Oh, How Things Have Changed...

Bestie and her husband are leaving the youth ministry to lead the college ministry.  Last night at youth group, we spent time honoring their service.  They were asked about some of their most memorable moments, and Bestie mentioned that morning three years ago when the two of us boarded a bus full of strangers, headed to camp.

And all I could think was, Oh, how things have changed.

We dived in head first into summer camp, not knowing anyone besides each other.  I was dreadfully uncomfortable and therefore painfully shy.  What am I thinking?  Why am I here?  I knew I was supposed to be there but if I were to be perfectly honest, I didn't entirely want to be there.  It was stretching and oh so scary.  We had been hired to teach in the fall, but we hadn't even moved yet.  I thought I was being tested to my limits, but unbeknownst to me, the testing hadn't even begun.

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My attic room was dark, the hall light casting shadows on the barren walls that had been so perfectly decorated.  I sat up in the bed I'd slept in for most of my life and looked around at the emptiness.  I cried.  I sobbed.  In the morning, I was leaving the home of my youth.  I sobbed for the life I would leave behind.  I sobbed for the people I would leave behind.  I sobbed for the uncertainty of the future and my new life.  It was the night of Independence Day, and it was my independence day as well.  In the morning, I left my hometown in Illinois and made my way to my new life in Florida.  The homesickness lasted a long time.  My body was in Clearwater, but my heart was in Midlothian.  Again, I knew I was in the right place, but that didn't mean I wanted to be there.

I think a year passed before I even really smiled.  I remember thinking about Bestie and how easily she seemed to fit in, make friends, and be herself, and I couldn't figure out why I couldn't seem to fit in, make friends, and be myself.  I had been lonely, unhappy, and discontent.  Yet things started to change over time.  I had become comfortable in my ministry and had made friends, but the testing wasn't over.

Bestie began dating.  Then the real challenges began and late nights alone, crying, much like that night before I left for Florida.  But miraculously, what had become the greatest test and strain became the greatest opportunity for growth.  My attitude, my spirit, and my life changed, only because of the Holy Spirit's work in my heart.

Then Bestie got married, and I got my own place.  You find me now, not the girl I was in the empty room in Midlothian, but a woman who is content with her life and can smile at the unknowns of the future.  A woman who loves her job, her ministry, and the people in her life.  A woman whose heart has changed more over the last three years than maybe ever in her life.

Three years ago on July 5, I made the greatest leap of faith I've ever had to make thus far.  And though it was a most painful and stretching experience, I would not and could not change a moment, because God used each and every moment to make me into a godly woman, and that's what I have asked Him to do.  When I think about what has happened in the last three years, I smile with the anticipation of what God will do in the next three years.  And it's a real smile.  A real, contented, happy smile.

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2010: