Postcards from God

Have you ever been in that moment where you don't know what to do in life and you could just desperately use a sign?

I'm stuck there right now... I have so many things on my mind that I don't know what to do about. Situations arise on my wing, relationships with people are complicated and I don't know how to go about dealing with them.

It's times like these where I feel like a postcard from God would just be acceptable. Just a little note pushing me on the right track. But then I stop and wonder, "did God send me some sort of postcard already and I just missed it?" And with that thought, I'm just back to worrying about how to do certain things.

I have talked SO often lately with friends about everything, (believe me there is a lot going on and school hasn't even started yet) but the problem is that we have never come to a conclusion. All we keep saying is "Take everything to God and believe in Him above all, then everything else will fall into place."

That's so hard to do when sin is such a huge part of life. That sin is what is keeping me from not worrying about where God will lead me. I know with all my heart that he has a plan and that it is going to be perfect, it's just hard to believe that fully at points.

Now is when I find myself thinking of verses to just calm me and remind me that God is there. I keep coming back to Isaiah 41:10 which says, "So do not fear for I am with you, do not be dismayed for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."

I know I can not fear and worry about all these things in my life, God will help me out through all the difficult times. I just need to listen to him and watch what signs he throws my way. But sometimes, I still think receiving a postcard from God would be really cool! 

The Next Step in Life

I have been home from Thailand for exactly two weeks now and I still talk about my experiences there everyday. I look at pictures and remember different things that we did there, and I can't help but get excited about going back someday. But for right now, I have another job ahead of me that has to be tackled with Great Love.

Tomorrow, the 9th of August, I will be leaving with my mom, sister Kayla, and brother Bradley to move back to Dordt. I'm leaving Dad and Joel home because of soccer and work. It's going to be so hard to say goodbye to them and then make sure I lead my Mom safely out to Iowa on our long drive tomorrow.

Thursday I begin RA training for the second year. I will be living by myself in the dorm building and I have a wing full of incoming freshman. It's my job to make these girls all feel at home and make it an easy transition into college life. I get to plan different wing events for every week – something fun we can do together as a wing and a way we can grow closer as friends and classmates and especially closer to God.

Thailand was all about working at the school with great love for the children and great love for God, and this is the same, but in some ways I feel like this is going to be harder. I have hardly had time to think of themes for my wing, or even begin to think about wing events. I'm excited about meeting everyone and going through training with a bunch of friends, but for some reason, I feel like nothing about this next step in life will be as exciting as visiting Thailand for 2 weeks.

This is where I need to spend more time with God, ask him to show me how this can be just as fun as Thailand and how this next step will be a challenge as well as a way to grow in faith and strength for God.

I know this is has been a lot of rambling, but i needed to talk myself through some things in order to make this next step be something as great as Thailand. I don't think I'll see how great being an RA will actually be until I step into the role and spend more time talking with God. I'm excited about this step but also a little apprehensive, because of Thailand. But I can't measure everything next to Thailand – this has to be something I measure next to last year and on a whole different scale. It's something I know that God has called me to do again and its something I have to spend doing knowing that while it may seem like something small compared to traveling around the world, its still something I have to do out of Great Love for others and for God!