A Beautiful Thing

When I started this journey this summer as a graduate from an institution of higher education in Biblical exposition and cross-cultural ministries, living with international people, and grabbing a job that is just that...a job, in the Outer Banks of NC, I thought it different. There was a time where dreamworld seemed to take over in the few days before moving to the house on the sound side. But I think I didn't even have this much culture shock when I spent two summers in Bosnia.

I was shoved out of a world of homework, tests, and performance stress and after 17 years of schooling suddenly I have a Bachelor's degree and need to hold a job to pay off massive amounts of debt. So there I sat in a new house in a new place, with new people who still insisted their worldview into our everyday lives which meant flexibility on both parts even though flexibility seemed to be questionable at times. It was a strange concept to be in my own culture and still having to do a few things slightly more customarily to what someone else believes is appropriate.

When I thought about how this summer would be, I thought much of it would be spent on the beach when I wasn't at work (which isn't entirely off course), busting my hump with support raising which has regrettably somewhat taken a bit of a back-burner because of my focus on my job, and running everyday getting my workout on...but alas that has suffered dramatically as well.

It's not at all worked out the way I had planned but it hasn't been a disaster, and that is the beautiful thing about not being completely in control. It is the blissfully wonderful thing about being merely human and only having a limited amount of ability to fashion the course of our lives. Although I am stressing a little bit about support raising and although I am facing a higher number in debt, and even though sometimes I have a bad attitude about my situation, I seem to perk up in a short while because I know who holds my future, my faith is secure because I know who is the author and perfecter of it. I praise him for letting me be able to let go of control that I sometimes deem as rightfully mine. It is a beautiful thing.

All to God