Aside from that, the roller coaster continues. I've been able to say that Hawai'i was finally starting to feel like "home" after the past 7 months. I've found an amazing church and 'ohana at New Hope Diamond Head and the Lord has definitely provided. I went back to California to spend Thanksgiving with family and friends and it was an amazing time of connection and celebration. I have much to be thankful for this past year!
Over that week my sister got engaged, I got to see family, spend time with my bestie and other friends that I have missed, go to Disneyland, enjoy cold weather (super cold weather), and also celebrate Thanksgiving with people I love. In all that, to be completely honest, I loved it and yet, missed things about Hawai'i and in some ways was ready to come back. I arrived on Monday and adjusted back to the warm weather and found myself needing some time with Jesus and with myself.
Tuesday ended up being a rather hard day for me... I was speaking on prayer at our weekly KCC group and so I know there was a definite sense of the enemy trying to bring me away from sharing God's word but it was just also one of those days. After my day on campus, I came home and wanted to process where I'm at. I realized that I find myself in this place of not knowing really where I belong. California no longer is my home -- there are things I miss and love, my family and friends, the ins and outs of knowing people and being known, and just the comfortability of life BUT coming back, I realized too that Hawai'i is also not yet my "home". I'm still figuring it all out... building community, understanding ministry and my job, my calling to be here, etc. I fell back into the thoughts of why is it so hard and really what would it look like to just go back to what is easy?
Satan is soooo real and I know that he is looking to steal, kill, and destroy. But as I was reading this in John, the victory is in Jesus and He has come so that I may not just have life, but have it to the FULL. Yet, I still sit and question the goodness of God. Why? The reality is that there is an enemy and he knows exactly the doubts and fears I have and he goes right to them. I find that my biggest struggle is often with myself and I constantly need to pray through the lies of is God really good or am I worth it and do I matter to others, but more importantly to Him -- to experience His goodness?
It's hard. I need to be okay with that. I need to accept that. Ultimately, I need to hold on to the promises of God even when they seem so far away. As I got to process through this with Amanda, an amazing sister from church, I realized that hardships come and because of that, they stretch me in my faith and trust. I know that I don't have it as hard as others do, that the sacrifice I make is sooooo insignificant, BUT I also need to wrestle through these things.
Driving home tonight, I decided to pull up some older music I had and came across The Call by Anointed. Sometimes, I don't know if I can do this and it seems like there's an easier way, yet, I know that what I am doing means laying down my all for the sake of the call.
Wow -- this was really, really long which means if I blog more often, maybe they'd be shorter. :) In any case, I feel like this next season really means trusting in the goodness of God and sometimes that is hard. Psalm 27:13 says "I will remain confident in this, I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." I pray that this would be true for me in this next season of my life as I am desiring to grow and to be used by Him even when sometimes it's hard to believe that.
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