one year

 

On May 12, 2013, I cried.

I cried when I saw my classmates’ families pouring into the auditorium at Grace Church of Sebring, and when I saw dozens and dozens of my own adopted Floridian family there too. I cried (for laughing) when David gave me the “Almost Perfect” award. I cried, for real, when Pastor Aaron picked apart both my strengths and weaknesses with his alarmingly excellent discernment, and when Pastor Randy gave us his final charge—his parting words to the thirteen disciples he had made before he sent them out into all the world.

I thought it would be harder to come to grips with the fact that three hundred and sixty-five days have already passed. In them, I’ve watched my GCBI brothers and sisters change the lives of third-graders, young adults, Mongolians, senior citizens, and more. Perhaps the hardest thing for me to accept is how little I feel that I’ve accomplished, how empty my own record still seems… how hard my heart still is to the idea that maybe God has purposefully put me in a smaller sphere than I would have liked, that perhaps even King David was better fit to raise up a godly son than to build Yahweh a temple.

I wonder sometimes—does life get ever harder, or am I just climbing a particularly rugged slope right now that will plateau soon? I suppose there are new challenges every day and with every new season in life. I suppose God’s work in us is never done, and after He’s knocked out contentment it comes time to work on pride, idols, self-reliance, discouragement, and all that good stuff.

I flatter myself that I’m learning at least a few seconds faster than I used to.

:)