My mind has been flipping and flopping back and forth about what to write about this month. Things are changing. Things are happening:
I am ending my last month in Europe.
I am turning 23 in 2 days (I can no longer sing the Taylor Swift song).
I got the date that I am heading back to the United States (8:25am in NYC!).
I am on the downhill slide to final debrief.
I have to figure out what to do with my life after this World Race because, Lord knows, I do NOT want this race to be the culmination of my life.
All of these thoughts are running through my head, and I am daily fighting to stay present in the midst of the reality of America coming at me like a slap in the face. Yet, I cannot help but be thankful for this month because the Lord is somehow showing me each morning how He has changed me these past nine months.
I am constantly reminded of the months where I had no idea what was going on, where I was crying out for the Lord and His presence in my life, where I was too tired to show someone love and then the Lord gave it to me. I have never had so much reflection in a single month!
But also, each and every day here has felt more and more like home. I am blessed here in Ukraine with a beautiful two-story home, a host family that spends every meal talking and investing in us, and a tangible ministry where the team and I are given a legitimate platform to share the Gospel.
Because of all of these things running through my head, I deal with life from day to day.
It is very scheduled: breakfast at home, teaching at high school in the morning, break, lunch at the church, team time, plan for lessons, teach lessons, have dinner at church, head home, have tea time with host family, play a game or watch a movie to hang out, drop on the bed and fall deep asleep.
It is kind of like Groundhog Day here; I have the same daily schedule to redo each time I wake up in the morning. How am I going to use this day for the Lord? Am I going to be following the same decisions that I did yesterday? Am I going to choose to love?
This month is full of decisions. I feel like I am on the precipice of some life-altering decisions, but I have no idea what they are going to be. I listened to a sermon today about how the big decisions we make are not things that come out of the blue, but are the result of small decisions that we make each and every day. You don’t expect a war criminal to give away all of his possessions (not that it isn’t possible), it is the man that has been generous in small ways his entire life.
This month, I have been able to reflect on all of the small decisions I have made in life, and have the opportunity to make larger decisions as the result. Please be praying for wisdom, council, and discernment for the next part of my life!
“[E]very time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different than it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing into a heavenly creature or a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state of the other.” – CS Lewis
