waiting on me to change.

over the past couple weeks since i've returned from africa, i've battled with change.

i can't count how many times i've heard phrases like "africa will change you" or "when you come back, you won't be the same." and i took those ideas to heart.

except that didn't happen. at least, i haven't realized a change in me from my experiences on the trip. i've gone on mission trips and seen the poverty, homelessness, and hopelessness before. i remember going to mexico four years ago and playing with children, teaching them about Jesus and singing easy camp songs with them. i remember it wasn't the hard work that made me appreciate the trip, but just being able to sit with the little kids in a tight circle and roll a ball around the inside. and i remember how different, new, happy i felt when i came back. i remember being changed.

and over the following years, i lost my close relationship with Jesus. i've been having trouble with the idea of, to be perfectly blunt, God. i've questioned, believed, cried, praised, devoted myself, and walked away from Him...back and forth, back and forth.

so i believed that my trip to africa would bring me back. it would break my heart; i would not only see the need for God in this world, but also the need for God in my life. although i was in a very skeptical and questioning (and still am) period in the weeks (or months, or years...i stopped counting) before the trip, i asked God to "heal my heart and make it clean; open up my eyes to the things unseen," as the song by Hillsong goes. when i got back from africa, i promised myself, things were going to be different.

yet after returning, i felt as if everything was the same. i looked at my life: church, friendships, family, relationship with God, even my broken car, and became angry that nothing had changed. i became so frustrated with everything and everyone that i withdrew from the world in an attempt to understand what exactly was bothering me. and as i took a step back from my life and began to see things from an objective perspective, i came to understand that my irritation wasn't a result of the fact that nothing had changed; in consequence, everything around me was changing.

but i wasn't. i hadn't.

africa didn't change me like i thought it would.

and now, as the world surrounding me moves on,

i'm left struggling to catch up.