Unrest.

I’m glad in God, far happier than you would ever guess—happy that you’re again showing such strong concern for me. Not that you ever quit praying and thinking about me. You just had no chance to show it. Actually, I don’t have a sense of needing anything personally. I’ve learned by now to be quite content whatever my circumstances. I’m just as happy with little as with much, with much as with little. I’ve found the recipe for being happy whether full or hungry, hands full or hands empty. Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am. I don’t mean that your help didn’t mean a lot to me—it did. It was a beautiful thing that you came alongside me in my troubles.

 ` Philippians 4:10-14 The Message

 

            This time last year I was on a plane bound for Ghana.  I don’t need to read my old posts to remember how I was feeling.  I was so excited.  I had never been more confident of anything in my life.  I knew I was doing the right thing and I knew I was right where I was supposed to be.  Life was whole and complete.  Living in the satisfaction of knowing you’re doing what Christ wants you to do provides a peace like no other.  I was clueless as to how I was going to be used and what I was going to learn over those ten months.  Not once have I ever really used anything I learned in college but not a day goes by since returning that I don’t draw from what I learned and experienced in Ghana.

            And now I’m here.  I’ve learned and I’ve grown and I’m thankful for that.  I have no fear.  “Stupid bravery” as friends call it.  I purposefully make decisions and take action to not fall into the same mistakes I’ve so easily fallen into before.  Yet I am still so much the same person I was before I left.  I’m restless.  I’m just as restless as I was before I left.  I’m just as alone, just as frustrated and just as empty. 

            My calling in life is to care for and to love.  My gift is making people feel good and safe and secure. I need to nurture.  But you won’t let me.

            There are children in this world who need love.  Who need attention and who need affection.  I’m so ready to provide that. I’m ready and willing to go. To show and share how much Jesus loves them.  It’s what He wants us to do…what he commands us to do.  But it’s not what He’s commanding me to do. 

            He’s commanding me to sit behind this desk, and to go back school, and to live in a town I don’t like living in. And it pisses me off.  (Don’t fret, my God can handle my anger.) He’s forcing me to live a life I don’t want to live.

            Paul wrote the above passage while sitting in a jail cell waiting for a verdict for a crime he didn’t commit.  And he still found peace and contentment with his situation. Pfffft.

            Praying that I can be like Paul in my current state of unrest, that I can find the joy and the contentment in my current place.  In Ghana I prayed that God would give me my portion each day.  I didn’t need anything extra, I just needed what would get me through the day.  In a place where there was nothing I needed very little to be happy.

            Why is it that I now feel like I need so much?

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