To be a year older

So I am 24 now.
Oh man, I am sorry for writing such depressing (but true) stuff on the eighth without recognizing the amazing days I had around my birthday on the third.
Thank you, thank you, thank you to all of you who wrote me on my birthday- I have never felt so surrounded from far away! I haven't gotten a chance to write any of you back and tell you thank you, but know that my heart was full.
I have had such a hard time to sit and write email these last days... my cross-the-ocean friendships have fallen into the background, and I'm sorry.

If I read the last blog I wrote, I have to be honest and say that life is still hard for me- really hard at times. This lifestyle is wearing me down. I went away for 2 incredible days last week and got to relax and be part of a family- it was so beautiful. Yeah, it was so beautiful, but... I think I expected to get over some kind of mountain of exhaustion and be ready to run down the other side. Instead I got back on the train to Amsterdam with the same heaviness, realizing that maybe the thing is not to get over the mountain, but somehow to adjust my pack. I don't know how to do that at the moment. There have been more cool moments in the past week than before, but I'm still having a really hard time. I wish I could say that everything's better, but it's not.

And I think the hardest thing lately is just struggling to hear God's voice, have God's wisdom, and see all this from God's perspective. But one thing I'm learning is that lack of simple confirmations, lack of small miracles throughout the day, and not really being sure of God's voice is not the end of the world, or the end of my faith. God is still Himself. I wish He was more visibly Himself, but I think there is something important in these hard times. Is this growth? Is this faith going deeper? I don't like this. If that's true it kind of makes me want the old, simple way back. I don't know.

It's frustrating to have more questions than answers:
Will these always be things I struggle with?
Will I always see the world from the melancholy side?
Why is the Bible true?
What does ministry mean? What does it look like?
How do we grow up in our faith? What does it mean that we are still supposed to see God as Father and to have childlike faith?
How can you tell how important things are? ("Meaningless, meaningless everything is meaningless" is not nearly as maddening as "Meaningful, meaningful, everything is meaningful.")
Will that wisdom come? Please?

Thank you friends for reading this, for having grace, and for praying for me. It's so huge to me.

Heaviness

My legs are unshaven and my eyes are droopy. Valentin stares at me, lips together, his biting comments hanging in the air already. Amahd looks at me with sad eyes, "I hope there's something true," he says. He doesn't sound very hopeful. The Bible sits open to John 11 on my lap- Lazarus. Ron asks in his broken English about how Lazarus could have walked out of the tomb if he is wrapped in cloth. He shakes his head in decision about how the Bible doesn't make sense. All three cleaners look at me, waiting for me to explain this open book as though my next words will either change everything or confirm what they all already think.
A half an hour before this I am sitting in the office with my manager Linea. The "how are yous?" are exchanged and I tell her that I am at the end of my strength- about how all the people who trained me are gone, about how going home doesn't feel like going home anymore because of fifteen new faces and neverending get-to-know-you conversations. I tell her that I just feel burned out, and that it took every prayer I could muster to come to work this morning.
I sigh and return another how are you? I can tell her "ok" back is not true. "My friend died last night," she replies. NO. I swallow hard. How can I compare my hardship to this? And yet here we are, both at work. If we don't do this day, no one will do it. We pray together and take a deep breath and get to work- she counts the money and deals with angry guests, it is my first day as cleaner supervisor on my own.
And I cry out with 3 pairs of unbelieving eyes staring at me, "Lord! Help me, I am inadequate for these things!" I just barely make it through this day. "Keep going" are words He clearly spoke to me the last time I sat for an hour on my own. And here I am, but my question is "How long Oh Lord?"
And to still see His hand: to walk in the pouring rain with 2 good friends, and to play soccer with Bulgarian students and to talk 2 hours with Ron about the Bible and the Quran, to talk to a new friend who dreams in Tibetan; this is what helps me push on.
Yeah, mom, you were right: the honeymoon is over. Now is the hard work and I know it's good; how do I keep going for it? God uses me in this weakness, but what is exhaustion in a vocabulary of grace? It's a circus at home and a cave at work- Jesus, do some damage here.