I started writing this blog in a notebook. So should it be called a blog? Probably not, but by the time it reaches your eyes it's just as much a blog as it will ever be.
I don't write much these days. I've been reading though. Quite a bit. Late last year I started reading The Hobbit. I got hooked on the Lord of the Rings series and am so glad I did. Great adventures were had by Bilbo and Frodo. Think of how crazy it would be if all you knew of was the Shire, and then you're suddenly thrust out in the middle of, well, Middle Earth. Culture shock? Probably.
I moved to Texas and I got culture shock. Maybe it was given to me. Maybe it was thrown in my face. Maybe, just maybe, it blindsided me and knocked me off my feet. It hurt. It's not what I expected. It made my whole perception of why I moved to Texas in the first place change. I don't know hot to explain it to all you folks out in the blogosphere without getting too personal. But since the only people that read are the ones who probably care somewhat...
I came here to help serve an organization that I worked with in Costa Rica for four months. I thought (I don't know why) it would be the same in Texas. It wasn't. I came to find out over time that the people with whom I was working were not people with the same cultural background as myself. Our worlds collided and for whatever reason I just didn't fit. No one's fault. It just didn't work. But by that time I had a full time job. A church community that I was growing to love. And a living place that although wasn't the most ideal or warmest (you could see your breath in the morning in the winter for crying out loud), Texas was becoming my home.
I found purpose in knowing what it was like to once again hold a full time job. I had people who barely knew me who were challenging me to grow more than ever. And so far, it's been the most difficult nine months of my life.
Come to find out I really do love the beach.
Come to find out I really do love my family.
Come to find out I really do love my California church friends.
Come to find out I really do love my softball team.
And being away from all those things is tough, to say the least. But every day I press on. I know God, in His glorious infinite wisdom, has an idea of where my life is headed. Or at least where He wants my life to be headed.
I've almost been working a straight nine months. I've been at an animal hospital, and come to find out I really don't like animals. I need to read James Elliot's books I think.
Maybe that's where my reading list will take me next.
I found more of me during my 12 months in Wisconsin than I ever did during my lifetime in Oklahoma. As much as I loved my Wisconsin time there are bitter, tear filled chapters that were left unwritten up there in the snowy north. Recently I heard a minister say something like "if only we did not scorn our suffering, for at those times we were closest to the heart of God." This waiting is still your plan A. And what an amazing tale it shall turn out to be, my friend!
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