The last few days have been some of the most intense ups-and-downs since I left Japan...re-living feelings like, "I want to go hide in a cave for the rest of my life!" and then suddenly switching over to "I'm so lonely!"...my heart aching as I've been packing for college, with my mind realizing that I was going to be heading up to CSP and the rest of me not quite grasping the fact that I wasn't packing to head back to Japan. Seeing old friends and dear sisters at K. and J.'s wedding and traveling across country with Cindy somehow seriously switched my life-view to Japan rather than America...it was like suddenly I was caught in this cycle of grasping for everyone, knowing that the grasping was wrong, and pushing everyone away, and knowing that pushing everyone away was wrong...oy!
Anyway, I moved in last night up here at school, and besides random computer issues, things are fine...God-given time, to say the least. I was planning on joining up with P today and heading to a Japanese church, but after an hour of trying to figure out google map routes and metro transit trips and books for classes that I needed to know by noon today...I finally found myself sighing in frustration and saying, "God, why won't these schedules work out?!!?" The answer I got was very unlike the way I normally hear God--but it was such a loud "BECAUSE YOU SHOULDN'T BE GOING! I've given you a whole campus with a church service here and people to connect with..." that I was left sighing and saying, "Ok, ok, I got it!" :)
So, because I wasn't going to be wandering around the cities, I got up for some time with my coffee, the blessings book, and a Bible before the 10am service...and it was good. A few days ago, when I finally gave in to the inner turmoil and posted a complaint about the transience of life on facebook, Linds responded with the rhetorical question, "For Christians, what's not eternal?"...and the first blessing that I opened up with today was a blessing for a legacy that goes on after our deaths...I've been mulling over Linds' words in my head, and the blessing also was such a good reminder that I'm not here for the moment, but am part of a bigger story that God is writing. Logically, I know that if Paul would have stayed in Athens, he would have missed seeing God's blessings in other places as he traveled...and even though there is still pain at separation and loss in some respects, I was very reminded of the fact that Japan is but a small piece of a huge "book of Acts"...
Time with God also helped open my eyes to a few other things as well. God needs to use me here. I've just had almost three years of living in intense Christian community...something that these young adults haven't necessarily experienced...there have been battles with spiritual darkness...that maybe those around me now have tried to explain away or simply ignore. Don't get me wrong--there is much in this community that can be feeding for me also...but "getting through the year" and avoiding relationships that will once again be torn and cause pain in the end because of the transient nature of life that God's called me to (apparently) is an approach that neither brings growth or praise...
So, back to the books. Back to The Book...back to prayers like, "God, please orchestrate my day and my relationships and my times of rest and times of work...just orchestrate it all..."
Sigh. I still miss...still...
But it's good.
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