A Year In Review

Last night I was up and bored and that led to me being curious. I started wondering what I was doing this very same time last year. So thanks to my wonderful blog I could go back to last April and see what I was thinking last year around this time. Well I laughed hysterically when I read about my trip to David's Bridal to try on my dress for my cousin's upcoming wedding and the trauma of realizing exactly how much weight I had gained. Fast forward a year and I am still not where I want or need to be but I am not as heavy as I was this time last year. I am not eating my feelings as much as I was then. Also the cousin whose wedding I was preparing for then is preparing for a baby now about one month after she celebrates her one year anniversary with her husband. It is amazing how life goes by so fast. Last year this time I was facing many of the same issues: needing a job, not knowing where my life was headed, frustrated with the lack of call backs and job prospects. But also a year ago in May was when the Lord spoke to me and told me that I would have the things that I wanted and needed. That helped me to trust Him more and me less as well as not to be so afraid and frustrated at how long the process was taking. It's a year later and things have not progressed as fast as I hoped that they would. Quite honestly I gave up the job hunt in September of last year due to frustration and lack of opportunities. But I was rejuvenated at the start of the year and have applied for several positions. Whether I get them or not I leave up to the Lord but I know that He has a perfect plan and will for my life and as long as I do what I can He will show up and do what I can't.

I can't help but be brought back to the story of Joseph which Marilyn Hickey spoke about last week. I am sure there were years and months where Joseph looked at his situation and thought to himself that he thought he would have been out of prison by this time this month or this time this year. Oddly enough I have been thinking lately that a lot of the time I too feel like I am in a prison. Not the same kind of deal that Joseph had but the fact that I feel so confined. I want to break out and be free but I am constricted by a lack of money and resources. I want to go out and do things and be a part of life. I spend most of my time alone and I spend my days inside. I am going to try to change what I can about this. I don't have access to a car but I can walk. Maybe in walking around the neighborhood, I'll meet a friend or two, who knows. Maybe I won't but at least it would be a change in scenery. I use the excuse all the time in New Jersey that I don't go outside because of all the strange people who creep me out that live in my apartment complex but here it feels different and I feel reasonably safe walking around the neighborhood. So I need to get on that. But admittedly I would rather be somewhere else. I would rather have my own apartment, my own car, my own job, my own groceries, my own everything else. And it is difficult to be at this age and stage and be dependent on one's parents especially when I've been working on not being dependent on my parent's help for the last 10 years. The goal of college and grad school and moving to a different city were based on the idea of self-sufficiency and independence. It is very hard to look at the efforts that I put into attaining both of those things and seeing that they have not worked yet. It is very difficult. But I know that this is not my final destination. I will get out of this proverbial prison. I will have freedom and independence once again. And I will have a new appreciation for it as well. I will most likely relish paying my utilities and going grocery shopping (okay I never hate going grocery shopping, it is one of my favorite things to do) but I will nevertheless enjoy it once again. I am believing for a season of abundance and prosperity. I am believing for great things in the future. I have to believe that at least some of the jobs that I have been turned down for where not because I wasn't qualified but because there was something better for me in the future. I really like to hope and think that I am aiming too low for myself and that God has something higher for me that I can't even invision myself doing because it would seem impossible for me to be doing the thing that He has for me to do. I like to think that it's not so much something big and important, although it could be, but I like to think that it is something so challenging and rewarding that it would almost seem like a true dream come true to be able to do what it is He has for me. I look forward to seeing what the future holds. I still don't know what I am called to do or what my purpose is. I felt that I had a very clear purpose for my life about 4 years ago but since then it has drastically changed or I have taken the road less traveled to get there. I don't know if the vision of 4 years ago is still the vision for today or if it will change. But I know that whatever happens I want to be doing what God has placed me here to do. I blogged in January about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Mountain Top Speech in Memphis the night before he was assassinated. He spoke in the speech about having accomplished the work that God had sent Him to do. He had in fact accomplished what he was sent to do and that is the most rewarding thing I think that each of us can do. I know right now at this very moment in my life that I have not accomplished what I was sent to do and like I stated earlier I don't even know what that is yet but I think when I look back over my life especially the last few years I think I can see preparation for something. It's knowing what that something is that is the part that I am anxious to know. Like my friend Lisette used to say, "Rejection is God's protection." Just because I haven't gotten the things that I want doesn't mean that I won't ever get the things that I want, it just means that I have to wait until the right time. Another phrase that I have heard in one of the services that I have been in is that no doesn't mean never it means not right now. So even though I have been praying for a full time job for 4 years and have not had one job that was 40 hours a week does not mean that I never will have a job like that it just means that I had to go through some preparation first. I think that I am closer than I have been to where I would like to be. And there is no way except by divine revelation that I could know the day or the hour that the breakthrough will happen but I surely and truly believe that it will happen. I look forward to 2012 and looking back at this year and to the posts from the different months and what I was yammering on about and I suspect and expect for there to be a whole different focus in next year's review.