Here I sit, surrounded by boxes once again. My life is slowly being packed away into cardboard cubes, I’m sorting through things I want to keep and things I need to get rid of. This time, though, it’s different. I’m not moving across the country or leaving to go around the world. I’m simply moving to a different house across town. It’s still hard. It’s emotional, going through things I had forgotten about, picking through pieces of my life, mementos from all the places I’ve been. My heart is being broken again and again as I remember…
I see the 2010 calendar I received from AIM that contains a picture I took in India. The world map on the back of my t-shirt blanket. The jewelry I’ve collected from various countries. The dishes I bought in college. The purse I bought at a conference, hand-made by women in Bosnia. My Nalgene full of stickers from Urbana and the World Race. The messenger bag I made with t-shirt scraps and a piece of fabric from the Kuna people in Panama. The figurine my mom sent when I was in the Philippines and missing my family dearly over Christmas. The bells we rang at one of my good friend’s wedding a month ago. The nursing books I spent hundreds (probably thousands) of dollars on in college. The basket I bought from a tiny village in Malawi…the list could go on and on.
Everything inside me wants to pack up all this “stuff” and ship it back to my parents’ house, and hop on a plane to some foreign destination. My dream is and has always been to be a missionary nurse, to live and travel overseas, to help kids who would otherwise have no access to health care, to love on people that are otherwise considered unloveable. My plan was to finish college, work for a couple years, and, by the time I was 25, be overseas trying to find my way.
The thing is, that wasn’t God’s plan, or at least not the timing of His plan. I finished college and instead of getting into a mainstream nursing job, headed out on this crazy adventure we call the World Race. And when I got back I was confused, unsure of where I was supposed to go or what I was supposed to do. I wandered for a while in Michigan, getting to know my family and friends again after being away for so long, finding a church that finally challenged me and encouraged me all at the same time, and then God said “move.” So I moved, across the country, to Colorado Springs. I knew a handful of people but had no job lined up, no church community, and no idea what I was getting in to.
But God knew. His ways are perfect. His plans are best.
I’ve lived in Colorado for nearly a year, and though this year has not been easy, it’s been good. After 4 moves, 3 jobs, 2 new churches, multiple road-trips, and countless adventures, I’m beginning to find myself again. Remember when the Israelites wandered in the desert for 40 years? God knew best for them, but they were too stubborn and stuck in their ways to see it, so He allowed them to wander, to become fully dependent on Him for even their daily bread. God’s been doing the same thing with me. He knows I’m too stubborn to see things His way right away all the time, that I like to make my own plans and think they’re best, so He allows me to wander, to search, and to come back and cling to Him when I realize that He is all I have and all I need.
And it just gets better the closer to Him I get. I still feel like I’m wandering, still have no idea what I’m doing after the next few months, and some days just plain want to give up and go crawling back to things that were once so familiar. But above all that, there is peace. I find joy in what I’m doing, and though my heart is continually being broken as I hear stories from orphanages and churches and relational ministry and unreached peoples, I have peace knowing that my turn with them will come again. I can go to work, and even though I may not love every minute, I know I’m learning valuable skills to store up for future use.
And I can pack my life up again, knowing that someday (hopefully soon) I’ll be packing for a much bigger adventure than simply moving across town.
