i have been unemployed for several months now. sounds wonderful and enjoyable to some, and of course there are many times when it is and has its advantages. but at the same time, especially for someone like me who likes to feel productive and purposeful, it can leave me feeling a bit empty and anxious. for the most part, though, it has allowed me to have a lot of moments where i am not thinking about much of anything and simply being and living in the here and now. but that doesn't mean that my mind has been without thoughts. while it can be hard for me to separate and pull out individual thoughts, i will try to dig out a few...
- i didn't have to travel to places like kenya and ghana to realize how blessed and privileged i am. i am not just referring to financial blessings or opportunities but also recognizing how good and easy i have it. sometimes i am overwhelmed by all of life's many blessings. i don't have to look very far to see people around me who are struggling with very real and deep hardships. this is not to say that i don't have struggles or haven't experienced difficult times of my own. but what do i have to complain about? i know that these blessings are from God and are given to me to be used for His glory. i cannot simply recognize them and be thankful for them (though it is important that i do that as well). i need to use them. am i using them as much as i could?
- God knows what He is doing. i am 29 years old and am only just now going back to school and starting a program that will eventually (if it is God's will) lead to my career. sometimes i feel like jonah - avoiding what God is calling me to, usually out of fear and insecurity, but sometimes distracted by other temptations. i don't consider the past few years at all a waste of time - i don't regret them. but it feels good to be heading on a track that i feel God calling me to. every day i need to throw my plans and desires away and align them with God's will for me. only then do i truly feel content.
- God is bigger and greater than i realize. last week jay and i were laying out on a hammock as we were admiring the starry night sky when i mentioned to him a video by louie giglio called 'indescribable'. louie shows incredible images of the stars and galaxies and other phenomenons in outer space while talking about our amazing Creator. so on saturday we borrowed a dvd from liesl called 'how great is our God', the follow up to 'indescribable'. he shares that if the earth were a golf ball, the sun would be a ball 15 feet in diameter. he moves on to a few other stars even bigger and grander, all pointing to how big the universe is, far beyond what we imagine. it takes approximately 8 minutes for the suns light to reach us at earth. does that sound like a lot? it is actually very short in time considering how many light years away the sun is from our planet. my mind is still grasping the information that louie shared. he also talks about laminin, a protein in the body that holds things together. if you look up an image of laminin, its structure is in the shape of a cross. i don't even have the words to express how powerful the combination of the images and louie giglio's words were for me as we watched it. the words of a song sung yesterday at restore come to my heart and mind:
Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God Almighty
who was and is and is to come
with all creation i sing praise to the King of Kings
You are my everything and i will adore you
(revelation song)
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