Change

Lately I have been thinking about my life and where it has been.  This time two years ago I was planning the event that would bring a shooting celebrity to my podunk home town.  Later I saw my hard work pay off when I got to meet a leader in the shooting sports.  When he performed in Perryton.  This time last year I was preparing a speech for the state competition about what had happened the year before.  I went through multiple mock interviews in preparation for a scholarship interview.  That interview went on to help me in making it through college.  All while wondering about  how my life was going to change when I moved hundreds of miles from home.  

And this year.  This year, I have lived away from my parents for an entire school year.  I have meet tons of people I will love for life.  Friends who no matter if I see them every week, or a whole year goes by before I see them, I love and cherish every moment.  Since the beginning of this year a lot of things have changed.  I have grown and matured, loosened up, and realized that some things are not as important as I want to make them.  

Psalm 37:4 says “Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart.”  I don’t know why God has given me the desires of my heart, because I know I have not made Him the center of my life.  I have tried to but Him there, but more often than not my independent self thinks I can do it alone.  I can ask why I have been blessed the way I have a hundred times and the answer remains the same.  I don’t know why, but I know one thing.  My Father loves me.  Today I remembered the song “How deep the Father’s love for us, how vast beyond all measure.”  That is what I keep hearing when I look at my life.  

I have spent two weeks in Alaska in the last 14 months, and in that time a desire of my heart became to spend more time there.  I am getting ready to spend two and a half months serving there.  This is something a year ago I wouldn’t have even dreamed was possible, and how it came to be is one long, cool, amazing, only God could do that story.  

Another desire I had was for a group of close friends I can call on no matter what.  Friends, I know will answer, will laugh with and sometimes at me.  Friends who will confront me when something needs to change, who will give me good advice.  I have these friends in my life now, guys and girls, my age and some who are slightly older and  much wiser.  

Family, that has to be the hardest part about being hundreds of miles from home, I can’t see my family.  But God gave me another family here.  A second mom who worries about me, takes care of me, listens to me, and most importantly loves me.  A dad who has given me advice I swear could have come from the man who raised me.  Who looks me in the eye and tells me God has a plan for me and the struggles I am going through will one day end.  Two people who have given me the honor of being in their girls lives.  So I can have that little girl sit on my lap during church, so I can laugh at the craziness of being around a six and ten year old, and the challenge of being a good example.  They have welcomed me into their family, let me love them, and invested in me.  And now I can’t imagine my life without them.

All of these things are desires of my heart that God has given me.  Why I don’t know, and I probably never will.  So, now I try and show the love I have received to those around me.  Share some of the blessings in my life with others and once again, like dozens of other times, put Christ back where He belongs.  In the center, because without Him, I wouldn’t have the things I have now.