Oh blog. I wonder who reads this thing. My parents.  My second mom, Mama Debbie.  And other random readers who have found themselves here after a long, bored Facebook carousal.

Well, I haven’t written in a while. A lot has changed in the last few months I feel. I’m a little less existential in my musings these days. In fact, I simply don’t muse as much. I resist activities that might spark too much musing, including the reading of Russian novels, which had previously (as some of you who know me well may know) been a staple on my list of life enriching activities. These days, I am at peace with things like complimenting my girlfriends on how cute their shoes are, or spending half an hour choosing bronzer at ULTA, or reading an article in People instead of reading War and Peace.  These are rather new acquisitions to my person.

I could just be lazy, but I don’t think that’s it. Really and truly. I could be lazy in denial, and in that case I pray for a revelation, but I have just realized that I want to take full advantage of this chill time.

On a deeper level, most of my life I’ve fought where I’ve found myself. And I just don’t want to do it anymore.

Pastor Mike is using Jeremiah 29 in the current series at church and it has really stuck with me. God leads his people into exile and tells them to build homes, families there. He tells them to look out for the welfare of the town and people– their captors! And in looking out for the town’s welfare, they will look out for their own, God tells them. It really challenged me to invest wherever I am. I think we sometimes justify our level of service or involvement in a particular area based on whether or not we want to be there. If we are somewhere we don’t want to be then God must not want us there either, so what’s the point.

The Bible very frequently demonstrates the OPPOSITE! God very often LEADS his people out of their place of comfort! Why do we often believe that his way is that of least resistance?

I embraced Wilmington with some trepidation after feeling with almost 100% certainty that God directed me here in the Fall of 2009. But I embraced it. Now a year and a half later with a move to Nashville just a few months around the bend, I am so glad I was willing to make Wilmington home. I feel that I have grown here because I have put down roots here for the first time. I’ve been unsure about whether or not I am really ready to move to Nashville, but over the last few days I feel an urgency to do it and do it soon, because the word that keeps coming to my mind is “accomplish.” And not in the sense that I hope to accomplish certain things when I go, though that is certainly the case. It is because I can see things that have been accomplished in my heart during my time here, and I can also see ways that God has used me to accomplish things in other people here. I feel that if I leave, I have finished my “exile” well (as much of an exile that this beloved beach town can be). I had no idea what the objectives were in my coming here, and now by accident, it seems I’ve accomplished them. I have seen my community grow, I have seen my own faith go through growing pains and coming out on the other side of them, I have seen friendships change, I have seen my gifts develop, and well…frankly, I’ve grown up.

I have tons more confidence, a trait which I will need the more that the “real world” rears it’s ugly head.  I feel better equipped to rear an ugly one right back.

I had a pretty bad faith crisis not too long ago.  It’s incredible to think about it now that it’s over because I remember wondering what it would feel like to trust God again.  I’d forgotten what surrender felt like.  I wanted to seize full control of my destiny.  I wanted freedom from authority, particularly invisible authority.  And it was terrifying.  I sat in my car crying, feeling desperately alone.  I asked a friend to pray for me.  Asking her felt like planning my own intervention.  I felt like it was that important.  And as she prayed the light changed.  It was incredible.  I felt my mind change.  I woke up the next morning feeling totally restored.  It was amazing.

Things like that make me excited.  Excited about what God has recently done, what I expect he’ll do this year.

I get insecure sometimes and become a little afraid of failure.  Little things can trigger it.  I read an email from an old college professor telling him of my plans to move.  ”So I guess you didn’t get into grad school?”  he more or less wrote.  It was like a needle prick.  But only a needle prick.  That’s an improvement.  A year ago, a simple question like that could have sent me into a tailspin.  Same with seeing certain relationships paraded on Facebook.  Oh the beautiful family.  Oh the trophy wife, the handsome husband, the perfect marriage, the dream jobs.  I don’t compare myself to people like I used to.  In fact, I’m able to be happy for them.  I still have to stop myself from scoffing at comments left by girls on the walls of old flames and would’ve-beens, both because that’s creepy and also because it does tempt me to spiral into a ruthless self-critique.  But I’m done feeling like the red headed step child.  I make myself feel that way.  God hasn’t made me that way.  He wants me to have his fullness more than he wants me to get the things I want when I want them.  And this is a truth that is finally being imprinted in the fabric of my heart.

I feel very blessed.  I am part of an incredible team of musicians at my church, Port City, people who are excellent at what they do but also care about how Christ is developing us individually and as a team.  I have amazing friends who will still be around in ten years.  I can see a dynamic God working daily in the lives of those around me.  And so I can feel good about closing this chapter of my life in Wilmington soon.

Though the Wilmington chapter is only gonna be on hold temporarily I expect.  I will always come back here.  Wilmington has truly gotten into me.  An Ode to Wilmington blog soon to follow.

So that’s where I am.

A few days ago, my mom used the story of Ruth to demonstrate a lesson about Providence.  Ruth gleaned in a field, to her a field of no particular significance, and it happened to be the field of Boaz.  God pours out incredible provision in the midst of our seemingly insignificant details of out life.  So she told me basically to go out and glean and expect something great, just as God gave that field great significance.

2011!  The year of great gleaning!

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