So Much to Learn...

I have officially been home for ten days now since graduation, and it has been incredibly wonderful and awful at the same time. Learning to be still is SO freakin' difficult for me, since I've spent the past year constantly go go go. Now that I'm not working 3 jobs 7 days a week, or student teaching or supervising, or even leading a girls' discipleship group and planning one-on-ones with them, I don't know how to function! There is now exactly 40 days until I leave for New Zealand, and I feel unprepared.

Some of the wonderful things I've been blessed with so far are simple pleasures like sleeping in, spending time with friends and family, watching tv for once, and getting to read (Yay!!! Yes, I am a proud nerd that loves to read.) I've already finished 2 books, and am working my way through two more. I'm going back and forth between fun books and spiritually enriching books to help prepare me for sharing the Gospel overseas, such as Matt Chandler's To Live is Christ, To Die is Gain, Timothy Keller's The Reason for God, (which our whole team is reading together), C. S. Lewis' Mere Christianity, The Abolition of Man, The Problem of Pain, and The Screwtape Letters, and John Piper's Let the Nations Be Glad. Hopefully, I will get through most of, if not all of, these books, but that's another reason why God has been so good to allow me this time to catch up on reading.

God has also been so good to get me to 100% on raising support!!! That's right, people, I'm fully funded thanks to many of you and, of course, the big man upstairs. I actually raised OVER my original goal, so that I can help our team out in the long run, and that is a huge blessing that I'm grateful to help with.

The only downside is not having my future "planned out" for when I come back from 6 weeks in NZ. I know that I should trust in God, but faith is a mental muscle that needs exercised regularly to keep it strong. It comes and goes in waves whether I should panic over the future or hand it over to God. But, He has really encouraged me today with some scripture that is incredibly sweet.

That according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith-that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.-Ephesians 3:16-21.

He also slammed me with the short but, oh so simple, verse of truth. Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.-Philippians 4:4. Right now, even though this in-between stage is difficult and frustrating, I should still praise Him, because there is so much to praise Him for. Plus, what would I have if not Him that I know takes care of me? Why should I freak out when I've got the biggest player possible in my corner? I need to chill out and trust Him, dang it. Easier said than done, of course, but for right now, this is the encouragement I need to get me through until my next sinful panic attack. I just needed to process all of this, so if you read it, thanks so much! Hope it helps you like it definitely did for me!

His Always