I wanted to change the world. I wanted to do something with my life. So I got up and left. I’ve slept in different hotel rooms and Walmart parking lots every night. I haven’t seen my family in 24 days. I spend my hours with books and people who have no homes but their stories and the streets. And I listen to their stories. They’re often better than the books, but harder because they’re real. You can read something terrible in a book then turn the page and it’s gone. You can’t do that with people. They pour their heart out, share their darkest stories, and then they’re still there. Breathing, tears streaming down their face, still standing in front of you. And that’s why I left, because there are people out there with no one to tell their stories to. No one will take the time to listen. And I left because when someone says to me “So how’s life lately?” I can have an answer besides the same old stuff. Not that it matters really. How we answer questions about life doesn’t matter as much as how well we live out our answers. And maybe answering the same old things just means I’ve been faithful with something. Maybe it means I’ve found beauty in the mundane and purpose in nothing more than breathing and pleading the will of God be done in my life. When it comes down to it, I’d rather be faithful anyways. I don’t need anything new. I don’t need big and exciting plans for my life. I don’t need any more purpose than being obedient to God. I don’t want to pursue anything more than to be devoted to my Savior. I just want to live in a way worthy of the calling, to which I have been called, for God’s gifts and His call is irrevocable. For now, I think, he has called to me to share stories. To be a voice for those who cannot speak for themselves, and those who are not heard when they do. Because that’s who I feel I was before Jesus changed me. I was never loud or what one would consider a leader. I was always small and easy to be left in the background. So it doesn’t make sense God would use me to do any of the things I’m doing. But God uses foolish things to shame the wisdom of this world. He uses that which is nothing to bring to nothing the things viewed as something. So whatever I do I cannot claim it is from my own strength or even my own will. It is purely the grace of God that I have been given some piece of purpose outside of myself. It is why I pray every night that I will do justice, love what is good, and walk humbly. This is life lately.