What the hell has happened to this God-fearing/loving/honoring self of a man?
Look friends, it's really simple. 2008 hasn't been the best of years. By far. Yet I've got so much to be thankful for. But I've become much more of a pessimist lately, and I don't like that at all. What have I become. Who have I become.
I miss college. I miss people. Maybe I just miss those two put together all at the same time. I miss the Thursday night prayer meetings we'd have - where God would meet us, and we were just a small group of students asking the Almighty for his will to be done in our lives, and in the lives of those on our campus.
I miss the late night conversations and the midnight food runs. The days in the park eating chipotle and the mario party tournaments. 7X7's at In-N-Out and soapbox symphony shows. Spring break road trips to Idaho and flights to Boston. Noon hoops with professors and early morning swims in the Pacific.
I was surrounded by friends, by people whose middle names I knew. I was on the brink of something beautiful with so many people. And then we graduated. Friends moved back home, where rent was affordable and family resided. The Arizona sun stole my best friend. The Northern California rain took a few more. And I stayed home. Where I have had seven different jobs, ranging from delivering blueprints to construction sites to calling the police and turning in someone who had a warrant out for their arrest.
The year I graduated I had a burning desire to move to Mexico and work with unfortunate orphans whose parents deserted them and left them to fend for themselves. Things happened, life happened...and my dream didn't. Again the possibility arose, and it didn't fit into my schedule, my own plan for my life. Today I left a message on the director's voicemail - and who knows if anything is going to come of it. I used the excuse to stay in OC because there are people and children who are less fortunate than I am. People who don't have a place to sleep or a job to go to. I would tell people there are just as many kids who need love, as there are south of the border.
Still something in my heart yearns for those in what is known as el reino de los ninos - the kid's kingdom. Oh, and my Oscar is there too...
This is not the sound of settling.
Godspeed.
4 comments:
I hope they call, and I hope you go. It's hard to be content when the desire of both your heart and God's is the same, but you're doing something else.
Our lives our so seasonal. I used to wail and lament to God and all who would listen: these are not the plans I had for myself! And my plans were Godly plans!
And then I lost my life. I decided to follow Jesus. I left everything... even my plans.
Since then He has blessed me with a life so full of beauty and raw-connection I stand in awe of His love for me.
I am not where I thought I would be. I scrub pots and pans in a camping ministry. I serve. He had me fall in love with being his maid-servant... something I thought I would or could never be or do. And this is simply the beginning! It is the bootcamp of my earthy existance. He scourages me, buffing LG out of the picture so when others see me they instead see Him and His LOVE and His son. I hope one day to become such a nothing of a woman that I am transparent as glass and His will can truly be done with me and through me.
Until then I scrub pots I never intended, love youth I never knew existed, and seek His will knowing His plans for me are better than my own.
Jer 29:11
No matter what happens... God loves you. And I love the hunger for our Abba that I see in you!
james, i am late on this, but i know how you feel... i find after the two years we have moved here, there was nothing like a run to denny's at midnight and the such with great friends... it's funny because none of it has to end, i feel like we make the choice to have it end and only after realize that the choice was made and feel stuck on how to go back... or do we choose not to?
I've read this post before. It is one that comes back to me while I'm thinking sometimes. And now I feel it is a a little piece of our story. Beautiful words of encouragement so needed at times are a blessing. Its also a fun thing for you to know what I was doing this day: http://ashley-diana.blogspot.com/2008_11_01_archive.html (November 13th)
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