'I want to kiss the world beautiful'

I want to kiss the world beautiful
Sometimes it's just more important to love
Than to always have it right
I want to kiss the world beautiful
I have no name for this desire
I believe in light, but don't know what to write
I want to kiss the world beautiful
Dream but never fall asleep
Go up to God and say, do you have plans today?
Might you be walking down my street?
I want to kiss the world beautiful
Lay down this life I think I would
Give up my shoes and some of these views
I don't know why just think I should
I want to kiss the world beautiful
-Martyn Joseph

One year ago today, i embarked on an amazing road trip through the province of Chalatenango in El Salvador, my Abuelita(grandma) Milagro's birth place and the land that saw my father grow up. Making me think about that amazing trip, turns my heart tender, and my eyes watery. So much identity, honour and sacrifice in those lands drenched in history, 12 hours and 6 cities, bumpy, sandy roads- all worth the crazy heat and sunburn.

Last year on my trip to El Salvador, i came into understanding of who my Father had made me to be. He planted in me a desire, a passion to want to "Kiss the world beautiful", to desire change, to be light, to seek justice, to love His people. So embedded in my blood, tethered into my Spirit revolution was birthed in my heart. With all the brokenness and filth, i desire to be in Latin America, it seems that brokenness and filth often find hope in each other, hey?
In my brokenness, God showed me i was made perfectly in His image, even if i am broken. i just needed to fall into that tender union with Him. Folding me a new everyday, because as i stand in my brokenness He calls me to love, like He did.

Today, i leave for Europe,but my gaze is on Jesus the liberator, Jesus the gatherer' of men, Jesus the Saviour (El Salvador)- The one who was, and continues to be the champion of the El Salvadorean people. Celebrating Monsenor Oscar Romero's life yesterday, reminded me that laments have a purpose, laments have a cost, but *'Hope is the seed of Liberation' and as much as i wish my plane would be taking me deep into the Amazon to be with the Tacana people, or the wondrous Andes mountains, or Puerto la Libertad in my beautiful little Nation of El Salvador, I know my Father has a reason for me to go to Europe. As i was told before, "Set the world on fire, Run like you've never run before, You were born to create tipping points for those without passion" I am sailing into the unknown with open arms and heart ready to love, because when there is nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire.

Risk.

for the past few weeks i've been in a mix of emotions and wallowing in memories, unable to fully express how my heart has mapped itself out into a disarmed, vulnerable, unreleased captive. I turn to writing things down, as emotions can be fleeting- but true feelings have always been captured by words on paper that i can look back on. I learned a while ago that a broken heart is the first step in surrender, in that case i've taken a giant leap.

'When you can invest yourself deeply and intermittently in the life that surrounds you, instead of declaring yourself out of the game, because what has happened to you is too bad, too deep, too ugly for anyone to expect you to move on from, that’s that good rich place. That’s the place where things that looked for all intents and purposes, like curses, start to stand up and shimmer, and you realize with a gasp that they might have been blessings all along'.

Nothing good comes easily. You have to lose things you thought you loved, give up things you thought you needed. You have to get over yourself, beyond your past, and out from under the weight of your future.

The good stuff never comes easy.

Friendship is about risk. Love is about risk.