The in between. The now and the not yet. The finished and the beginning. The sadness and the excitement.
I actually went 100 miles an hour all summer and and didn’t really ever have time to reflect on everything that happened. No doubt the best summer of my entire life, however. Work crew completely changed my life and I didn’t realize then, but I think I changed more in my time there then I had in all my 18 years of living. Training camp was a week after getting back from Crooked Creek and I can honestly say that it was not as bad as I thought it was going to be. Met the people I will be living my life with and I love them so very much. Even though at training camp, launch was only a couple months away, it didn’t really feel real to me. I knew what I signed up for and what I felt the Lord calling me to do and I knew I was leaving pretty soon, yet nothing really sunk in. Went straight from Georgia to Wyoming for a week backpacking in the woods. One of the hardest things I’ve ever done for sure ,but I learned a ton about myself, my best friends, and God. It was amazing and I could’t have asked for a better way to end my time with my people before everyone left. I got home from that and left for Canada a couple days later (love overcommitting to things all summer) for a wedding and some much needed fam time.
When I got home from Canada, most people where gone and off to the next chapter of their lives. I got home to my house, but home isn’t really home if the people you love the most aren’t there. I tried to fill my days with errands, yoga, and spending time with family, but I felt alone and honestly pretty sad. I knew that I was about to travel and have such an amazing year but I couldn’t help feeling like I got left behind. Like everyone was going to this normal thing called college and I was at home alone with nothing to do. The time at home all alone before launch was one of the hardest months for me. I did try to dive into scripture and read my Bible a ton which ,most of the time, turned out to be the best part of my day. I flipped to a random page in my devo book one day that was literally called the “In Between”. It talked about being in dry seasons of life when you are in between two good or exciting things and you just have to wait and trust in God’s plans. As I started reading through the devos and the scripture, it talked a lot about being still. I realized then that God was trying to teach me something really important. I hate being still. I love having 100 things going on and not being able to stop and think. That’s comfortable to me and I like it. However, the more I talked to God and learned to trust him fully, I realized that being still is exactly what I needed to be doing. I had been doing things for God most of my summer forgetting that God’s love for me doesn’t increase with the things I do for Him. He already loves me no matter how many things I do for Him and I needed to be reminded of that.
Looking back on that month, as I sit in Thailand amazed at that fact that this is my life now, I am thankful for that time that I had to be still at home. God really does have a crazy way of doing things and I consistently find Him doing the most in my life when I am the most frustrated and/or uncomfortable.
Very thankful for the in-between because it led me here – living in the cutest hostel in Thailand with my very best friends ever, and teaching people about God and the amazing things He is capable of.
