There’s three main locations in my life right now, and I’m not completely “in” any of them: Myrtle Beach, where I know God still has me for a time; Greenville, where 4 of my dear friends are in the throes of church planting, and where I feel God has some kind of future for me; then Cherokee, two hours from Greenville, the home of a people I have a bursting, passionate love for. Each of these places has a river running through it: the Waccamaw (here), the Reedy (Greenville), and the Oconaluftee (Cherokee). They don’t combine on the map. Still, in their different ways, they carry the same message: God is moving, and I’m in His hand.
the Oconaluftee from downtown Cherokee, September 2010
I can’t see the road ahead, so I’m almost at a standstill. But I believe God is going to take what looks like three different roads for me to choose between, and suddenly braid them together into one road before me. He’s completely rearranging my heart in the process. I guess growing pains are a given.
There are many precious people He’s putting in my life right now: signposts, encouragers, buffers, mentors, correctors; inspirations, comedians, prayer partners; those that have a cut-and-dry realism to bring me back to earth, and those who have rose-colored glasses to remind me to dream again when I run dry. Sweet, beautiful faces I could never appreciate or admire enough. They’re a glittering spread of unique jewels God uses to reflect His light. It’s amazing how He uses relationships to restore and shape us, when He could just do it through the work of the Spirit.
Speaking of relationships, there is one very heavy weight on me in this time: a terrible longing to give my love, all of it. In every way it seems to be on hold or still in the making: giving love to a man as his wife, love to a people as a worker for Christ, and most importantly, love to God as a continually maturing creation of His. These longings can spawn into distracting desires, which I need God to help me manage in a healthy way. I hope I’m getting better at that.
I also seem to need a lot of rest these days, and I wonder sometimes how the heck a place of such stillness and waiting could make me need to rest? Maybe it’s like being pregnant: growth and change going on inside wears the body out, even when that body isn’t moving around much, just looking kinda swollen.
I’m not sure what the point of this ramble was, but before I wrote I felt full of something I didn’t know how to express. Now I feel released and relaxed at last, and can go to bed. Perhaps you can relate. I hope the evidence of God’s faithfulness is visible to you in my life - a faithfulness I sure haven’t done anything to earn. All I can do is keep learning how to respond to it better.
His generous blessings to you all.
taken by the Oconaluftee, about to leave Cherokee for Greenville, September 2010
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