Summer has been ... crazy, for lack of a better word.
It's been both energizing and exhausting, both filling and empty.
I've been having this itch for some change recently and feeling like I am stuck in the life I'm living now and that it is always going to be what it is now - but don't get me wrong. I LOVE where God has me and am perfectly content in my physical location and there isn't a thing on this planet that I would want to be doing more than working in ministry and for SMCC.
But I had this idea that I'd travel around the world, meet people from all over the place and experience hundreds of cultures before I ever touched down at home base.
I thought moving to Utah and marrying the man of my dreams was the beginning of this adventure and it just seems to me that every time I strike up this conversation, Ben has a different view from where he stands and it looks like this:
AGAIN - I LOVE Utah, I love our mission, I love our community and I LOVE the people here, but I just had ... expectations, I guess, that we'd leave for a time and come back and blow bubbles later.
My discontentment was put to the side this last weekend because I was too excited about my trip to California.
I was able to visit my long time friend, Beth, over at The OC Fit Girl, and it was so good to get away and relax. We met a friend at the airport heading out!
My friend Callie came with me and we originally had separate flights, which really sucked and when we got to the airport, I figured we could at least ask if we could be on the same flight (I was flying into Orange County and she was flying into Long Beach and they were both Delta Flights) so we asked and they said YES! Win!
The first day was so recharging. I got up early to take Beth to work so we could use her car and I was able to take my time, enjoy my favorite blogs and sip on my coffee and enjoy some home made almond butter from Rawmazing on Beth's balcony. Poor Callie was sick that whole day and slept in until 1pm! It was good for both of us to just take the day and have the liberty to do nothing.
Once Beth got off work, our weekend got kicked into 5th gear. I was so excited to be visiting Beth because I had just started incorporating raw/organic foods into my lifestyle and knew that she would be one of the best people to be around to encourage me to stay on track.
What I didn't know was that she had just finished her Look Better Naked Diet and was ready to purge a little so...
On Saturday, Beth's sister-in-law got engaged and they had a family lunch, so Callie and I ventured out to Huntington Beach. This was my stomping ground for a short period of time when I went to Concordia University, but it felt like just yesterday I was there.
Saturday night proved to be great fun and just enough spontaneity to keep me pleased.
I pierced my nose and Beth and I did a home job on our nails.
Throughout the weekend Beth and I talked a lot about life, marriage, adulthood and how much has changed since we started our husband journals our freshman year of high school. We'd write letters to our future husbands and dream about our lives - our totally impractical, never-gonna-happen lives, and we laughed at our naivety.
Beth has wanted to move to Utah and join the Utah team for a couple years now, but God has just not made his move yet for them. We talked a lot about being in the here and now and I found myself giving her advice that I really needed to give myself.
"It's so hard being present and effective in a place and community when you want to be somewhere else. Satan wins when we are ineffective and disconnected. I'll be praying for you that God grabs hold of your heart for Orange County while He keeps you here."
My mother-in-law is about the smartest human being next to my father-in-law. She's told her story of God loudly speaking into her heart many times and the point of the story is that God told her,
"I don't care where you are, I care about WHO you are."
It's funny to me how the grass is greener theory can engulf your life. I need to be intentional about holding Utah with an open hand and moving when God says move, but I also need to be intentional about staying when God says stay and not always trying to hear and figure out if maybe I missed the green light.
I learned a while back that there is a lot of gray with God's will. He doesn't have a specific college he wanted me to go to, or a specific major I needed to study and if I messed up or didn't pick the right one my life would be wasted. God will use me anyWHERE I am as long as WHO I am is devoted and connected to Him.
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