i've started to write this blog a number of times but seem to find the delete button faster than i can formulate words. i love jesus and i live in east asia, so my life should be blog-able everyday right? but what about when it isn't? what about the days...no weeks...no months when life has felt frantic. frazzled. full. those words aren't supposed to be what describes a good christian girl; they don't resemble peace or comfort or rest. but in the past two months, these feelings have characterized my days and flooded my mind.
after months of prayerful consideration about whether to stay in east asia another year, i thought the lord brought me to a full point of surrender in saying "yes". little did i know this was the first of many much bigger "yes's". this first yes felt like perhaps the most uncomfortable decision i could make because i knew the life that potentially awaited me in nashville seemed every sense of IDEAL, but the Lord made it unwaveringly clear that He was calling me back here next year. despite so much unknown health-wise, despite being half-a-world-away from my family again, despite missing a bunch of dear friends weddings, despite my desire to one day teach, despite this guy i like being that same half-a-world-away; somehow God has given me a love for life in east asia and called me to say yes.
a few days after saying this first yes and in the coming weeks, i felt like the ground got ripped out from underneath me...again and again and again. i first found out my current "home" could no longer be home to me. i couldn't go to school at my sweet art-school, i couldn't eat at my favorite places, i couldn't spend time with the new sisters in this corner of the world. you're probably thinking "asia is asia, moving is no big deal, right?"...but then imagine on a whim someone telling you to move 2 states away to totally start over on a super short timeline.....oh and to figure all that out in another language (moving trucks, renting apartments, school, everything). and then not only that, but a bunch of these people who have become like family on this side of the world, they wouldn't be moving with you either. TALK ABOUT TEARS. i've just been a puddle. but in those tears, i feel like the lord is beginning to strip me of myself.
the past couple months have been months of stripping: stripping away expectations, stripping away comforts, stripping away fears, stripping away everything that's keeping me from knowing more of jesus. so in that, i know it has to be good, right? the bible repeatedly says that suffering is for our good and His glory. but to be honest, right now it really doesn't feel very good. but then i see examples of joseph, of paul. their lives were marked by repeated suffering, but instead of running from it or asking for an out, they asked the Lord to accomplish HIS purposes. they trusted; they said yes. so even though i can understand so little of what He's doing or why it has to look like this; even though i feel frazzled because my life seems to feel like it's in shambles; even though i barely know how to take two steps forward; i'm trying to say yes. i'm trusting HIS plans, i'm longing for HIS purposes. but wow does it feel like a mess right now. thankful for our God--who doesn't tarry but enters right into my mess.
i'd love for you to pray with and for me in this season of messy: for myself with all the transition, for my city and the Lord's plans for it, for my friends over here, for what leaving looks like, for trusting Him even when circumstances tempt me to turn to anything else.
"our God is in the HEAVENS; He does ALL that He pleases." psalm 115:3.
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