To be honest, I’ve been trying and trying to write a blog for several weeks now. I want so badly to update all of you on what I’ve been doing with my squadmates, but I can’t even seem to muster up a summary of our day-to-day activities. There’s definitely a lot going on, and we’ve been spending time doing amazing things on both work days and off days, but I can’t seem to get any of it written down. I even scrapped a blog I’d started writing a week or so ago in favor of starting anew.
My thoughts and feelings have been unusually complicated, though they seem to be increasingly impactful. Adjusting to living with 19 other people, working 6 days a week (the past 2 weeks have been manual labor), adventuring around a new place, struggling to find internet, and experiencing faith doubts seems to be more challenging than I thought it would be.
I can’t seem to get a handle on myself. Or anything, it seems. I love change (in fact I thrive on it – don’t you dare make me live in a routine!), so I’ve been challenged to figure out why this particular life change has been so much more difficult than others I’ve had.
I’ve been blessed with some pretty incredible things in my life: an unconditionally supportive family, true “thick and thin” friends, health, a great variety of opportunities, and an amazing community where I’ve grown and flourished for the past 7 years.
And since I’m being honest here, I think I’ve always prided myself on being able to handle change well. Even when I don’t handle it well, I am usually able to hide the struggle from most people with an exception of those who know me really well. What I have realized is that my grounding has always been in something or someplace tangible and subject to change (see aforementioned list of blessings). If I’m not grounded in something unchanging, then I will be shaken every time something big happens.
And I don’t want to be that person.
I want to be grounded and constant, dependable and balanced, and it’s taken me 25 years to realize that I cannot do this myself. It doesn’t matter how great my friends are, how loving my family is, how much I exercise, or where I live. These things can all change and I need to be dependant on something else, or someone else.
So that’s where I’m at. Learning to depend on an unchanging God who is deserving of my trust and my life, and in whom I can fully, and truly rest.
