Friday, August 24, 2012

hi everyone! i'm baaaaack!

Did you miss me??
I missed myself!  I'm living in this crazy "moved-to-another-state" fog.  But now the sun is rising as the beautiful scenery {called my life} which surrounds me is coming into clear focus!  I'm starting to be able to weed the forest from the trees again!!  wahoo!

I'm an Intern Wife!
I'm a what?! It's been four years.  Four years filled with my husband attending seminary classes.  Books.  Studying.  Papers.  Tests.  Studying.  Four loooong years that have flown by.  And I can't believe we've come to the final leg of this journey.  We need to survive this one year of internship to get Mike's graduation in May.  Craaazy.

Crossing Over the Border.
When you are looking back at four years of your life, you easily forget the beginning.  The transition involved.  The change.  And just how incredibly hard it was.  I came full circle as I sat in my PA apartment.  Once I saw it as unfamiliar and strange.  I felt incredibly lonely for so long inside those walls.  {Those ugly fake-brown wood-paneled walls.}

And today, it's my home.  Both my babies came home from the hospital to this place.  Pies, cookies, and stews have filled that apartment air with yummy, home-saturated aromas.  Daily sunrises experienced from that large kitchen window.  Laughter of soul-knit-friends sitting around our table. I didn't want to leave.

But we packed up the house onto the truck anyway.


And drove, the next morning, to NY where our future was waiting.

Our God-willed, glorious, and terrifying future.  To a place that is unfamiliar and strange...all over again.

Welcome to Rochester!
When we pulled up to the new {3rd floor} apartment of where we would soon call "home", we had no idea that 90% of the church staff and their offspring would be waiting to help us unload our life. How wonderful to receive such a reception!  And how convenient that our moving day was 7/11.  Does anyone know what that means?!  FREE SLURPEE's, of course.  About half-way through the unloading process, everyone dropped what they were doing, and created a human-caravan of 20+ people walking toward the nearest 7/11 located right around the corner.  This should have been the first sign I should love it here.


Missing Then, Warming up to Now
It's not that I don't love it here in NY.  Because I do {with the exception of those hated Yankees...}.  I really enjoy what is happening here.  Our apartment is adorable.  The people warm and friendly.  The area beautiful.  The community booming with activities.  And the church is phenomenal.  It's just that I miss what I had.  I love the friends I had/have.  I was comfortable and happy with my life in PA.  I miss it terribly.

Change is Hard.
I recently came across a quote by Neale Donald Walsch that reads,
Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.
Change has always been incredibly difficult for me.  I never remember this.  Until change comes.  And I morph into an emotional mess of a human being.   I cry.  I whine.  I complain.  I have a full-fledged pity party with an perfect attendance of one.

And then the Lord begins a major over-haul on my heart.  He leads me to the perfect Scripture at the perfect time.  He sends the right people to say the right things.  He reveals Himself in the midst of my self-wallowing-sorrow to remind me of His plan...and how it's not about me.





The Writing on the Wall
"The Lord lifts up the humble..."  says Psalm 147:6. That is the verse that appeared written on my bathroom mirror as a result of the steam from my shower.  I had just finished crying out to God in that shower over my seemingly sad struggle of a life, to step out and find those words.  The former tenants must have written that verse on the mirror with an expo marker and washed it away prior to us moving in.  Can you imagine the chills that run down a selfish person's back??  Well, yeah.

I tend to get so caught up inside my own head, I forget why I even have this life.

Why am I even in NY?
What is my purpose?  It's not for luxury.  Or joy.  Comfort.  Pleasure.  Convenience.  Money. Or even Mike's short commute to work {just down the stairs to his first-floor office}.

But for
the glory of God.

We are in this place because God revealed Himself to Mike and I.  He showed us, individually, that He is Creator.  We are the created.  That He is Holy.  We are not.  And because He loves what He has created with a pure and perfect love, He longed to be reunited with us.  He made us aware of His love.  And that He made a way for sinners, like us, to live for all eternity, with Him.  If we only accepted the truth of our sin.  And that He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to sacrificially die in our place.  And to be resurrected, so we may also live.  And because we believed in that truth and believed in His plan of redemption, recompense and reunion, we have salvation.  

In return, we have given our WHOLE lives to worship Him in thankfulness to Him, as inadequate as my feeble attempt is.  This includes moving to NY.

The Lord will maintain my cause
He will maintain HIS purpose in my life.  Isaiah 26:3 says, You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.  I don't have to be strong.  I don't have to be perfect.  It's OK that it's hard.  All God expects of me is to COOPERATE.


Keeping it All in Focus
How does one remember to cooperate on a regular basis?

I must remember to focus DAILY on GOD'S GRACE in my life.

Luke 6:20-21
Blessed are you who are poor,
for yours in the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who are hungry now,
for you shall be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now,
for you shall laugh.

Although today I face unmet needs, pain and rejection, I have assurance of better things to come.  Life isn't always fair or fun.  I may cry sometimes now, yet one day I will know complete satisfaction and joy.  The Lord is my ultimate hope.  I must look forward to being in heaven with Him forever.  I must focus on what brings me pleasure today.  I must focus daily on the things that remind me of heaven. {Joan C. Webb}

So What Am I trying to Say?

I'm going to be OK.




83°
Sunny.
Perfect weather to get your NY driver's license.
Enhanced version, of course.

1 comment:

  1. Howdy from Kansas!
    Some relocations will be easier than others. It all comes out in the wash!
    God bless you real good.
    d on the kansas prairie

    ReplyDelete

Love is to the heart what the summer is to the farmer's year - it brings to harvest all the loveliest flowers of the soul. -Unknown