quoted:

"You want some of this kid? You want it?"
-me. I'm a hit with the kids

feel this:

"...when everything inside me feels like everything I hate, you are the hope I have for change, you are the only chance I'll take..." Switchfoot

I went to City Gate for the first time since the end of June tonight, yet it kind of felt like I hadn't missed a beat...everything was still confusing, Dennis still had no idea who I was, the kids from Moody Bible college were back from summer vacation, and I saw most of the same homeless folk. I MADE myself go down there and serve dinner tonight (City Gate is a ministry in downtown Spokane that has a lot of different services and programs for homeless people, one of which is a Wednesday night dinner that Ryna kind of got me started on last spring) cause I know I've been slacking and selfish, and God has been convicting me about it. Lisa and I talked about it today over doughnuts, whether the guilt I've been feeling is due to being convicted about my laziness and disobedience, or self-inflicted, and if it IS due to conviction, is it because I'm not helping out at City Gate in particular or because I'm not really doing ANYTHING to serve the kingdom right now. So I was going tonight with an open mind and an open heart, hoping that God would give me some answers and show me what he really wants me to be doing as far as ministry goes.
And the answer: I still don't really know.
Tonight was good though. There were a ton of people tonight; we actually ran out of food which was rather depressing, cause people who show up late get significantly smaller portions and there is no seconds offered at all. Ugh, it kills me when Dennis (the guy who basically runs the show) has to announce over the microphone that there's no seconds tonight and half the people in line go home (wherever, if anywhere, they call home) still hungry. But yeah, I guess you do what you can do. And I actually got to pray with a lady tonight as well, which was cool. I've prayed with and for a lot of people in my life, but I've never sat and held hands with a homeless woman and prayed for her. It was new.
But still, I dunno. Maybe I'm questioning too much.
Anyhoo, Lisa also mentioned a need in the jr. high ministry today, which I would definitely be interested in looking into. But I don't know if I'm interested in looking into it because it happens to be on the same night that I tend to go to City Gate, and the prospect of hanging out with jr. high kids and other jr. high leaders sounds a lot more appealing to me than hanging out with whores, drug addicts, and general social undesirables. And again i feel guilty for even thinking about it.
But, I probably will go with Lisa some week soon to check it out. Who knows, maybe God will lay something huge on my heart between now and then, and I'll realize that my passion really is jr. high kids after all. I doubt it, but I do have a genuine desire to serve, and to do what God wants. I just need to figure out what the heck it is He wants, and I can't decide if he's being vague, if I'm being stubborn, or if He hasn't shown me yet.
Pray that God teaches me how to see, how to listen.

quote: not really a quote, just the sound of Amanda screaming when she walked into her room and saw the semi-creepy painting of Jesus that Grandpa purchased at an estate sale and that I put on her bed for her to find when she came home from school. I wish you could have heard it too.

yesterday // life goes on