I really liked Dory in the movie Finding Nemo and I am finding this cartoon fish's advice to be very useful at this time in my life. I just have to keep swimming. My last post was about the valley of humiliation and the desert of anonymity and obscurity. I am still there at least presently, and I am hopefully moving out of them gradually or perhaps even quickly. I have been struggling the last week because I have been feeling out of place since school is over. I used to have all the free time in the world and wished for something to do. Then I found something to do and had very little free time but I felt purposeful. Now I am back to having very little to do and I don't like it. But it has made me question things on a much grander scale. What am I supposed to be doing with my life? I like working as a substitute especially for the preschool program but that is not what I want to do with my life. I don't feel called to do that. And I keep wondering what the vision for my life is. Was the vision DC but I had to go away to become who I really was before I could return? Or is the vision something totally different that is unimaginable to me at this moment? I have no idea and I don't like that. I would like to be able to have a plan. But it seems like anytime I make a plan it falls through. Does that mean that I am not supposed to be planning anything? Does it mean that I am just supposed to do the things where the doors are open for me right now and then wait for the rest of it to fall into place? It's very confusing, frustrating, and troubling. Yesterday Pastor Gool was preaching about why we need the Word. And he was talking about how we use the Word to build our faith. He was saying that a lot of us are not seeing our faith work because it [our faith] isn't rooted in God's love for us. We think that if we're good and we do things that are good that God will reward us for being good and our good deeds. But Pastor Gool was emphasizing that God's goodness toward us is not based on anything that we can do on our own but based on everything that Jesus has already done for us through the cross. We are righteous in Jesus which gives us the ability to come before God's throne boldly and ask for what we need. Another revelation that Pastor Gool taught was that God loves us just as much, no more no less, as Jesus. That's a little overwhelming to think about, feel and know. But I believe it's true. Last month I was reading My Utmost for His Highest and Oswald Chambers said, "Never let cares or circumstances separate you from the fact that God loves you." I have been trying to embrace this fact ever since then. But it is very hard to feel loved when it seems like everything is going wrong. My whole life crashed down around me and it seems like it is taking forever to get back up. Every full time position I've applied for in the last five years I've been rejected from. I had only a temporary contract job in both 2010 and 2011. And then this year I worked for a few months as a substitute teacher but it's not permanent and sometimes there aren't jobs available everyday. Not to mention the fact that I have been living with my parents for the last two and a half years. It is very hard to feel that God loves me in the midst of all of that. I have also been struggling with comparisons as well. Sometimes I look at the lives of friends or people I know who don't have a relationship with God and others who even have chosen not to have a relationship with God and they are successful, they have homes, jobs, families, and financial security. I don't begrudge them any of it but I am perplexed why people who fail to acknowledge God and have lived however they have wanted are doing so much better than I am. Not that I feel like I am better than them but I feel like if God is on my side why am I faring so poorly. No job, no family, no home, and struggling for everything. That is the big question : Why? I just don't understand and it does make me feel at times unloved, rejected, forgotten, and like I'm being punished. It sometimes feels like if I could only know what I did that was wrong I could make it right. But I don't know that that is realistic or true. Yesterday at church Mrs. Gool was singing a word from the Lord about this very thing. She was saying that God sees your tears, knows your needs, but isn't worried about how to get you where you're going. He understands that you have a lot of questions because you don't understand what's going on. And if I remember correctly she was saying that your breakthrough was coming or the thing that you needed was coming. I remember thinking I hope that word is for me. I've been in a lot of services and heard words about changes and breakthroughs and hoped that they were for me but then there were not noticeable changes that I could see or went through and I just assumed those words weren't for me. And thinking back they could have been for me but maybe they just haven't occurred as quickly as I thought that they would have. But I feel pressured. I'm 30 and I need a full time job and my own home. Just several weeks ago I wasn't even sure I would have a job for the summer and then I did have one and I was really thankful for it but now I am feeling pressured because my first two weeks on the job I haven't been working enough. I really long to get to a point where I have control over my own life. At least as far as decisions and day to day planning goes. I feel tossed around and controlled by what other people do and I have felt that way for the last two and half years. I really want a job that's my own that I really love, my own home that I can feel comfortable in because it's mine, and I really want to know where I belong. I am still struggling with the fact that I feel so disconnected here and it's not really my ideal place to live. That would be New York. I really want a lot of things to change, very very badly and I know that at this point that it has to be a God thing to get those changes because in and of myself those changes won't happen. I know that God loves me and I know He has a good plan for my life, I just wish I could know when that good plan was to go into effect. But I guess the most important thing is just knowing God's love for me and knowing that He doesn't want me struggling and in need forever and always. And that this is just a season of my life, it won't last always, but believe me it has lasted long enough. I am tired of being in constant need and tired of not getting the call back or the positive answer. I want to win. Yesterday I went to a museum here and saw two really great exhibitions. And I was just more than sure of the fact that museum work is what I want to do. I love museums, I love culture and people, and I want to have a job that allows for me to educate, inform and entertain all at the same time and to me that is what exhibitions can do. I feel like that is my calling but I am just not sure how to get there because all the ways that I have tried have not worked. So I am just going to have to rely on the Lord to open doors and make a way for me to get to that point of being able to do the work that I would like to do.
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