I wrote this poem while thinking about a message I was going to share.  Karen recorded me reading it so I thought I'd share with all of you.  - Josh

Lately waiting has been difficult. From a Christian perspective waiting isn't pointless and we do more than just sit in a room and look off into the distance. Right? I think most of us know that but it doesn't make it any easier. While we wait to go to Ecuador we are moving towards it. While we rest in Him we are laboring to make it happen. One thing we're beginning to understand is that God does so much in the time between the beginning and the end. Think of someone's life. On his gravestone you only see a dash between two dates yet you know so much has happened between his birth and death. But sometimes when we are in a waiting period we are fooled into thinking the only thing that matters is when it started and finished. To keep the life analogy for a moment, that dash means more than just what that person did for a while. Truth be told that life affected all that came into contact with it. And so it is with waiting. Waiting isn't only for ourselves but it does something to all that come in contact with us.

Here is a poem I wrote this morning trying to express some of the things I've been feeling lately.

Yesterday was my last day at Acumen Brands (where I was working).  When I look back over that time I see how God used it and gave me many blessings through relationships and valuable experience I gained there.  

What's in front of us seems huge:

• Saturday we start our road trip, eventually ending in North Carolina
• We'll go through several weeks of cross-cultural training there.
• Then we'll come back and raise the remaining amount of support we need to move to Ecuador.  

As I was thinking about these things this morning a lot of thoughts came to mind and I put them into a poem.  

This morning as I was praying I began to think about how we need the Lord revive us and give us His heart.  As I was thinking about these things, I wrote this little poem.  - Josh