ID me, please.

Hello all! We are safe in beautiful Kyoto, Japan. Soon we will be heading to Ibaraki for our homestays, and I cannot tell you how excited I am. Already, Japan is so different from China. For one, everything here is clean. I mean SUPER clean. Oh, and I don't have diarrhea anymore, thank the Lord (maybe that's too much info for a blog, but it has become one of the main topics of my conversations here so I guess I'm desensitized). It's so peaceful and natural here... I love it.
Needless to say, though, there have been struggles. I have experience culture shock on this trip moreso than ever before. And it's no easy task maintaining an identity when everything that you feel makes you who you are is miles away and nothing ever stays the same. So tonight, I really felt God whispering to me who I am, and I think it can be shared with all children of God. I really believe this to be the identity of all followers of Christ. I hope it blesses you wherever you are. Your prayers are sooo appreciated, and you are missed.

I am Hallie.
I am a child of God, created in His image to bear His image around the world. In the mundane and the mighty, I am called to LIVE-truly live-for His glory and to walk in the path of His freedom. I am called to sacrifice, to give mercy, and to love unconditionally. But I am also called to fight fiercely and work diligently against the Evil One and anything that is not of Him. I am enabled to enjoy Him, to be made glad in Him, to live joyfully and righteously. And I am privileged to give Him all praise for all things. This is my Christ-given, cross-ensured identity, and today, I will embrace it to the fullest.

Reporting from Beijing!
It is so incredible here...the history is amazing and humbling, and the people are wonderful! A man on the subway the other day actually ran up to me to give me the one yuan I left in the ticket machine. One yuan is equal to 16 American cents. So sweet.
I am learning so much, mainly finding that God is so much bigger than I thought He was. I have spent so much time of my life living unaware of the ways in which God works all over the world. But I am finally realizing that He has been at work long before I could fathom Him. As we drove into Beijing for the first time and I saw a Chinese flag waving, I heard Him whisper, "Yes, this is my nation, too."
Highlight so far has been meeting the Mother Teresa of China, Mary Chiang. She works with blind people to teach them a skill and give them musical instrument lessons. They played their traditional Chinese instruments for us, and it was so amazing.
I do miss America (mainly the food), but I am so happy to be here. Best wishes to the states!

On the way!

Well, we made it to Foggy Hong Kong in one piece! I am so joyful, peaceful, and excited in the Lord to be on this trip. Our group is awesome and I can already tell that we are going to be family. Logan's dad gave us a bit of parting advice that I just loved, and I'm hoping it becomes a theme of our trip. He said, "Be safe. Wait, no. Don't be safe. Be courageous and take risks. That's much better than safe."
Love and miss everyone... You are in my thoughts and prayers. Keep us in yours!

Meeting the Healer.

"I was a thorn rushing to be with a rose,

vinegar blending with honey, a pot of 

poison turning to healing salve, pasty

wine dregs thrown in the millrace.  I was 

a diseased eye reaching for Jesus' robe,

raw meat cooking in the fire.  Then I found

some dirt to make an ointment that would

honor my soul, and in mixing that, I found

poetry.  Love says, 'You are right, but 

don't claim those changes.  Remember, I 

am wind.  You are an ember I ignite.''

- Rumi

I have known God as many names... Constant, Provider, Comforter, Father, Lover, Friend, Strength, Song.  But the name "Healer" has never truly hit home with me, mostly because I never knew I needed one.  I've been blessed with health and strength, so I've never needed to rely in faith on the Healer for my physical needs.  And until recently, I've been unaware of the festering sores deep within my soul that desperately need salve.

But by the goodness and grace of God, He's showing me my wounds.

We all walk with a limp.  We are all the man outside of the gates called "Beautiful."  For sin is the ultimate injurer and distance from God the ultimate salt on our wound.  And subconsciously, we lean on other things - earthly things - for support.  For me, it's been pride, anxiety, fear, and the approval of others that I have chosen to rely on as crutches for my limping, weakened soul. They've been my security blanket.  But while I resorted to my sinful, earthly support systems, I was unaware that they only injured me further so that I always needed them more.  They are the cast that stays for years without any results.  The Father opened my eyes recently to my condition: I am a woman with polio, stints and crutches and bandages on all limbs, and I'm immobilized.  When He showed me that He could remove these crutches, I was overjoyed.  But He does more than that.  He can heal the injury that led me to those vices in the first place.  He can not only take off the stints, but He can restore my body so that I may run, jump, dance, leap!

Our Healer, though He may not always choose to heal our physical wounds, always chooses to heal our spiritual wounds - the things that keep us limping and immobile.  And in doing so, He removes our need for the vices of the flesh so that we may truly live, walk, dance in freedom. 

Oh, praise Him. 

Such a beautiful life.

Every single moment.
That's where I'm learning (failing, and learning) to see Him.
The present... it's so powerful. The time, right now. There's so much beauty here.

This past week in Nashville have been more than overwhelmingly beautiful. From kisses to nature to laughs to tears to crazy-busy days to curled-up-on-the-couch nights, it's been so great. I can't think of a better way to start this new, 3-month phase in my life.

And even throughout my shortcomings, God is teaching me about grace. He's showing me how to steep myself in it... to inhale and exhale it, so that it filters everything I see.

Grace... mercy... love... grace.

I pray it finds you where you are, washes over you like the tide, changes the way you think and live and see.

Filled to bursting.

I am one blessed girl.
I got to spend (almost) an entire summer with my family... the ones with whom I've never spent more than a week or two. I thought it would be awkward, different... but now I'm sitting in a still house and I love them so comfortably.  And they me.
I got to babysit 7 adorable kids who aren't spoiled and listen when you tell them to do something. And they accepted me, even though I have a funny tattoo on my leg and a ring in my nose.
I got to witness two best friends pledge their lives to the men of their dreams.
And I got to spend hours upon hours upon hours talking and laughing with the man of mine.
I discovered that I actually may have a domestic side, after all.
And I met Jesus. For real.
My heart feels so full, it just might burst.
God is so good.

He might not have.

From Ann Voskamp's book, One Thousand Gifts


"When I realize that it is not God who is in my debt but I who am in His great debt, then doesn't all become gift?  For He might not have."

He might not have.


God never owed me health, family, joy, peace, friends, education.  I owe Him... everything.

And who am I to demand with clenched fists the favor of the Lord?