closing the door behind me

I’m not coming back.

I’m not entirely sure how to begin, but my heart has so much to say.Everything in my life is about to change. Change is exciting for me, at least this time. Yes, a lot of my comfort zone will be eliminated the minute I hop in my car to drive back to the place I wasn’t sure I would ever live again – the Palouse country. No, I don’t have a job yet. Nope, I have yet to make final decisions on where I will live. I have no idea if this year will be a valley or a mountaintop, but regardless, it will be exciting because I won’t be going it alone.

I was really upset at first when I felt like I was being called to go back to Moscow. Uncomfortable more than upset. Not because I dislike it there, but because I thought my plans were set in stone. While I’m a spontaneous person, I enjoy plans going my way. I was excited to go back to Azusa, and enjoy my programmed but very enjoyable life, walking down Barranca with the wind in my face and the California sun in my hair. Friends a parking lot away. Job security.

I’m starting to realize that this is the part of my spiritual walk that is the most difficult for me – faith. Unwavering, illogical faith that defies the conventions that the world tells me I need in order to function. John asked us in church last week “How big is your God?” Is He bigger than my plans? My obligations? Is His plan for me bigger than the plan I have for myself?

‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding.’ (Proverbs 3:5)

As I’m trying to find my way to a relationship with God that means something to me and that is real to me, as opposed to a faith with no heartfelt experience and a hand-me-down religion I inherit from parents or family… I’m realizing that I have so far to go. A lot of times I feel like I have it figured out (mostly), and that I have the answers… that I’m ready to take on the mission field and the world along with it.

I can be very wrong.

I have so many roads and paths in my life that I’m excited to pursue, and I know will get to at least some of them in my life. But one of my biggest shortcomings is my lack of satisfaction in the present. In today. In the place that God has put me here and now.

‘I can’t wait anymore, I’m ready to reach… so I’m closing the door behind me.’ –Bethany Dillon