Remember, Life is Funny

"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,"

declares the Lord.

"As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways

and My thoughts than your thoughts.

As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth

and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,

so is My word that goes out from My mouth:

It will not return to Me empty,

but will accomplish what I desire

and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace;"

Isaiah 55:8-12

So I'm living up here at Camp Redwood Glen in the Santa Cruz mountains, coordinating 2 outreaches.  

How crazy is that statement considering I was on the other side of the world just 2 weeks ago?  

Yep, life is funny.

I have been realizing more and more of how much I love my life right now.  I have just come back from an incredible adventure full of amazing new relationships, life changing experiences, learning more about myself and who God is and just so much more.  Now here I am with the opportunity to take all of that, take all that I have learned and all I have become and continue to put it into practice here.  In my wildest dreams, I could have never imagined that my life would be like it is at this very moment.  I love it.

On graduation night of my DTS, we were told how important it was going to be to do just one thing:

REMEMBER

As simple as that one word may be, there's a whole lot to remember from the last 6 months.  At first, I was a bit worried that it would be so easy to forget everything that I have learned and everything I have done and just go back to how my life was before I left.  As I was traveling around Europe (no big deal) I was reminded that God won't let me forget.  That He would be there to help me remember.  And He is indeed doing that.

As I have said, I will be doing a week of training for the people that are going one these 2 outreaches.  So in preparation for that, I have been going through my Jotter Pad full of copious notes from lectures and attempting to condense 3 months worth of notes into just a couple days.  (A bit of a challenge).  In reading through my notes and just thinking and praying, God has continued to remind me of so many of the incredible things He did in me and through me the last 6 months and even before that.  I am remembering the person that I was before DTS and seeing how that has changed and seeing the person that I am now.  And to be able to share these with someone else, well that's just a big bonus.  I would love to go into more detail about everything that I keep being reminded of but that would just take forever.  But one thing I will say is that I love the person that God has made me to be and I want to continue to be that person.

One thing (among others) that I have been challenged with is simply to trust God.  I was recently reading a friend's blog and at the end of one of his posts he said,

"But I trust Him to finish the work He began.  I trust Him with my forever."

That just really got to me and got me thinking a lot about how I just need to trust God with my future and stop stressing myself out and trying to make my own plans.  I'm so impatient when it comes to figuring out life but I have been reminded over and over that God knows the story of my life better than I do because He is the one writing it.  And the stories that He can write are far more creative and more incredible then I could ever write or even think to write.  At the beginning of lecture phase, they gave us a verse for our school:

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Jeremiah 29:11

God has shown me over and over that He knows what He is doing and His timing is perfect.  

Now is just another time that I really need to put my trust in that.

                   Put my trust in Him.

                                         Trust Him with my forever.

"God has wisely kept us in the dark concerning future events and reserved for himself the knowledge of them, that He may train us up in the dependence upon himself and a continued readiness for every event."

~Matthew Henry

   

Jet Lag and Speeding Tickets

What a week.  To say the least.

I've been home for almost 2 weeks now.  Being home is a bit strange but I'm enjoying it thus far.

Jet lag - I'm not so much a fan of it.  It's pretty interesting to leave one country at 2 in the afternoon and after 10 hours in the air get to another country at 4 in the afternoon...on the same day.  A little weird.

This past week I have just been doing lots of visiting people.  Visiting family, friends, camp, etc.  It's definitely good to see everyone again and catch up a bit on life.  As well as eat some of this delicious food...

It's official - After 6 years of having a license, I no longer have a perfect driving record.  Sad day.  I was on a long 3 hour journey home the other day and at one point in the drive I decided to jinx myself and say that one of these days I'm going to get a ticket for driving a 'bit' over the speed limit.  Well, no joke, an hour later, I come to the bottom of a hill and who should I see but a nice California police officer get into his car.  I knew he was coming after me.  Which he was.  Awesome.  Welcome home.  But to my surprise, I didn't cry.  But I might cry later when I find out how much I will have to pay...

So what am I up to now?  Well, first of all, this is my new room for the next couple weeks:

Just before I left England, I had my first week back all planned out with who I was going to go visit and when I would go visit them and all that.  I realized a bit later - "Ok, that's great for the first week back but then what?  What's going to happen after that first week?"  But I was once again reminded that God provides:

I am currently coordinating 2 different outreaches for the summer staff at Camp Redwood Glen.  Yep.  Crazy.  I will be contacting the churches that are hosting the 2 teams and coming up with a schedule for different outreach opportunities in the areas.  I am really excited about this.  At first I had my doubts but I got over that real quick.  It is so incredible that this opportunity came up just 2 days after I get home.  Seriously.  How do things like this happen?  Not only will I be planning the outreach itself, but I am also going to be doing some training for them to get them ready to go on an outreach.  I am so excited to be able to share some of my story of the last 6 months by bringing things that I have learned and experienced and what God has done in my life back here.  This is something that I never would have thought I would or even could ever be doing but here I am doing it.