Pray for India: Day 17

Just a little ways to go.
Basically, if I choose to
fast the whole time I'm in
India, I have enough money.
However, i don't feel like this
is the best course of action to
take.  If I can raise $17/day for
25 days I'll be there. Final stretch.
Let's Go!

Update: 25 days to go, and this week I have been nervous than I have ever been. Anxiety has a way of sneaking in and stealing joy. Everyday it feels I am battling lies that I'm not prepared. This is not going to be a good experience. That I have ultimately been ill-equipped. Typically anxieties of a country white girl whose only real experience is a couple of weeks in Latin America during high school.

Coupled with my own internal anxieties, most of my friends are working on their Intercultural studies degrees, giving them a lot more experience and have a considerable more passion-feeders around them. If there is doubt in my mind that I really have not idea what I'm doing, hanging out with my friends demolishes them all.

In short, I'm afraid. Shutting down conversations that even remotely stir the stew of overwhelming chaos in my brain. Immediately I feel emotionally wrecked by the challenge "What if India isn't what I've dreamed?" What then?

Running around at the final weeks of school, exams causing me panic enough, I'm suddenly struck with anxiety, but don't have time to sit. Don't have time to process. Overwhelmed, I become consumed.

Finally I sit. I wait.

What if? What if? What if? Rings over and over in my mind until the wait ifs can do more than give up, because they have repeated themselves in an undue rut. Nothing else to say. No more fears to qualm. I'm done.

A deep breath. My brain empties.

Finally the space enough to hear a line of truth.

Enough.

What ifs? What ifs? What ifs? Can wear themselves into the ground. But enough. is what they have and no more.

Be still. The Lord sings. I am enough.

He consumes my anxious heart to release a calming peace. I can finally dream the dreams the Lord has to me and His words of life speak, "It will be what it is meant to be." A pinnacle. A turning point. I have been equipped for all it will expect of me. And what I may expect of it and of myself may fade. But the reality of what truly lies with in me is better than the facade of what I pretend to be. Therefore, even if nothing is what it seemed, if my plans and dreams are shown fragmented with romanticism, it's enough. It was meant to be.

I'm still nervous as all get out. I don't know what lies ahead. But whatever will be will be enough and that's enough for me to see the beauty of the reality beyond even my wildest dreams. So we'll see.

India, here I come.