Here and Now

Clicking the 'Compose' button. What a thrill. I'm so excited to write after a surprise period of time where I wrote nothing at all, anywhere. Work emails and small work projects aside, these are the first words to come out the end of my fingers in a long time. Writing became forced, and I couldn't do it. I had nothing to say, so I stopped.

I can't remember another time during my life with so much mental challenge crammed into a few months. They've all produced growth and change, and God is using each situation to wake me from my slumber and bring me into a world that needs more Christians who are useful and aren't just in it for the free ticket. The is is the new prayer for my life.

I bought a house on my birthday, April 17. It's an amazing story of God's goodness in the small details of my life, right down to the very neighborhood I thought might always just be a dream. Since that day, almost every interior surface has been changed -- and if it hasn't yet, it will be soon. My boyfriend is a creative and a builder extraordinaire, so I paint walls and envision and he does the rest. Home projects go much more smoothly with him a few blocks away than they did when he was in Texas, where he lived when we met.

Working for a wealth management firm was never in my plans, but it's been so rewarding. I even earned a certification (a low certification, but still, it required effort). Literally every day, I encounter something I have to figure out for the first time. When you see the world from behind the economic stage, things look very different than they do from the audience's perspective. It's been an education in politics, family dynamics, life goals, wise decisions, and the relationships that make the world go around.

God's grace has been most evident in my life through my friend Katie, who has met with me week after week since January to tell me what the gospel of Christ looks like in my life when I'm living like I believe it. Through her wisdom, I've seen how the way I think and what I choose to believe changes everything about my everyday life. If I believe that a mountain exists between God and me that I somehow have to move, I miss out on the whole reason Christ gave His life for me. I've learned that what I let myself silently think really matters. Truth and reality matter. Jesus matters, and my life matters because by God's grace, it doesn't have to be wasted.