Friday, July 16, 2010

Rain Down.


Ok, I can't wait to get my day started (and I slept in a bit later than I had planned on...) but before I jump into it I had to take a few moments to share the overflow of blessings in my life.

Brief background on the last 6-ish years: College was a crazy time in my life.  I had a difficult time deciding exactly what I wanted to do, or at least deciding to make that happen.  Once I finally settled on a school and a degree, I felt the entire experience was an up-hill challenge. Academically I didn't feel like always rising to the occasion and personally I was a huge wreck. My life was flanked with failed relationships and vain pursuits to fill voids, depression, medication, and countless tears and days hiding out in bed. I had some great things come out of those 5 years, mainly some incredible friendships and a whole lot of tough lessons learned. Right after graduation I took a corporate admin job and for the most part hated it...loved the people (most of them anyway) but did not fit into the environment whatsoever.  When the opportunity to potentially go to India showed its face, I dove in completely and, well, the rest is history.  In a nutshell, the several years leading up to my India adventure were hard and wrought with a lot of challenges, fighting within myself, and days of wandering in the desert. I often asked, "where are you, God?"

Low and behold the Promised Land.  Coming home from India started some incredible things happening for me.  Before I knew it, I had gone from having nothing to a having car to use and a house to stay in for almost no cost while I was looking for a new job. And then, with literally very little effort, I had a job a week after I moved back into Orange County. A WEEK!

Beyond having all my physical and logistical needs met and exceeded, a "garden" of friendships has begun to explode with new growth in my life.  Hardly a day goes by in which I don't receive a text, phone call, or email from someone reaching out or responding to me and wanting to get together.  I have this laundry list of amazing people to spend time with and not enough time to do it!  I suppose that's a pretty good "problem" to have...

I have encountered a couple of people who, upon hearing my story of blessing, chalked my life up to something as simple as, good people who do good things (referring to India) get rewarded, much like a sort of karma mentality.  With all due respect, that is SO not it.  I suppose for all intents and purposes you can state that I am a "good" person...in other words, I haven't murdered anyone or tortured any cats (to be debated, heh heh...).  In the eyes of the God I serve, I'm just as sinful and screwed up as the people who do murder others.  That concept, understandably, is really difficult for people to understand, especially in the world of secular humanism.  In terms of what's fair in the eyes of the world, those who murder and act out evil should be considered not as inherently good as those who feed starving children in Africa.  I do not wish to debate theologically on any of this, I merely want to remind everyone reading that I have my fair share of crap inside and out and am only considered anything good and worthwhile because I am FORGIVEN.

Let's not preach, shall we?  I merely want to remember to be humble and to give the glory to the Big Guy upstairs for the outpouring of blessings in my life.  Even if it looks technically "good" that I moved over to India to help those "less fortunate," truth be told, I had a load of very ugly and selfish moments during my time there...ask one of my absolute best friends who witnessed it, Cory.

May my season of blessings serve to encourage others to see the goodness of God and that in the world we live in, we need to call on that far more often than we do.  God is all powerful, all knowing, and all loving...and wants to take each one of us into a life of incredible fulfillment.  And for those of you doubting that this is possible or true, get in touch with me and I will share with you the nuts and bolts of who I was when I was trying to do life on my own strength...and compare that with the way I am blessed and taken care of in this season (only through submitting my life to the Lord)...and tell me God isn't real.  Sure, not every season will bear such comfort and greatness (um, hello, the least six months in India were HARD and PAINFUL!) but the Lord is faithful to bring us to places of rest when we need to feel His covering and love the most.  So, after an indescribably challenging time in India, God has granted me incredible solace and has freed me up to share His blessings with those around me.

He gives and takes away.

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