Hello Again

Recently, I’ve been toying around with the idea of picking this blog back up again. I love writing, I miss writing, and I enjoy the way God solidifies what He is teaching me through writing.

It’s like making jello. At first, what’s going on in my head is nothing short of a liquidy mess waiting to happen. But, when it is written down, when a little time is provided for things to settle, it actually becomes something. It becomes something edible, tasty, identifiable, substantial. I don’t presume that it becomes something as rich and impressive as crème brûlée (catch the My Best Friend’s Wedding reference?). Let’s be clear. This blog is just jello, the stuff of ordinary, everyday, hum drum life, but something tasty and hearty when God is infinitely in it and through it.

I’ve always had a dubious eye towards the thoughts and feelings that swirl up in me. I know myself, and I know they cannot always be trusted. They are like “chaff before the wind,” influenced by the news article I just read, the coworker I just chatted with, the way lunch is settling (or not settling). It’s almost as if they are not real, legitimate, or believable until I have sent them through the sifter of my mind and fingers. Writing refines them for me, and my hope with this blog would be that it refines them in some sort of meaningful, applicable way for one or two others as well.

Almost a year has passed since my last blog entry. So much has changed this year, I seriously doubt if God will ever again deliver so much change in such a short span of time (famous last words). Within the last twelve months, I’ve returned home to the States from a short stint teaching English and living the Great Commission in a predominantly Muslim immigrant community in inner-city Brussels, Belgium. [See below]. I am now not the only woman in sight without a scarf covering my head when I leave my house. Quite the shift from the previous adventure, I began my first “real” job in Human Resources with a bowling company. In so doing, my little humanitarian-minded, nonprofit-invested self has learned to appreciate the world of business (not love necessarily, but definitely appreciate). A month later, Jeromy and I found a church to call home. God led us to join Redemption Hill and has built a strong community there that we eagerly jumped into. On a more personal note, Jeromy and I got engaged, planned a wedding, sought God’s preparation for marriage, and got hitched in October! Now, I wake up next to my best friend every morning, have changed my name, and have added a new feature to my identity, that of a wife. Lastly, as part of the marital change, I also moved east of the city to a little neighborhood called Church Hill. I pay rent, buy groceries, decide at what temperature the thermostat will hover, send Christmas cards, and partake in other such “grown-up” activities that come with this new territory of life.

Despite all these changes, the title of this blog will remain unchanged. I’m not in Brussels any more, but the mission, the weaving thread connecting every step and breath, the overarching narrative- it’s all the same. I am still seeking and sent. God has first sought me and saved me from the full consequence of every past, current, and future intentional and unintentional mess-up, screw-up, and mistake. In grateful response, I am seeking Him, sometimes with fervor and at other points with a perplexed countenance. I am seeking Him in my marriage, in my work, over the phone catching up with a friend, at church on a Sunday morning, as I’m watching prime time TV, and in friendly banter with my neighbors. I am relentlessly seeking because I believe the promise that when I seek God with everything I’ve got, I will find him (Jeremiah 29:13). Consequently, I am sent. I’m sent bearing the peace, grace, and very image of our King to my neighbors, to my husband, to my coworkers, to myself. I am still seeking and sent, so the name of this blog will not change, because the narrative is the same.