There was this one time when I obeyed...

At the end of August in 2011 I made the decision to take a step of obedience. A step of obedience that led me to withdraw from college 3 days before the start of my sophomore year, pack a suitcase, and move to Asia for 10 months.  I didn’t want to drop out of school. I didn’t want to move to Asia. I didn’t want to give up everything I had known and understood about my life. But there was this burning, penetrating truth that plagued me inside – the truth of the presence of PEACE.

I knew peace like I had never known anything else before. I had to move to Asia – and I couldn’t explain why. I just knew it more than anything I had ever known before.

A 10 month “phase” turned into a 2 year adventure – an adventure that has redefined, redirected, and redeemed much of my life.

Often times people upon hearing pieces of my story or finding out how old I am are amazed at me and impressed at the whimsy of an 18 year old who moved to Asia on her own to work in the nonprofit world. Someone the other day called me “inspirational”, and I had to repress a laugh. I’m not inspirational. I’m not impressive. I’m not even very interesting. When people treat me like I’m some mature, wise young person it makes me uncomfortable. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I love compliments as much as the next person. But truth to be told, I’m really just an ungrateful brat most of the time. In a rare moment of spontaneous obedience, I decided to take Him up on the challenge of surrender He placed before me and that’s how I got where I am and how I have become who I am today. It had nothing to do with my maturity or strength. I just obeyed. That’s all I did. He did the rest. People say that I’ve done so much with my life, that I’m so experienced even though I’m so young. I haven’t done anything. All I do is wake up in the morning and say, “Okay.” Many times I say it reluctantly, but I know the beautiful freedom that is found in walking on the path marked out for me.

These 2 years have passed. Life has happened. And now this 2 year season is coming to a close. And I am speechless. I’m overwhelmed with grief, gratefulness, excitement, and hope.

                      

I want to process, to talk it all out, to figure out what I’m feeling, what I think about it all. But I just don’t have any words. I just can’t figure out how to capture what is inside. All I can do is utter, “Thank you.”