one final note.

Sitting here with all of my thank you cards written out, City Project is coming to that final note.  It took me about a week and a half to write out all of these thank you cards (partially because of my laziness), but that's amazing.  I have so many people to thank for supporting me this summer.  If we just rewind to the beginning of this journey in February or March, I remember thinking that I didn't have anybody to contact, and here I am writing out so many thank you cards I want to complain about writing.  And yet God reminds me how grateful I should be and through it again, I realize once more of a theme that has been recurrent during my journey through City Project:

God loves me.

It's so simple, but so sweet and revolutionary every time I realize it.

God loves me.  He loves me even though I'm broken.  He loves me enough to tear down my idols because He wants me to just worship Him.  He loves me enough to strip down my pride so I can depend on Him.  He loves me enough to affirm me through others of my gifts.  He loves me so much that in every single way possible, I can recognize Him.  And this is love...because as John Piper said God isn't being selfish when He points you back to Him because God is the only one who can fill me and affirm and comfort me.  He is all that I need.

City Project 2012 has been amazing.  More than amazing.  I learned how to swing dance.  I ate my first made-from-scratch lasagna.  I shared the Gospel (by God's strength) to someone who had never heard it.  I was asked to be best friends with girls who didn't even know me.  I was held and prayed over by nine other girls as I confessed my sins.  I was told I was beautiful in a foreign country.  I saw a sunrise in Africa while listening to "Circle of Life."  And so much more...

And even when it ended, God still has been teaching me so much.  Even recently, I cried when falling asleep because I felt like I had failed.  I felt like I had failed because I thought I had to be this better Christian when I cam back, but I was struggling just as much.  I didn't spend hours and hours in devotions or my hours watcing shows didn't drastically decrease.  But, God whispered to me that maybe it wasn't me becoming this better Christian, but it was more about how I needed Him desperately.  I still need Him even though He's taught me so much.  I thought going through this missions made me a more independent Christian, but really, my eyes have been opened to my greater need of desperatley and willingly clinging onto our Father.  And in that moment, when I realized that...I felt so free.  The burdens of expectations and change I thought I had to see in my life were gone because...it's more freeing to realize that we need to rely on God than it is to try to live on our own.

And that I realize as I'm typing up now is another way for God to remind us that He loves us.  We need Him, and as our eyes are opened to see how much we need Him, as my friend reminded us on the last day of City Project, that's grace too.  God didn't have to open our eyes, but He did because He wanted us to know Him.  And by knowing Him, that's our everything. He is my everything.

And I don't get this truth every moment, and that's okay because God is pursuing me.  I freely admit I need God so much in my life.  I am truly lost without my Savior.

With Him, I am Found.  I am Free.  I am Loved.

For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship.  And by him we cry, " Abba Father." Romans 8:15.

Goodbye City Project 2012.