Psalm 23

I am currently waiting for Netflix to load and decided to write a blog.

What a strange week it has been. My car was loaded (thanks to the help of some fabulous people... ahem Hannah Mack and The Pipers and my Mom and Dad), driven to Virginia and sort of unloaded.... in order or stuff which I feel like I will need in the next two weeks.

But the strangeness really happened today. I did nothing.
Not really nothing. I went grocery shopping with my dad, used a Starbucks gift card that I got for my birthday, watched a movie, watched the Bachelorette, ate, took a walk, texted some favorites back in Raleigh. But I didn't rush anywhere. I didn't have to go to work. I didn't have to write a paper or watch any children. I didn't have small group.

It was strange. I felt like I needed to be somewhere.
Then I got an e-mail. An e-mail that asked if I was interested in being an intern with a church plant in Washington. I started freaking out.

I get bored really easily. I think it's a matter of I feel like I need to be used or doing something.
The reality is the e-mailed freaked me out because I needed something to do. Instead of trusting God and God's sovereign plan over my life, I stressed out that perhaps this is where he wants me or maybe I have been wrong, or what if the place where I am in the fall requires support raising and that's just hard to do in California.

So while at Starbucks getting my free drink, I started reading Psalm 23. Such a familiar passage with familiar saying that many times I glaze over. The point of the passage though is not me. It is not about who I am or what I have done. It is about Christ. Christ leads me to still waters, Christ restores my soul and ultimately, Christ brings me home. I sat in silence (well as much as I could as Starbucks was blasting Lady Gaga) and tried to focus my heart on those truths.
That while nothing goes as I plan, everything is under His authority and in His control.

 "Will you lead me beside the still water? Where oil, it runs over, and my cup overflows. You restore my soul."

Going.... again.

As I sit in my last class of the semester, I am being challenged by my missions class perhaps for the first time all semester.

This class has been a struggle for me because I love missions. I love the people that go. The people that send. The people who leverage their lives for the gospel. I love that God has called me to be a part of something big.

Then came the harshness. My professor started to yell at us. Not in a mean way but in a very real way. He said, "We haven't really submitted to Christ until Christ ask us to go and do something we don’t want to do." 


I have committed my summer and possibly my next year to living on the West Coast. This summer I will be in California working with churches doing VBS camps and local ministries. The fall will bring me to Seattle (hopefully) where I will be working with students at U of W. 


I am excited but there is so much in me that doesn't want to go. I want to stay here. I want to keep my friends. I want to keep my small group. I am scared about what this next year will bring. I am scared about how to work with college students in the fall or failing this summer. 


So when I heard this, I realized that I am giving up things that I fought hard for. That I struggled to find. That I missed in China. I fear that I will lose everything. 
So in preparation for this, I have been reading Philippians and the thing that God has been reminding me over and over is, "For me, to live is Christ." This is where I want my heart to be. I want to life to be centered around Christ. Not Christ plus my friends. Not Christ plus my classes. But Christ and Christ alone. He has called me to do things like leave (again). Leave my comforts. Leave my family. Leave everything that I currently hold very dear to go and serve Him. 


And it will be worth it.