You know that thing that happens when you get away from “real” life for a few days, then come back?

It’s a retreat hangover. That’s what it is and I have it.

I had the best time at Captivating. From the moment I got to the airport in Kansas City, something was different. I’m not one to strike up conversation with strangers but I was doing it. I met people on the plane, I met people when I got off the plane, I was being goofy with people waiting for the shuttle. I hit it off with my roommates, I didn’t feel self conscious and I was able to take note of others and speak words of life to people I had never met. I was walking in a confidence that is foreign to me.

I felt so alive.

I feel like God gave me a glimpse of what it can be like to really live in freedom, and now that I’ve tasted it I want more of it. One of my favorite things was my ability to see value in other people; to feel a sense of delight in them; to possibly feel God’s heart for them and speak into that.

And then I came home to normal. The house still needs to be unpacked and organized. I have to make my own meals…what?? No free-flowing coffee 24/7. No worship music playing constantly (well, I do play it a lot). No new friends to hang with (I miss them). I’m not surrounded by people constantly speaking life-giving words over me. Where is my sunbeam and patch of grass? Where are my cheerleaders?

In other words I’m living in the real world. It’s mountaintop syndrome. We don’t live on the mountaintops, we just go there on occasion and then don’t want to come down. It’s kind of like Peter, James and John at the transfiguration. Except way less. It actually doesn’t compare at all, but you get the point.

However, I do think I have seen where I’m going. I’ve glimpsed my own transfiguration, in part.

I have been given an idea of what it is that I’m fighting for. I’m not fighting to live in a fantasy world, I’m fighting to live in this world with so much joy that it overflows to others. I’m fighting for rivers of living water bursting forth, not only for myself, but for whoever He puts in my path. I’m fighting to be light in darkness.

This is so worth fighting for. And today it is a fight.