(disclaimer: my heart is full and doesn’t do these types of stories short….so i’ll just share in that lovely conversational, free-flowing style…so here’s an announcement of sorts)
I’ve written this post up in my head a few times and sat on it more often than not. I’m big on people telling their own stories. I want to hear your story from you…not from someone else. That phone call saying you’re engaged–so exciting! The moment in the car when you tell me about your next big adventure–oh how I love it! The steps you’re taking to move forward–I want to hear how they’re going from you. The heartbreaking, gut-wrenching news that brings tears to your eyes–I want to sit with you in your pain and cry with you. There’s something so powerful about doing life with people, being for people, and stepping into their stories as they share. Words, perception, body language…all of it add so much to a story. So, when it comes to my own story. I want to be the one telling it. I want to be the one to tell you the exciting news or about the times I’m crying.
Yet, I’m slow with my stories. They brew, they simmer. I let them unfold before letting most people into the story. I struggle with finding the right words to convey the right meaning and to share my heart accurately. I sit there and wrestle with how I can share in a way that you’ll see so much more than just the words. My heart’s so much more complicated than a simple statement and I love that God made me that way and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
All of that preface to say that I haven’t clued most of you in on the way that life has been twisting and turning unexpectedly. If you’ve read a while then you’ll know I love Africa. I do. Absolutely. The missing is fierce and every time I think it might fade it doesn’t….though, as a friend (who just launched a pretty new blog!) reminded me: “Those of us who carry Her in our heart can pray for Her like no one else can… I’m convinced that’s why the intensity never fades!”
Now, oh how I wish I could jump up and down and say look God spoke and said to go back. Nope. Not {yet}. And don’t you go thinking I haven’t chased it down and knocked on all sorts of doors only to hear…not now. There are lots of not yet and not now in my life in all sorts of areas.
Makes sense since my OneWord2011 is trust. Trusting often means waiting when you can’t see.
Yet. I do have something fun going on and an open door that still scares me even as I’m doing it afraid. I guess after Africa round 2 I’m still mostly gun shy that things are going to go along swimmingly and then be snatched away. I’m tentative to share plans, dreams, hopes before they happen because of the uncertainty. (working on this with God!)
But the last month or so caught me up in a whirlwind of “Oh hey, God.” moments leading me down a path and open doors I didn’t even really want to open…I kept saying, “It’d be much easier to trust God in going back to Africa and fundraising and doing traditional missionary work than this.” Yep. So, my “big trust” has been gulping a deep breath and doing it afraid. From laughingly getting off a phone call where I realized I somehow applied to a program I just wanted information about to being accepted right before the deadline to everything coming into line.
Yes, I still love Africa and yes, I committed to going to grad school for counseling and yes I love it so far and yes, I don’t fully know what God’s doing and yes I’m trusting Him in this especially because I can’t see anything and yes, I still want to leave for Africa, and yes, I’m obeying when God says stay. And yes, I’m trusting big time that God is just going to use this as all part of that awesome preparation time that so many people go through in the Bible (cue David tending sheep, Jesus waiting so many years, Joseph and his journey, Esther and so forth).
A nice little red bow of illogical “yes, and” mixed with a whole lot of trust.
Any new exciting and/or hard things happening in your life story?
b'ahava 