Cynthia’s Thoughts

Listening to: High Valley – I Be U Be
(One of my favourite running songs.)

I’ve been watching a lot of The Bucket List Family recently, completely devouring their weekly vlogs. I’m on Week 65, which means I’m a little more than halfway done. (It was hard to admit that, since I only started watching a couple weeks ago.)

One of the things I really admire about them is their ability to meet their goals. I’ve never really been a person who sets high goals for myself and takes steps to achieve them. I enjoy thinking about the goals, dreaming about what it would be like to reach those goals, but ultimately I never actually start to work on achieving the goals because I overwhelm myself with all of the challenges I might encounter.

Listening to: Kolohe Kai – Paradise

I was listening to prayers being prayed over my family and myself for the next part of our journey. People who I love dearly were praying for God to bless our time, for God to reveal Himself to us, for God to help us grow closer as a family. That’s when the weight of these next six months really settled on me… My good, good Father has already blessed me with the opportunity to live in this place, to rub elbows with locals who have captured my heart, to explore the beauty of these islands that He created.

That night I realized that we have a chance to allow our six months in Hawai’i to be a flag in the ground kind of moment, we can use this time to call upon the Lord for wisdom and direction and ask for our hearts and eyes to be open to His plan for us here. I won’t have a schedule and I won’t have many responsibilities, both of which I can use as an excuse to not spend time with God.

Listening to: Carrie Underwood – How Great Thou Art

As I was growing up, I rarely identified with people my age. I was always looking to the future, to this longing that I had, but could never put my finger on. That longing made me different, it made me think of my teenage friendships as fleeting, not something that I should hold on to. I felt as if I viewed life differently than all of my peers… I always felt ahead of them somehow. These feelings made me feel like I never quite fit in.

I can’t say that this is truth, but I can confidently suspect that God was present even in those years of unbelief—at work in my life, stirring up my heart to yearn for something greater than I whatever it was that I presently settled in—stirring up my heart to not quite fit in.

Listening to: Coldplay – Strawberry Swing

After seven months of travelling, I grew weary of thinking about Brooklin as we drove more and more north. I was apprehensive about coming back to our friends and family after such a short time away. I felt like we weren’t done travelling and I wasn’t done learning what God was trying to teach me. I didn’t know how to explain how we spent our time over the last seven months, I didn’t know what conclusions to draw for anyone, I didn’t know how to respond to everyone’s reactions over our homecoming. Honestly, I was more excited to see my Auntie Janie (Who was fostering our cats… And I say “was” because she informed me that they’re officially her cats now and won’t let us have them back. I knew that would happen, she loves cats too much and our cats are the best cats in the world. And I don’t think you’re understanding me—they are literally the best cats in the whole world.) and our cats than I was to go back to Brooklin. 

Listening to: Elvis Presley – Memories

The night before I visited Graceland, I could barely contain my excitement. I couldn’t fall asleep because I was too darn excited to be at Graceland the next day. I couldn’t figure out why it was too much for me to handle… I wasn’t huge Elvis fan, I wasn’t counting down the days until I got to visit the mansion… I racked my brain for reasons why I would be so excited and then I realized that this was 26 years in the making.