October With a Side of Honesty

I was looking through my journal and was very humbled. I cannot believe how a journal of feelings and problems going on at the time can be such a testament to God's love, wisdom and of course patience. I wish I was a better journaler because so often we can only see how God worked each situation out from reverse and by that time we are knee deep in another problem trying to find our own way out of the muck and ignoring the bridge God is pointing us towards. 

I am stubborn and sometimes I believe I know what is best for me when reality is I don't. In October of last year I became to feel like it was time to leave Will Carleton and teach abroad. Month after month...my journal entries question why God would ask me to leave a job I was good at, a place I loved and everything I was comfortable with. I tried to find every excuse to stay, but I knew I had to go, and now I cannot imagine not being here.

What would my life be like if I decided not to come, I don't even want to think about it. Yes, it is harder to do laundry, get used to the power going out twice a day and light a stove with a lighted chop stick and oven mitts, but I wouldn't trade it. I love the people I've met here and how this already feels like home. I love that I can walk to the ice cream place...run in the morning...laugh until I snort and have people in my life who are like family.

I love how we always think that we are doing God a service when we follow Him, but I hate that. I hate how people so often equate following God's will with sacrifice. Trust me...God doesn't need me...He never will.I think God has to laugh at me when I say "okay I'll do this God, don't want to, but I'll do it as a favor to you."  He chooses to use me as a gift to me, so that I become a better person. I could've stayed in Hillsdale and I would have had a great year, but I would have missed out on so much. It is almost scary to think about how close I was to not coming, how I tried to find every excuse in the book to stay where I was comfortable.....safe and in my predictable little pattern,

So I guess what I want to say is that I'm thankful and humbled. I see how different my life has become over the past couple of months and I'm so happy to be here. I think I need to realize how my own ideas of my happiness are so often clouded and limited to time. I have no idea where I'll be in a year or two, what I will be doing, but looking through my journal has given me peace. My life will not go the way I expect, the way I plan, it never will, but looking back I will be able to see how the puzzle pieces slowly fit together to make a life far more beautiful than I ever could have imagined.