You know that feeling you get when it feels like a light comes on in your belly? When your heart feels overwhelmingly full. When you feel at home as you experience something completely new. When you feel like you’ve known someone your whole life, that you just met. When you have no words for what you are experiencing.
I felt that this week. Only once, but I felt it. I felt my spirit fill with complete unexplainable joy. I felt it leap, as my fellow interns stood in a circle in the dark. The outlines of their faces were visible because of the street lamps that were near us. Most of the kids had gone home. One eighth grade boy refused to go home until we left.
We’d spent our evening on a plot of uneven ground. Red clay and patches of grass covered the field in the center of the apartment complex, where hundreds of kids ran wild. Games of volleyball, football and soccer took place as younger kids played on the playground.
One sixteen year old Vietnamese girl stole my heart. She clung to me, listening eagerly to what I had to say next. She was beautiful. We laughed at how her new haircut made her look like an Asian Nicki Minaj. She told me about her school, and about her parents. She told me she was not looking forward to her eighteen year old sister moving out. And during our small group she shared her feelings of stress toward getting all her schoolwork done before and after her outreach trip to Chicago this week. We became friends. She is sixteen and while that is a six year age difference to me, I felt as if I could reach right back into my sixteen year old liz folder and understand her words. I realize that understanding her words is much different than fully understanding her life, but I don’t think it matters. She stole my heart and loving her is something I desire.
On another note, Kiah, was a three year old little fireball. I first noticed her as she ran up to one of our interns, took the water bottle from their back pocket, took a drink, and put it back. She ran to me asking me who I was and begged for a hug. She reached up, put her finger on my mole above my top lip and asked “what’s this?” I said, “that’s a mole, baby. my Grandma used to tell me it was where an angel had kissed me.” Without a second thought she screamed, “ANGEL!” and she bolted. Five minutes later as I stood chatting with one of the other kids, Kiah came up dragging another little girl a couple years older than her. Kiah looked at the girl, pointed to me and said “kiss it Angel.” She brought me a little girl, named angel to kiss my mole. Once, Angel had done her job, Kiah asked sweetly if she could kiss it too. And she did. Their black skin was soft on my face. And I felt so loved in the midst of the confused three year old. Kiah found me again when she was thirsty for the water in my bottle. She hugged me and didn’t let go, so up she went, her arms wrapped around my neck. Her fuzzy black hair was pulled back into a tight little ponytail. She hung on me as we got pushed into the center of a big group circle. All the first time visitors were welcomed with a great big cheer from all the kids.
As we stood in line for supper, a group of boys challenged us girls. They chanted, “We love Jesus, yes we do. We love Jesus, how bout you?” For a good ten rounds we yelled back and forth to each other, until we finally reached the food. We had rice, chicken and beans with bright colored popsicles. Then we crammed into the clubhouse and our small worship team led the kids in some crazy cool beats. The floor shook beneath us as the kids jumped and sang at the top of their lungs.
As we stood in a circle at the end of the night, the moon hung brightly in the sky. We stood around telling stories of what we experienced with the kids. And that’s when I felt it. My spirit flipped. The people standing on either side of me, were who I wanted to be standing beside. And in that moment, there was no where else I wanted to be. In fact what I wanted more than anything in the world was to just stay, right where we were. I didn’t want to leave. A group of kids that hadn’t left yet, came up to our circle. A teenage girl spoke on behalf of her friends. She thanked us for coming and told us that there were no words to describe their gratefulness for us. There we stood, our arms wrapped around each other, bound by something greater than our physical touch. Connected by something deeper than words. There is no definition for it and it is not something you can even prove exists. You know it’s there because you feel it in the deepest parts of your spirit. The places that cannot be reached by anything else in the world.
It’s been months since I last felt that part of my spirit filled. I am so hungry to feel that again. And looking back at the last year of my life, I would not change a single thing. My growth through all of the uncertainties, heartbreak, change, and separation has brought me to deeper place of thankfulness. This summer I reached a new place of desperation for God’s presence. Now, I have this incredible group of young adults surrounding me, with their own eagerness to feel God move in their spirits, and I get to be in their lives to watch it all happen. What a gift.
Now that I’ve felt it, I just want to feel it again.
