Like many people, I struggle making decisions, especially when those decisions will affect not only the upcoming days and weeks, but also years. Who doesn't worry about making a wrong choice that they will have to live with? Especially living abroad, I struggle with the choices of when is it time to come home...when is it time to get the permanence...my year to year life has been lacking. I long to be home close to my family again, but then of course like the natural born planner, I think forward to what that would look like. I would be close to family, but living alone in an empty apartment and having to shoulder the burden of rent. car insurance, loneliness and the stress of American life seems like an impossible task as well. Will I regret leaving?....will I regret staying?.... I'm sure most of us have been given the impossible task of choosing between cross roads that each hold a piece of your heart, but lack what the other cross road possesses.
I've come to the following conclusion and I think this alone will save me and perhaps many of you have come to this same realization. There is only one choice and that is to stay in God's will. I've realized that a lot of my dreams...to be near my family, to be married, have children, make an impact, be a good teacher....cannot hold the key to my happiness. If I chase after one of them, I will discover, it is simply a mirage because the things of this world are simply that. a smokescreen that can never satisfy us.
I've discovered that the times when I have felt complete and whole is when I felt that I am where God wants me to be. I don't want to be married, I don't want to go home and I don't want to have children if those dreams aren't part of God's will. I kind of understand a little bit more of Jesus's words when he said "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father, mother, wife, children, brothers and sisters and yes even their own life cannot be my disciple." -Luke 14:26 It's not a hate of those beautiful things, but a realization that the best life has to offer will never satisfy if it isn't part of God's will and you "hate" those things because you realize if you choose them over God, your life will be filled with regret.
One of my biggest pet peeves and I've said this on several occasions, so bear with me, is when people say "what a sacrifice you're making living abroad." Let me tell you, I am not sacrificing anything. I am super selfish being here. I am here, because I know if I were anywhere else right now I would be sacrificing because I would be unsatisfied and restless. 3 years ago, I didn't want to leave my comfortable life, but I began to feel restless and as if there was an itch I couldn't scratch. Only, when I decided to come did I find peace. Here in the Dominican Republic, I have had that peace, not because life has always been easy or that I haven't longed to be home, but because I know for whatever reason God has, here is where I'm supposed to be, so I will selfishly stay for now, so that I can live a life where I feel complete.
"I'm no longer a slave of fear...I am a child of God..." I love these lyrics, because I'm learning to trust God. I don't have to be afraid if I trust that He will lead me. I hope someday to "earn" or to "gain" some of those dreams listed above...it's my plan of course that those things happen, but I do realize that God's plan is bigger than my own and the difference between mine and His is that His alone can fulfill my life. My prayer for all of you on this lovely Tuesday evening is that "God's will be done (in your life) on Earth as it is in Heaven.
