sometimes, it takes a while to learn...

God is faithful and ever present. When we ask something of Him, He always provides. Not perhaps in our timing, but in His perfect timing, all things come together.

I was reading a few 'thoughts' I've written down through out the years. I came across one entitled "A working in me." I wrote it Jan 16 of 2008. Here's what it said:

After this evening's small group and reading a good friends blog - I too am faced with the question "Do you trust ME?" - God.

While sitting in small group tonight and after all of us are considering changing jobs and many people I know (including myself) have said "I'm working somewhere I never thought I would." It came to me that perhaps we find ourselves in these places because they were the path of least resistance at the time, so we walk down them. I didn't trust on God to walk the path I really wanted at the time. I took the 'easier' way. And all along HE keeps saying trust ME and I'll open the right doors. Don't worry about the scores, don't worry about the essay's, don't worry about the money - TRUST ME AND I'LL TAKE CARE OF YOU.

But God works all these things to HIS Glory - despite my mistakes!

So after a refining evening of Hebrews - I find myself needing to focus on Christ and fully actually trusting in God taking me where I want and most importantly where HE wants me.

A week before leaving I wrote another 'thought' entitled, "Learning to let go - with faith." Here's a part of that thought:

As I sit a mere week away from boarding a plane that will take me across the great Atlantic pond, I can’t even imagine what all God has in store for me. People keep asking if I’m excited or ready. Well, yes I’m excited, but ready – are we ever really fully ready to allow God to work in our lives the way He intended. So I ask for your prayers, that I am ready – ready to let go fully, ready to allow God to fully work in and through me, ready to not look back, ready to live in the present, ready to encounter new people and new places with a new outlook.

One thing is for sure – my life will be forever changed – that much I am sure of. And I pray that someone else’s live(s) can be changed forever as well.

As you all know by now, things did deviate from the plan. It's not been an easy road, but the benefits far out weigh the troubles, and in some strange way all the troubles have added and enhanced the trip. I still have no idea all of what God has in store for me. But that prayer, the prayer to fully let go, to allow God to fully work in and though me, to live in the present, to encounter new things with a new outlook is being answered everyday in new ways. I've sometimes wondered over the past few weeks if this trip was really meant to be. I began to question if I had heard Him correctly in taking this trip. But it's never been more evident that He brought me here to teach me things I would have never learned otherwise.

Now, a year after hearing God say, TRUST ME AND I'LL TAKE CARE OF YOU, I am beginning to understand what it means to really let go and let God. To really trust Him. It's one of those things people always say, lay down your burdens, He will take them from you, all you have to do is let go. I told myself so many times, yes I laid that down for God, but eventually found myself taking it back up as I thought I knew what was best. But over the last week, my spirit is light and joy is full. There's no real way to express the feeling of truly letting go and trusting in God. It's different for all of us, and a lesson we'll each have to learn one way or the other. I'm so grateful to my omnipotent God, that He didn't give up on me. He continued to plug away and teach me the lessons He would have for me.

So, I still sit wondering which day between April 20 and June 15 I'll go home. I still wonder just what is in store for me over those next few months. I still wonder if I'm fully read to allow God to work in my life the way He intends. But I'm learning that God's love truly is great. His strength sustains me. He is ever present. He is all knowing. He will guide my steps, even when I don't know where to walk. And most importantly, He will be glorified.