First off, I need to confess and apologize because I have been avoiding my blog for like two months. I have attempted to write a couple blogs recently but just haven’t finished them. The first – and probably the worst – excuse is simply that I do not have time. I am in a season of life where I have spread myself too thin and just don’t have much free time at the end of my days. Secondly, I have felt super hypocritical & convicted about what the Lord asks me to blog about – like “Lord, I can’t blog about that “thing.” I struggle with that “thing,” why are you asking me to blog about stuff I can’t even figure out myself.” Any who … here I am finally creating my jumbled mess of a blog.
An update. I have had so many of you ask me, “Where are you now? What are you doing since you’ve been back from your trip.” Well here is the short and simple answer: working. I work full-time at the school here in Gothenburg doing behavior support in upper elementary classrooms and also helping in other classes where extra hands are needed. I absolutely love my job and the relationships I’ve been able to develop with the kiddos I spend time with. It's seriously the best! I also work at the daycare here in town after school which is fun as well. And last but not least, I started coaching volleyball for Platte Valley Juniors in Cozad. We have practices a couple days a week and will start traveling to tournaments on the weekends after the beginning of the year. (Remember that thing I said earlier about not having any time, yeah this is why. Ha!! Just a bunch of organized chaos.)
But as I look at my life and all of the crazy things I have going on, I can only say one thing: It just doesn’t make sense. Seriously. I look at my life and it just doesn’t make sense! When I reflect back on what I used to think my life would look like in my mid-twenties, I realize that I’m just not where I thought I would be. I think to myself, here I am a year out of grad school living at home with my parents in the town I said I would never move back to. I wound up with a job I didn’t even ask for (which is SUCH a blessing) in a setting I said I would never work in – education. I’m at “that age” where the first thing people ask me is who I’m dating and when my response is nobody they just smile with that look of concern on their face. (All of you single twenty-somethings know what I’m talking about.)
Even my life post-Uganda doesn’t look like what I thought it would. Honestly, I was 100% sure I would have been back in Uganda by now. I was sure I would be walking those red dirt roads, holding little dirt stained hands and eating chapattis. I never thought I would be back home, living with my parents and working at a school. It’s been almost eight months since I left the country my heart so longs to be in and it just doesn’t make sense that I’m not back there yet.
I look at my life and all of the things I don’t understand or comprehend ... I look at my life and evaluate all of those “things” that don’t add up. I analyze them with the intention to fix them, and by fix I mean manipulate to get the outcome I want or think best fit for the situation. Then I realize that I see things through a super small lens, with embarrassingly high expectations. I don’t see things the way my Father sees them; what my human eye can see is just a small glimpse of what He sees. I feel like the Lord just looks down at me sometimes and as he laughs at all of my complaining he simply says, “Oh daughter, if only you could see.”
As I tried to widen my lens, shift my perspective, I had a harsh realization. I realized my life is not actually mine. I saw that I needed to re-learn I am but one small instrument in the Heavenly choir. I realized I need to see that this life, this picture, this “thing” is SO much bigger than just me. I need to realize that I am a control freak; that I like things to happen the way I want them to, in the order I want them to, with the outcome of my choice. I think about that and man I just feel the weight of all the responsibility. It doesn’t make sense for me to carry that weight, but I do anyways.
So how do I apply that realization to my life? I’m simply giving up. I’m giving up all of my expectations, giving up all of the things I try and control, giving up on having things “make sense” and giving them over to the only One who can take this mess and create something out of it. I sit here in tears as I give God back Uganda and release all of my expectations for ministry there. I give up on trying to add and subtract and then divide until things make sense in my life. There are SO many things (like seriously so many things) I have to let go of, and by let go I mean throw back to Heaven as hard as I can so I don’t try to go & start controlling them again. I have to give them up to my Father and trust that those things which were truly from Him will someday come back to me.
This weekend has been a weekend of realization for me, on so many levels. But it all starts with me giving up control, because the more I try to control things the longer I am going to stay in this season. I am certain God has things planned for me because He has told me about them; his Word and his Spirit have told me about them. But I believe the only way those visions can come to fruition are by me giving them up.
As usual, I’m going to end this blog with a song. I’ve heard this song a couple times on Pandora recently and it just explains my life to a T. Give it a listen. :)
Love you all so incredibly much. Praying for you.
-Vic
Philippians 4:8