandora station? 'Set a fire' (so, today was really crying in the bathroom, crying with my dad, and now crying with my Papa). Set a fire in my soul that I can't control. A fire that burns and gives and loves and needs and hopes. A fire which finds fuel in the Holy. In the righteous. In the selfless and gracious.

Christ doesn't ask us to be these things. He requires that we are because he was (is) and we claim to bear his image.

So, be graceful and selfless to your end and then ask him for more because in him we're filled up, overflowing.

"Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?" Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye' when there is the log in your own eye." Matthew 7: 3-5 

"For everyone who asks recieves," Matthew 7: 8 

"The sacrifices to God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite hear, O God, you will not despise" Psalm 51: 17