Here I sit on the race. So glad and so blessed, but occasionally wondering “How did I get here?”
This wasn’t part of the plan. In any way shape or form.
I was supposed to be married now. I should have an adult job or be in grad school. That was the plan.
And yet here I sit, pondering where on earth the Lord has me on this crazy journey called life.
These questions tend to arise when I lay in my tent, which decided to start growing mold (which I’m allergic to) this past month while I was away working with a different ministry for a week.
As I lay on my also moldy sleeping pad in my moldy tent (which is apparently resistant to every bathroom and kitchen cleaner and bleach in Honduras), a mere 2 feet from the neighbor’s rooster that crows at 12 am, 12:30, 12:35 and basically anytime the sun is down. My humble abode, which the local horses and mules decide is the perfect place to leave some beautiful presents in the form of piles outside of. Mi Casa, which has jokingly been referred to as a castle solely because water lines were dug up out front of it for most of this month, leaving trenches separating myself and one other tent from the rest of tent city.
So as I lay in my tent, surrounded by all of the above, I can only laugh. God has a sense of humor.
A couple years ago I thought I may have found “the one”. For the first time in my life, I was actually teetering on the edge of committing myself to someone with marriage as the end goal. The Lord said no. I fought it. I drug my feet about it for a couple more months until the Lord literally would not let me continue. I had to give it up to Him.
According to the world’s standards this relationship would have made complete sense. There was love and there were incredible things happening for both of us in the near future. We made sense. And because I desired to be married so strongly, I almost bought in.
But this wasn’t what the Lord had for me.
So instead of wedding bells this summer, I sit in my moldy tent surrounded by things that could cause me to be discontent with where the Lord has asked me to go. Instead of frustration though, there is peace. Instead of anger, there is joy. Instead of mourning, there is laughing. With no credit to me.
The Lord has had to give me strength and perseverance to push through when discontentment has crept in. And give me faith that He has better for me.
He is good, and I know I can rest on that. Where the Lord has called you to may not make sense to the world. It may not make sense to yourself or your family. It doesn’t have to. His ways are higher and they may seem even ridiculous at times, but there is life and purpose in them.
Proverbs 3:5-6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.
