Exactly one year ago, I was anxiously trying to fall asleep in my bed for the last time before leaving on the race. My eleven month future was stuffed into a backpack, and the butterflies were working overtime in my tummy.
At this time last year, I thought I was leaving to learn radical abandonment. I thought it would be a year where the Lord repeatedly humbled me, and where I learned that if the Lord didn’t show up, then I was dead meat.
To some extent, those lessons were learned, but not in a life-threatening kind of way.
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But now a year later, I am again going to bed for the last time at home before a new season begins. I’m taking off to Georgia tomorrow for a few weeks, and plan on being out there in some sort of living capacity by the end of the month.
Sometimes I’m excited. It’s good to be excited about new chapters.
Other times, I stare at everything that surrounds me, and frustration +anxiety+ “God, are you SERIOUS?” sets in. I go through this mental checklist of blessings, accomplishments, skills, talents, connections, people, (and California’s perfect weather) and I find myself wondering why on earth I would walk away from those things? And why on earth I feel like the next chapter has very little to do with any of the above.
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The answer?
Because 2012 is a year of abandonment for real. It’s a year where I am actually going to be humbled–where I learn that those skills, accomplishments, talents, connections mean NOTHING when I’m living of my own strength and from my own hyper-plans. It looks like I’m about to live a year where if the Lord doesn’t provide, then I’m SOL.
And that’s a good place for me. It’s a new place.
And. I asked for it.
I asked that 2012 would be a year where I learned to trust. Where I learned that “in quietness and trust is my strength.” (Isaiah 30:15)
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So it should be of no surprise either, that we are three days into this glorious new year, and I feel like at every turn my issues of trusting are being laid bare. Raw. Exposed.
I see it everywhere in bright yellow hi-liter fashion: in family, good friends, and mostly? Jesus. It’s not that I don’t think He makes good on His promises–far from it! And mostly I don’t consider myself paranoid or think that the world is out to get me or even that it’s me against the world.
But somehow, when it comes time for change in my life, TRUST becomes a big pill to swallow.
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So.
The Lord asked me a tough question the other night when I was on the phone with my dear squadmate, Lacey. We were both tromping through our provisional trust issues, and she declared that I would be a person of radical faith.
All of the sudden, I saw Noah building the ark.
Now these chapters in Genesis are brief–it fails to mention how ridiculously absurd Noah must have looked. It does say that the Lord was displeased wtih everyone except Noah, that none were righteous except him.
And so, I can only imagine that here’s this man going around asking for all these supplies to build the ark out in this massive open space, and normal, self-reliant people are gathering to point and laugh at him. To say, “Bro, what in the heck? We live in a desert dude. Ain’t no rain wiping us out anytime soon.” And Noah just keeps tinkering away. **
The vast majority–as in everyone— are laughing at him, mocking him.
He builds. He trusts that the Lord spoke to Him about destruction and gave him instructions on how to save himself and his family.
Now, here’s what the Lord asked me the other night. He asked me in this moment of my walk of faith, who was I in that scene? Was I Noah faithfully clinging and acting on the Lord’s word or was I in the masses jeering and ridiculing?
(Tail between legs moment).
And, Tiffany, how exactly did that end?
Uh, well I mean I love swimming, but I just don’t see me making it if I’m not in the ark. 
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Trust.
Especially when it seems to not fit.
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*What a classic. Thank you, Drew Casper for too many wonderful cinematic adventures in your classes in those beloved four years at USC. (On a different note, Simona, I never thought I’d give him a shout out on a blog before you! Rough.)
**I’m guessing the story of Noah must have also been the inspiration for one of my personal favorite movies, Field of Dreams. Talk about someone looking looney! He plowed under his crops to build a baseball field at the risk of losing his home… Right, completely normal. And yet, I have always loved that movie and I’m sure it’s because dude-bro-Kevin Costner didn’t lean on his own understanding.
