Leaving Me Breathless...

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. ~Romans 8:28

Everyday we are faced with choices. Some that are small and insignificant such as what to eat for lunch or where to sit. However, some days we are faced with major crossroads, and forced to decide what we should do, a decision that may impact the rest of our lives. I think that it is funny, because even though many times throughout my life, I have been faced with a choice that at the time seemed nearly impossible to make, at the end of the day (or month or year), if we really look at the heart of the question and really think about what God is telling us, we do know the answer. Though we almost always know, often it does not seem so obvious until we look back at our life.

In thinking about my past and my journey from here and there, I can see God's hand in all of them. I think about my choice to go to Samford and how that is in no way a mistake. I learned so much in the year that I lived on my own, forced to make new friends, and learn to live without depending on anyone or anything for familiarity and direction. I thank God everyday for the friends that I made, including my best friend Kelley and how I'm not sure how I lived the first 18 years of my life without her or who I would be today. I think about the opportunity I had to go to London, and though the decision was rather rash, how it was so right. I think of all the things I learned about myself while living a continent away and the things I could live without and the ones that I couldn't. If it weren't for the semester in London, I may still think that I could be okay without ever again seeing my family and friends or eating Mexican. I look at all these major decisions and though they may have been tough at the time, it is so clear that it was in God's plan for me. I think about the decision I made to come home to Kentucky and crying one night to my mom and saying, "I just don't know if its what I'm supposed to do!" I see my life as it is now, and there is no question that it was the right decision, though it seems so complicated at the time.

Words cannot describe how much hope this gives me. It is not just up to me to decide what to do with my life but it is up to Someone that knows far more than me and about me. But here's where things seem a little more unclear. For so many of us, we have had to face the pain of a decision that was not up to us. We have had to struggle with the feeling that our lives are broken and that things are not going according to plan. Or sometimes God is calling us to do something that is not so easy. Something that may in fact hurt someone else or send us into a void of unknown. However, it is in these situations that God really gets to become a Mover and a Shaker.

He promises us that He will constantly be working through us for the good of us who love Him. He promises us that even when we cannot possibly imagine how we can make it through or how a situation can work out, that He has something even greater in the works. He is promising us that through the pain that we are forced to endure by living in this fallen world, that He is going to give us something great and at the same time maybe give something great to someone else. Does this not testify to the power of my God?! That He, betrayed by one of His arch angels and the creatures that He gave life to, can bring out good, and I mean good in a sense that I cannot possibly understand (not like I think chocolate is good) even through all the pain and evil. Not only does this testify to the power of God but also to His unfailing, everlasting, mercy that He, someone who could have wiped us all out and started over, chose to work for the good of us, even through all the pain that we created for ourselves through sin. And because this thought leaves me breathless, I'm going to take it a step further and wonder at the amount of love that he had for us to not only work towards our good but to send His Son to DIE for us so that he can spend eternity with us dwelling in His home.

I am humbled beyond words. I cannot thank my God enough for the knowledge and comfort that I take in knowing that even when I can't seem to see it through my pain, and even though it may take months, or years, or a lifetime, I will one day understand that God put me through pain for me to have the life He intended me to have. And thank God, He has a plan for me that is better than one I could actually have created for myself. It is in realizations like this I beg God to take the part of me that is always getting in the way of myself. Haha, but even with that part of me (which lets face it is most of me) He somehow manages to work in spite of it and sometimes even through it.

And on this note, I am exhausted (it is 4:21 am) and I am going to bed. I am thankful for my life that it is not my own, but is in the hands of Someone who is far more capable than me.