Loving deeply.

I think this is one of the biggest things that God has been teaching me while I’ve been here in Uganda. I thought I knew so much about how to love people, but the Lord has really stretched me and changed my heart in so many ways.

While being here we have been able to live at all three of the Sozo houses. We have also been able to spend a lot of time at Rays of Hope, a primary school in the slums of Kabalagala.

I have been surrounded by so many wonderful children. These children have captured my heart and taught me so much about how to love.

Completely. Wholeheartedly. Unselfishly.

They don’t think about how long they have with you or when you’re going to leave. They don’t hold back at all.

They just love.

What an incredible lesson to learn. I’ve fallen in love with everything and everyone so fast and so fully that my heart is overwhelmed.

Every single day my heart becomes more and more attached to these children and this place. I keep falling more in love with them and the scared part of me wants to stop. I know its Satan telling me to protect myself and not love them as much so that it doesn’t hurt as bad when I have to go back to America. But that is not what God calls us to do.

God calls us to love until we feel completely empty. He tells us to pour out absolutely everything that we are, and then when we feel like we have nothing left, He tells us to keep going, to keep loving, to keep giving.

And finally we realize what we should have known all along – that we cannot draw anything else out of ourselves. We must go to Him and draw from the abundant, never-ending spring of love and joy and hope and energy that flows from Him.

I’ve never loved so deeply in my entire life.

Although part of me is absolutely terrified of what is going to happen to me when I have to leave, I can hold on to the fact that “there is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out all fear.”

And for right now, I can’t think of anything I would rather be doing than fearlessly loving these children with everything I have.

“Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart.”

– 1 Peter 1:22