You know that thing when you move to a new place and people who care about you are like "keep us updated on your whereabouts and what happens to you" and you reply with that enthusiastic "oh, don't you worry, I'm gonna write a blog to keep everyone who wants to be in the loop, in the loop."
Don't you worry.
Except that keeping up a blog is hard. Yes, I do love to write. I have kept a journal faithfully since I received my first floral covered one from Breanne Wiggins some 18 years ago. Wow, who'd a thunk I would have begun anything "18 years ago" besides being born. I was 10, by the way. Ten years of age when I started a thing that would come to fill twenty or so bindings. All that to say, writing for solely my own pleasure comes very easily to me. Writing with the knowledge that other people will read it, however, makes me feel more akin to “bent double, like old beggars under sacks/ knock-kneed, coughing like hags” (to get fancy and quote one of my favorite poems by Wilfred Owen).
I have too much respect for the written word. To much respect not to be wary of casually vomitting more out into the universe. I have read good writing, and I have read great writing. The latter makes me quake in my writer aspiring boots. Who am I? Who am I to tread where literary gods have tread? Who am I to presume upon the medium that I respect and revere?
Exactly.
And so I present my dramatic excuse for my lack of blogdom. I'm doing it now, though, FOR NARNIA!! And I will proceed to share with you every boring and occasionally not boring detail of this learning process we call life.
I feel I've already learned a lot from these past 3 months in the southern region of California. You know that saying Socrates allegedly said? "An unexamined life is not worth living." I'm feeling the truth of that right now. The benefit of this pause. This pause to reflect and relate to others the goings ons. We need each other, people. It's true.
But now I'm torn. Do I jump into the revolutionary revelations God has been revealing to me? Or do I save it for another day so we can all appreciate it better?
I will tell you this. From where I am currently writing in my father's office, at my father's desk, there are an assortment of family photos on display. A few where my mother is present, most notably one of just her in her twenties, young, smooth-faced, wrinkle free. Slightly to the right there is a picture of my mom and dad many years later. Looking back and forth between these two pictures I can't help but think how by the world's standards my mom would be considered more beautiful in the first picture, glowing with the kiss of youth. And yet it is my mother's more aged face that draws me in. It is that face that warms my heart with its beauty. And she's only become more beautiful since that picture was taken. I say that with all the truth that exists within me, and it comforts me. I will remember this as I age. When wrinkles take up permanent residence on my once semi blemish free face. My hypothetical children will find me beautiful, and more so with each passing year. And I will dwell in that truth rather than the one the multitude of strangers insist on. The one that is only truly a deception.
So anyways, what about Turkey?
What about the grand plan to embark for the unknown? What about traveling to the middle of the Middle East to do something great for King and Country?
It is along this vein that I have experienced some recent educating from the Lord.
Most notably I’ve realized: the job isn't what saves me. Amiright! The "calling", discovering my "purpose," unearthing those talents God has entrusted to me, these things are not where my salvation lies. And maybe that sounds obvious to you, and at various times has been obvious to me. But that's the funny thing with life. New twists and turns reveal truths in a deeper way that couldn't have been realized earlier. It's a journey. And you can't cross the bridge before you get to the bridge. It's a really awkward spectacle if you try.
So at this juncture, I've felt God ask me if it's HIM I am seeking or if it's the noble task? Would I be willing to follow his leading if that leading never took me to the far reaches of the earth? If it never took me on life threatening adventures, or to legendary sacrifices? Would I be willing to sacrifice in ways that go unnoticed? In ways that are a lot less glamorous. Would I die for him each day, dying to my own established plans and desires?
Now, I don't know that that means that Turkey isn't in the cards for me, but I do know that it means I'm surrendered to the possibility that it won't be, or that it won't come about in the fashion that I had intended.
The thing is, I can't see very far into the future and I have to be ok with that. I'm not supposed to know the future. As is a common theme with us doubting humans, God is teaching me to trust him. To believe that he has a plan for my future and it's really none of my business what that is until I come to it.
What I AM responsible for is the present. And presently, I started a job at a wonderful privately owned bakery that just opened this year. I wake up at 2:40 in the a.m. Dawn multiple layers of clothing, wash my face, brush my teeth, and ride my Honda Rebel 30 minutes through the sleeping world to arrive in Granada Hills promptly at 3:45am. I then proceed to have a wonderful time prepping and decorating danishes, croissants, and brioche tarts and learning the ins and outs of all manners of creams and fillings. This job was very much an answer to prayer, but even this job couldn't save my life.
Only God can do that. Nothing else can make life worth living. No one else can make life worth living. Maybe these declarations frighten you. Maybe they sound too extreme. I'm here to tell you, they aren't. They are truth in it's truthiest.
It's all about Jesus. There's only one throne and the moment you put anything or anyone else on that throne is the moment everything goes to shite.
You can quote me on it. Me and Socrates.
In conclusion, I don't know that I am going to Turkey. I know that I want to. I know that I am very willing to do all those things I said I was going to do. But I have no desire to tread anywhere if it's not where God is telling me to go. I won't go into the promised land without him. I won’t go to Turkey without him. I want Jesus more than I want any grand plan that I have to serve him and save people for him.
I don't call the shots.
He does.
But I'll still keep you posted on where those shots take us.
By the way. I love you.
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