returning

After an almost four month blogging break, I think it's time to start again. It's not that I didn't want to write, it's just that I didn't know what to write. At this moment, I'm still not sure what will come out in these next few sentences and paragraphs, I just know that I've got to write something - that something's there and it's ready to come out. So here goes. Let's just reflect.

These past few months have been crazy. I've had some hard life-lessons and decisions and have experienced a wide array of emotions, usually on the same day, probably within the same thirty minutes. My poor brother has had to live with this. Maybe that's why he likes to go to school to practice his music.

Lately, I've been struggling with understanding God's will, understanding God's planning, understanding God's timing, understanding God's reasoning. Looks like I've just been trying to learn how to understand God, and, honestly, that's not a lately-lesson, but a life-long lesson.

As some of you know, I had planned to go to South Korea for a year to teach English. I was so excited! Things seemed to be working out just right. And then...

And then I started having problems sleeping. And then I started taking a 12 step class. And then I went to the doctor for some health problems. And then I realized things weren't as simple as they seemed. I had a choice. And God seemed pretty quiet.

In the end, I decided to postpone South Korea. It was one of the hardest choices I've had to make in quite a while. After all, South Korea was a big adventure. I would have amazing experiences, make great money, be set up perfectly for starting graduate school when I returned.

But that class. But the health things. But, but, but...

(Here is my shameless plug for 12-step groups) I had to stop and think and I began to realize that in the few months that I had been in the 12-step class, I had seen my relationship with God take on a whole new dimension. Suddenly, God started to seem much more real than he had in the past. Suddenly, this whole letting go thing was making sense. Suddenly, I had a choice to make.

So I stayed. And it was hard. And I cried. And I mourned the loss of a temporary dream while rejoicing the beginning of a reawakened relationship with my Savior.

The crazy thing is that since making the decision to stay, I've had some very real struggles and have at times felt extremely far away from God, followed by times of great intimacy with him. I've found ways to drag myself down and to degrade myself, to make myself feel stupid for staying, but he's picked me back up and said, "Hold on. You seek adventure. You seek validation. You seek success. Just look to me. Don't give up now. Look up, hold my hand, let's keep going on this journey together." And so I get back up and he dusts me off and we start again.

I think that sometimes the scariest journeys are the ones where we are simply called to wait. Personally, they are scary for me because I always want to know the next step. I always want to have a plan. I always want to be in charge and sure and have plenty of napkins and snacks for the road. But waiting-journeys are just the opposite of that. Waiting requires living life one day at a time. Waiting means trusting. Waiting means not having to know all the plans. Waiting means taking a risk.

And so that's where I am right now - I am waiting, sometimes cheerfully, sometimes grudgingly, sometimes passively, and sometimes passionately. I am waiting and trusting and believing that in sitting still, I am moving forward. I am experiencing life. I'm becoming who he wants me to be. Fully his.