life by julia

I was browsing through emails from the time I spent in Zambia in '07-'08 and found this letter that I wrote to some friends about 7 months into my stay. Thought I would share... "Yesterday, I was reminded of the reasons I am here and decided it was time for me to write about the things i have to be grateful for. Many of you know that it has been a difficult time for me here, but be assured it has been amazing as well. When i was 21 I moved to Memphis to study Physical Therapy and my youth pastor was giving me a little pep talk before I left. I have never forgotten what he said: 'It will be hard, but hard is what makes it good'. That has been so true of many seasons in my life. Last year in a time of worship at homegroup, a friend had a picture for me. He said he saw two trees, one was planted next to a stream in fields of green and the other was planted on a mountainside in the midst of rocks and cliffs. God spoke to me through that picture: 'I have cho...

Around this time last year, God was taking me through a painful process of tearing down old patterns of thinking and rebuilding the protective forces in my mind and heart. I had been walking past this wall everyday on my morning walks with Chloe(my German Shepherd) and knew that God wanted to speak to me through it. After weeks of trying to figure out what He was trying to say, one Sunday morning it came to me during a preaching. Ian(one of my pastors) was talking about how sometimes we allow enemies(thoughts/temptations) to come over the walls of our minds without any check. Immediately I knew God was saying to me that the mechanism for protecting my mind was faulty. I had seen this wall with those ornate holes where things can get in and out. Immediately when he said that I knew that God was showing me a picture of my mind by taking me past this wall. At first I thought, 'Ok, that's easy, we'll just fill in the holes'. About the time I thought that, a good fri...

the past two years have been a bit of a drought with my writing... motivation and inspiration. recently i have become inspired again, so i am digging back into the journals that i did manage to press out over that difficult time and will be sharing some of that here. straight from my journal... January 17th, 2009 been pondering weakness... our weakness... human weakness. it doesn't seem that our society allows for a person to be weak. it seems that particularly in the Church, one is expected to pull it together and keep moving forward. had a thought yesterday - even warriors break down sometimes, even they need rest and refreshment and restoration. the bottom line is time. healing takes time. broken bones need time to set before being used in the way they once were. things break us at times. my dad broke his collar bone when he was a kid and he was so terrified to tell his father that he just left it that way. the bone didn't heal correctly, so one shoulder sits lower...