A Whirlwind...

So we just got back from an awesome week in NYC. This was my very first time to the city and I really had a blast. We were there with other lead planter couples that are a part of The Orchard Group, which is one of our main supporting organizations. Their main focus has been on planting new churches in the Northeast and a primary focus on NYC. We had a great time of just getting away by ourselves and just enjoying time with one another. My favorite highlights from our trip were walking down 5th Ave and going into FAO Schwartz and seeing the piano from the movie Big with Tom Hanks. The Metropolitan Museum of Art was so fascinating too, just looking at all the art and thinking about thousands and thousands of years ago and how developed their artwork was for their time. I joked with Josh,"This is what people did with their time before TV and the internet." In some ways I do think that's true. I've been thinking a lot lately about how I spend my time and asking myself what am I actually doing that's making a difference. How am I living out the mission of Jesus daily? I am really wrestling with this question and asking God to show me my next step. Recently I have been thinking about my what are my passions, what moves me? I really do have a passion for moms and for women who find themselves in a crisis pregnancy situations. So, I find myself brainstorming ways that I can be spending more time with people and ways I can live out how Jesus lived.

Finding Stability

Having good friends that you can count on makes life feel very comfortable and stable. It is weird to leave everything that is safe. It feels very counterintuitive and uncomfortable at times. I do love a great adventure, but I don't always love change. I never ever moved as a kid and even if I thought about moving as a child I often got myself so worked up that I would be in tears at times. I don't really know what I was so afraid of as a kid, but I think it's the things that we are all still afraid of as adults. Will I ever find new friends that actually like me for me? Will life be the same? Will I find the same stability if I make this change? I really think that's it for me. I love stability and for things to be steady; in a way it is part of my personality. God continually convicts me of trying to hold too tightly to this world and to stability. I believe it is possible to make an idol out stability, and to cling to it more than to God. It never works out to do that though. God truly calls himself The Rock for a reason. He is the only thing steady and constant in life.

When I was 15 years old I realized that Jesus was truly all I needed. My dad went through congestive heart failure and had been in the hospital several months, and things in my family were truly spinning out of control. I'll never forget a song that my youth pastor wrote that touched my heart so deeply, and they are words that I still cling to today: "through all the shifting sand when I could not stand you surrounded me. So many times I cried and pleaded for what I thought I really needed, for you to take this pain and hurt from me. When I thought all my hope was gone I found your grace and it's sufficiency." The sand was shifting in my life at the time as it often does and I realized Jesus was the only thing that would never change. Clinging to Him is what I have done since, not to say I have tried to pick up stability again a time or two. I have realized that my life is about serving the One True God and that's what I need to stay focused on.

I do miss being so close to the relationships I've spent the last 3 1/2 years building. But, I truly am looking forward to the adventure of getting to know some new future best friends. I know that there will be a reward of great friendships when I cling to God for my constant and remember that He is the giver of all good things! He already knows exactly what I need.