Life Is Not a Snapshot: It Might Take a Little Time to See the Bigger Picture

I haven't written in a long time. In short- my life has been one crazy roller coaster ride from about November till legit this morning. I've barely had time to stop and take a deep breath at the end of each day much less write a blog post about what God has been teaching me about it. But today, after yet another problem occurred I finally found some relief, peace, and calmed down enough to share some of this crazy ride with you! 

As you know from my last post, my life has changed quite dramatically since I decided to quit my internship. I have been looking for a job outside of Child Life and have been extremely frustrated since it has been 2 months and one day since I graduated and I am STILL jobless. (there is a bit of sarcasm here. I should also note that I am technically employed by Concordia. I just mean my dream "real" job hasn't magically landed in my lap yet.)

On top of this, my car has been dying, my phone randomly shuts itself off approximately every hour (with no upgrade available till October) and I have been increasingly realizing how stinkin expensive the adult world is! (especially Ann Arbor!) I hit a point last week where I was like: SERIOUSLY?! As much as I love my parents, the idea of moving back home and having to depend on them again has not sounded all that great. College has taught me to be semi independant and I would like to keep it that way. But with how things have been going, I've been headed in the direction of moving home in a month and being unemployed. Yay.

And then today happened. I tried to drive to church and my car completely died. The transmission went out- meaning no driving anytime soon for me. I went back into my dorm room frustrated, angry and mad at God for not letting me go to church when that is where I needed to be the most! I sat down and said "God, meet me where I am at. I am frustrated and angry and I need some comfort! Show me that where I am at is not in vain!" After some random searches, I found this:

PLEASE watch this if you get a chance. HOLY MOLEY. My mind was completely blown. I am a very visual learner, and Christine's way of describing things and using analogies worked SO perfectly for me! She used the analogy of a dark room developing negatives to God shaping and molding our lives. She talks about how God uses complete darkness and pain to do a "chemical processing" to remove all the bad qualities from our old identities that the world gives us, and makes us into something totally brand new and beautiful- a photograph worth hanging on the wall, his pride and joy.

As I watched this video and laughed and cried in amazement I realized this: God has me EXACTLY where I am at for a reason. My dream is to eventually work with families but especially girls who have experienced all kinds of abuse. I want to help families heal and make changes so that we can reduce the number of kids being abused in our world today. I am hoping to get my masters in social work so that I can provide family therapy and turn it into a ministry with a church someday.

But that being said- I will be working with very BROKEN individuals. People who have experienced pain at unreal levels and have no real idea how to trust people or how to trust God. They have to re-learn how to experience emotion and learn how everyone in the world is not out to get them. Healing is a HUGE undertaking that can only be done through Jesus Christ. But what I realized today is that God has me where I am now, and where I've been in my past so that he can have me help these broken families in the future! I have experienced the pain and heartbreak in my life to be able to relate and help these families in need. Through my pain, I can lead others to the healing love of Jesus. When I used to think about this in the past I would say "That doesn't make some of the stuff I have gone through worth it" but as I thought about it today I thought "Yes. If my story can bring one more person to Jesus, then it is worth it!"

The other point to her sermon was this- God doesn't work like Instagram. Our society is SO used to instant gratification that if we told most of the kids from this generation that we used to have to wait three days before we could see a roll of film and 3/4 of the pictures wouldn't turn out they probably would stare at you like a deer in headlights. They are used to selfies, and if you don't like it you delete it. God is old fashioned, and our lives are like old fashioned film. It's going to take time.

I LOVED when she talked about King David and the time between when he was anointed to be king, and when he actually became king. She said it was approximately TWENTY YEARS. TWENTY YEARS?!?!?!? 20 years to be prepped and trained and molded by God to fulfill his purpose. Wow. And here I am whining because it's been about 6 years for me since I started my healing journey. That simply BLEW MY MIND.

So as I thought about all of this, my mind simply became at peace for the first time in months. I don't know where I will be in a month. I have a job interview lined up, but you never know. But for the first time (possibly in forever!) I am not worried about it. I know that God has it worked out already, and I just need to spend some time in the dark room before this picture develops and I can add it to my photo album of life.

So here is my random thought of the day for you: Are you expecting God to change your life in the amount of time it takes to post it to Instagram? Or are you in it for the long haul and running to the darkroom to be developed? Trust him. Trust his timing. Trust the darkness. It's going to be okay. Don't fight his timing, trust his purpose. If you would have asked me about this yesterday, I would have said something COMPLETELY different to you. You really never know when your time in the darkroom will be over and morning will surface! Trust him!