A Year Later
It’s been a whole year...
1 year people! A year ago today I left Thailand with tears in my eyes but hope in my heart.
And guess what, I’ve officially made it one year back stateside and honestly I never thought I’d be writing this with the sense that it was an accomplishment, but y’all it was!
This past year has been a roller coaster ride...but not the roller coaster with ups and downs and twists and turns, no, the ones that just drop you over and over again. That’s what it felt like. I’ve felt much like I was free falling and the ground was coming soon, it’s been hard and I’ve never felt so out of control of my circumstances.
Jobs opportunities have failed over and over again, boys have broken my heart, friends let me down and turned their backs on me, I let myself down countless times, living alone was so much more lonely than I thought, I’ve felt lost, gosh, I even broke bones and had to have surgery. Everything I thought would happen didn’t happen, I mean I’m still on the job search (I had my 100th interview just this morning), I feels like I’m still waiting on everything...and it’s been a whole year yall.
“Why did I ever leave?”
“Was this the right thing if nothing has gone right?”
“Is God really for me?”
“Should I just go back?”
These are all questions I’ve asked myself every single day in the last year.
It’s been a cycle of disappointment after disappointment and its not been easy. It has felt like God was being cruel and unfair, it’s been a hard year.
I wish this post would look different, that I could be celebrating with you all the victories but that’s not the story of the past year and you know what its ok. I’ not going to lie to you, i'm not going to try and sugar coat it and say i never doubted or lost hope because many days I did. I think sometimes pain and struggle makes people uncomfortable but sometimes its just the truth and its ok to admit that its sucked and it has.
But one thing remains, God is still Faithful, even when life doesn’t play out like I had hoped. He is still for me, and it’s not up to me to write the story. When I try to write it myself, that is when I get disappointed, so instead of trying to figure out what’s coming for me, I’m just going to find my rest in Him and what he is doing, even when I can’t see it or guess how it’s going to play out.
Sometimes we do things out of obedience and it feels like we are being punished for it, but just like this year has been so hard, my first year in thailand was just as hard but God was still there and it got better. I know that this is not the end that God is going to show up and it’s going to be a beautiful story, it’s just not going to be one I can write.
I know God is writing a beautiful story with my life, I know things will work out for good in the end. I’m just learning to hold on to the hope that only can come from Jesus, because anything else we put our hope in will let us down.