Another Milestone Reflection

If you would have asked me a year ago what what my life today would look like, I would have painted a romantic picture of me working in a foreign country like England, or doing mission work in some magical, tucked far away part of Africa. If you would have asked me even a few months ago, I would have told you that I'd be living in Charlotte with one of my best friends, hopefully with a decent job, starting up a career path that might lead to some good money. But none of those things happened. The Lord apparently has other plans for me. In case you don't know, allow me to share with you a little bit of my story from this past year. And by "a little bit" I mean "a long winded retelling that leave out a lot of stuff."

It's funny how, no matter how good of an attitude you have when you start a job, when the job seemingly has no point, you eventually start to have regular "what am I doing with my life?" check ups in order to find an excuse to quit and do something crazy. This is where I was when the Lord met me in November of 2008. I was driving down the road on a Friday night, pretty depressed about the seeming pointlessness of my life when the Lord spoke to me from my iPod of all things. (It makes sense seeing as how God loves Apple and all.) I had it set to shuffle, and every song that came on kept talking about needing to get away and leaving, which was weird as I didn't remember having so many songs of escape at my fingertips. And then, not audibly, but still very clearly, the Lord told me to quit my job and backpack across Europe.

Isn't it weird how we assume that the Lord is vindictive and would never allow us to do anything that we might actually want to do, even though He's the one who puts desire into our hearts? It's kind of like the person who's afraid to give their life completely to the Lord because as soon as he does, the first thing God will do is make them sell everything they own and move to Africa. And I, falling in line with that reasoning, thought, "Is that really You, Lord? Because that's something I actually want to do. No; it couldn't be."

What followed were some of the most crazy and life-changing months of my life. Work wasn't so bad anymore because I had an exit strategy and plans for my trip just kind of fell into place. Money started showing up out of no where, and my roommate who owned the house I lived in was getting married, so I would have had to have moved out anyway. It was all perfect. I had no idea why the Lord wanted me to go; I was just excited that He was giving me the go ahead and something so amazing.

Then, if you know me at all you know that last February my dad passed away due to complications in surgery that was supposed to remove a significant portion of the cancer from his body and my whole world got turned upside down. A lot of stuff happened in me during that time. It was a very dark, lonely and confusing time. I had no idea how to even begin grieving. But, one of my favorite things about the Lord is how well He knows me. He knows that I'm easily distracted. He also knows that when there are people around me who need help, I'm going to help them long before I help myself. And that's not so much because I'm such a great guy, as when I'm busy helping others, I don't really have to deal with my own stuff. The Lord had me makes plans to travel before my dad passed away because He knew that getting away for a while would help me to mourn and heal the best.

So here I am. One year ago today I was getting ready to board a plane for the first time in my life and head to Egypt to begin the biggest adventure I had ever been on. I had no idea what I was in for and no clue what life would be like when I got back.

It's a year later, and other than a short stint answering phones, I've spent the past year jobless. But I've yet to do without even some luxuries in life. I have a roof over my head, food to eat, a car to drive, gas to put into said car, and family and friends who love me. I've changed more in this past year that I knew I could. I'm still on this up and down roller coaster of figuring out what I'm doing with my life and there's no sign of it stopping anytime soon and I have no idea what tomorrow will bring for me. There are times when I start to freak out and worry what I'm going to do when my money runs out, but a little prayer tends to quench that fear. At the end of all of this, probably the most surprising thing I see is that, regardless of what's happened in this past year, both good and bad, I wouldn't change a thing that's brought me to where I am now.