It's been a while. I haven't posted in quite some time and I feel like I need to. But I don't even know what to talk about. I have experienced so many thing in the past month that I'm not even sure where to start. Starting somewhere is better than not starting at all I guess, so here goes.
I have been blessed. Plain and simple, I have been blessed. The numerous ways God's shown His blessings to me this past month leave me speechless in wonder at how good my God is. The first is from a dear friend of mine. She and I are a lot alike. We like the same things, think similarly about things, and it's hard for either of us to see just how much we help others. Ever since this summer I have been feeling spiritually empty. I know what happened, but that doesn't make it any easier or change how I felt. For some reason it stuck with me after camp and I couldn't shake this feeling of running on spiritual empty and never feeling really close to God or like I am able to do anything worthwhile. It's a pretty horrible feeling to be honest. During times where I sought God with everything I had, I would feel close to Him for a moment, but then I go back to this empty feeling. My friend told me in the past few weeks to take things one day at a time and to ask for the strength to make it through that moment because God doesn't just give us the strength for the next year, month, or even week. She meant it for a different purpose, but as I started living it out and looking to God for this moment and relying on Him for the strength to merely get through this moment, something happened. I just realized I am no longer feeling spiritually empty. God has been filling me more and more every day. Not enough for the rest of the week, sometimes not enough for the rest of the day, but He is supplying enough for this moment and then He does supply enough for the next. She was God's way of filling me again with reliance on Him in a moment-by-moment basis, but, more than that, I am now more focused on God as the provider of all my needs and it's helped immensely with stress and peace.
Wow, and that's just one thing in the past month. Next thing that springs to my mind is providing. Recently I've been thinking about graduating, a family, and the life God has planned for me. First off, I am getting a bachelors in Creative Writing. I plan on being an author, but looking at it from an honest point of view it usually isn't a high paying job, might not even pan out, and has a lot of competition. This isn't exactly a great confidence boost and when thinking about providing for a family I find myself wonder how well I'll be able to do that. But more and more recently, I am coming to peace with something, God has it and will provide even when I can't. Now, to better understand this, I want to go back a bit and explain some of how I got here.
My story of how I got to college is far from ordinary and miraculous to say the least. I was home schooled and even during my senior year I didn't know where I was going to go for college. I didn't have any prospects or even an idea of what I wanted for my major. That summer rolled by and I get to Labor Day weekend. My family decided to go camping and during the trip I was forced to make a decision about what I was going to do with my life. At that point I was considering joining the navy as a nuclear engineer, all I would have had to do was go take the ASVAB as a formality and I would have been able to join the navy nuclear division. But that same evening a possibility was dropped in my lap and the opportunity to attend Cornerstone University was brought up. Now, I didn't want to be behind. I was a grade ahead of most of my friends and I could have waited a year and then jumped into college, but I didn't want to and I told God that the only way I was going to college was if he could get me in this semester; classes started in four days and I had never sent an application or even looked at a college. Regardless, I applied to Cornerstone during the holiday, on the weekend, while I was rustic camping away from any transcripts(which I didn't have), grades(which I didn't have either), and any way of submitting my application.
Well, if you know anything about me, you know I'm a student at Cornerstone at the moment. So, apparently, it worked out. But the events and how it unfolded was such an amazing work of God that even to this day I am left speechless; God fulfilled every request and condition I made and removed every excuse I had in the process. He oversaw everything that happened and I'm still finding out things that He did that are affecting me even now and if they hadn't happened I wouldn't have been able to be where I am. However, long story short, I moved in the day before classes started, registered for my classes, and leaped feet first into a new environment, missing freshman orientation along the way. I picked a major out of a list that they gave me, deciding to declare something because I thought I needed to, and picked the only thing on there I recognized and was any good at, Math. I went into my freshman year pursuing a major I had picked at random and without any clue for what I was supposed to be doing there. My freshman year was a miracle in and of itself that I will explain in more detail in later posts. Sufficed to say I heard about something at the end of the year that caught my ear, the possibility of a Creative Writing major. I explored the possibility the next semester, the beginning of my sophomore year, and after that semester God had convinced me and I changed my major. Ever since then God has made it abundantly clear that this is where He's put me and that He has plans for me even if I can't see them or they seem unlikely at best.
However, possibly the best thing about college is that God's brought someone into my life that I never would have met otherwise. I can look at friendships I've made and say that without them I wouldn't be who I am today and that God's uniquely used each one to make me more like Him, but I met a person my sophomore year I am going to spend the rest of my life with and that's something I don't even have words for. The person I am going to Love for the rest of my life, the person who will stand with me until the end, and the person who will run toward Christ with me is something special to me and I don't believe I could have found anyone near as perfectly suited for me as she is.
And that's how I got here. God planned it. The whole thing. That I'd attend Cornerstone, that I'd make the friends I have, that I'd be housed where I have been, that I'd find the major that I believe He's designed for me to impact the world by, and that I'd find the person I will spend the rest of my life with. Looking back, every step was made without knowledge of the future and without knowing anything beyond trusting that God would provide for me along the way. He has till now. That's something I cannot look past. And worry about if I'll be able to provide in the future is essentially implying that God won't continue to provide. So, not only does He say He will provide, but He has shown me He will provide and that's not something I will ignore.
Wow. That is the only word I can say right now. That is the only word that describes how I feel after looking at what God's done in the past, present, and what He has for my future. He has my awe, admiration, and loyalty and can give me any direction and I will follow it. I can't imagine life without my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. This month has helped cement that belief more than ever.
At then end of this the only I can say is thank you. Thank you God, thank you Jesus. You've brought me out of the miry clay and set my feet on solid ground. You've given me purpose, hope and Love. And You're working in me now even if I can't see it just yet. I'll give it a month. Then maybe I'll see what He's doing at this moment ;] This was a long one and there will be more to come this month because He never stops awing me with what He does in, through, and around me.
Finding Peace in the Moment,
Joshua
