here's the thing...
>> 9.17.2010
With my recent acknowledgment of stress and terror, I seem to have brought a whole host of other things flying down onto my back.
Instead of a monkey, I'm carrying a 300 pound gorilla with fingers of steel.
It all seems soooo real now...
*We purchased one-way plane tickets.
*My UK Settlement Visa arrived, stating that I am free to come and reside in their country.
*We've started packing (or rather, throwing away and giving things to thrift stores).
*We're about to go and start the round of family visits I have to make before we move.
And, see, I know that there are so many people out there who would take this opportunity and run with it. And it's not that I'm not grateful or excited, or even afraid that this is not where God wants us.
But holy crap.
This is permanent for the foreseeable future and I have no way of knowing how it's going to turn out. And I really hate that.
I seem to have this issue where I need to know what's happening so that I know how to deal with it. It doesn't matter if I can directly contribute anything to resolving the situation or not, I simply need the knowledge in my brain so that I don't go crazy with the possibilities and unknowns. I don't like not-knowing.
This situation is one in which I know that I am not happy in Chicago. Please note that I didn't say that there haven't been times of happiness, cause I've had so many good things happen to me here.
But I don't have a deep-seated sense of fulfillment in knowing that this is where God has placed us.
However, I am complacent here.
I am familiar. I have an apartment and a cat, and I know where the grocery store, coffee shops, transportation system, hospital, and other things are located. I made this place my home because I had too.
Now I am faced with leaving complacency, and trading it for an unknown.
This is an incredibly tough decision, even though it sounds easy. (Who wouldn't hop on a plane and fly to Europe at the first chance they got?)
Right now I am faced with confronting the two things that are the most difficult for me, and that ones that I just really hate: do I stay muddled in complacency, or do I trade that for an unknown with no promised outcome?
Obviously, the choice has already been made, but that doesn't mean I'm ready for it.
However, God has recently impressed upon my mind that I cannot choose to follow Him when I feel like it. If I am in it, I must be in it always, at every moment of every day.
In every awful and ugly situation I find myself in, do I trust that God sees and cares and understands? Do I trust that He has endowed me with the knowledge and capabilities I need in order to make the best decisions that will bring the most glory to Him?
That's a difficult one, because it means believing in myself, and believing that I am worth enough to Him that He will allow me to do what I want and still take care of me in the process.
This is long, and messy, and I know it's not a sample of my greatest writing abilities.
But it's where I'm at, and it's where I'm headed, and that's really all I've got right now.
My tunnel of knowledge is coming to an end, and I have no idea what I'm going to find outside of it.
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