New

First published January 2010

Our dear friends...

Another dear friend...

Today we pack and I mean PACK. We've been waiting for a few days now to begin all of the major sorting and stuffing because we use everything that we brought...therefore, we can't pack it too early. Makes for a very weird, last-minute scenario.

I'm looking at the empty totes in front of me and I think, "Here we go again." New place. New people. New stores. New customs. New expectations. Sigh. Honestly, it makes me overwhelmed to think about starting over...and slightly frightened.

I have just spent the last 12 months clawing and scraping my way into a form of routine...trying to carve out some sense of normalcy...and now I'm trading it for an airline ticket 2.5 hours south and a world away to Sudan.

What was I thinking?! This kind of life is for brave people, strong people, curious people. I don't feel as though I'm any of those things. I feel dependent, weak and quite able to keep questions to myself. So I find myself in a quandry. Do I go and "fake it til I make it"? or Do I throw the towel in and say I've had a good run?

The easier answer would be the latter, but easier is not always better. "Better" sometimes comes in difficult circumstances, trying times and simply trusting for what's ahead.

I just read in Romans, "If you're a hard worker and do a good job, you deserve your pay; we don't call your wages a gift. But if you see that the job is too big for you, that it's something only God can do, and you trust him to do it--you could never do it for yourself no matter how hard and long your worked--well, that trusting-him-to-do-it is what gets you set right with God, by God. Sheer gift."

It reminds me that I not only entrust my soul to God, but also those things that encompass my everyday life...no matter how difficult it may seem. "Abraham entered into what God was doing for him, and that was the turning point. He trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own."

So if I trust God with my eternity, I should trust Him with my today knowing that I am "entering into what He is doing for me." In other words, I shouldn't pick and choose what I think I'm capable of doing and then ask for help on the remaining tasks, but rather understand that He is involved in every detail and even more comforting to know that He is there in every circumstance. 

Let's get packing...