Living in the In-Between

Abide.  Abide in the Vine.  That is what my tattoo says and means – to trust, rest, have peace and comfort in letting go and allowing God to lead the way.  This is such a difficult concept for me, especially because I am a control freak by nature, and obsessive about planning.  But – it is something that God has been working on in my life over the past few years.

I hate being in the in-between, and something that I’ve realized over the past few months, is that no matter what stage you are at in life, you are always in an in-between of some sort.  I really struggled with living in the present and not fretting over the future the past three years in university, and I am so blissfully excited and happy to not be struggling with that right now!  I just have this overwhelming feeling of finally being ‘home’ here in Lilongwe, and have absolutely no desire to leave.  I sat down and analyzed this feeling, because it is such a strange one for me to have, and what I have concluded, is that it is not my job (though I am really enjoying it), nor is it the people (though I love my friends here), nor is it the country (which is absolutely amazingly beautiful) – it is a sense of being in the right place at the right time – in God’s time.  I do hope that this can become my permanent home, as I feel like there could be an awesome future for me here – there are many opportunities for my skill set and hopeful future degrees in special needs education and library sciences, and I really don’t see any reason to leave.

But, part of abiding is to let go of the idea of forcing plans for my life to happen, so I am waiting to see what opportunities pop up during this coming year.  I am glad to have a daily reminder on my wrist to keep me grounded in the now, and stop worrying over my next steps.  After all, it's not like God doesn't have a fantastic plan in mind for my life!

Matthew 10:29-31 (The Message) "“What’s the price of a pet canary? Some loose change, right? And God cares what happens to it even more than you do. He pays even greater attention to you, down to the last detail—even numbering the hairs on your head! So don’t be intimidated by all this bully talk. You’re worth more than a million canaries."