Life is like the Energizer Bunny

It keeps going and going and going and going and going and - well, you get the point!

I stopped by to see my dear friends, Dick and Dee, last night on my way home from a coffee rendez-vous with my cousin, Jake (more about that some other time). I haven't talked to Dick and Dee for a couple months, and it's been even longer since I sat in their cozy cottage's living room to talk about God and life and all the normal things I tend to talk about with dear friends: people, relationships, refining, sin, correction, mercy, the Bible, missions, etc.

Dee, as usual, wanted an update on my life. I realized that, honestly, there isn't much of one, other than that of the energizer bunny tagline - it goes on and on and on, etc!

I'm beginning to understand that IS the essence of life, though! After a multitude of years that just felt like being tossed around in a moving boat as changes buffeted me on the ocean of life, the waves have become somewhat predictable. For the first time since before highschool was out, I've had a year of NOT finishing school, starting school, starting a new job, moving across an ocean, living in a foreign country, moving back home, moving in general, or graduating. Wow! People really live like this! With some form of continuity and structure and expectations for what will probably happen next week/next month/over the next 6 months/etc.

The strange thing is, I like it! Maybe I like it because I don't feel trapped in it - meaning, I don't feel this settled position is here to stay until I'm old and grey and confined to a rocking chair on my front porch. But for now, the gentle rolling of life on the waves is a peaceful sort of thing!

So what did I report to Dee? I'm still teaching - only 10 credits this summer, 4 days a week. It's a very nice load. I'm taking an online class to certify me for teaching hybrid/online courses in the future. I'm running a lot - I'm signed up for a half marathon in 2 weeks, and I'm planning to do a full marathon in October... And maybe another half in November or December! I'm helping a dear friend/friend of my parents' get back into running, so every evening I have my little personal-training session with my stopwatch and we do our usual 3.5 mile loop around the lake in town.

I'm reading some awesome books about missionaries and feeling the settled-but-enduring fire in my bones and passion for foreign missions settle deeper into my heart. I continue to pray for several situations in my life and relationships around me that, I guess to put it plainly, aren't what I would like to see, but also fully under God's ability to sovereignly change or not change as He ordains!

I have wonderful friendships with dear people here locally, and I have the privilege of getting to rejoice with them as they experience blessings from our heavenly Father - new marriages, new babies, trips overseas to minister to the poor and needy, the fruits of hard work and labor and talent, the payoffs of invested time and devotion, new opportunities opening up. I never realized how content I could be being able to sit in the audience and watch lives around me unfold. I'm getting a front-seat spectator view of God at work! It is beautiful beyond description!

As usual, I do have a couple things I'm excited about up my sleeve (other than the races and watching life unfold around me for dear friends!), namely another job opportunity - in addition to what I've been doing. If I get it, I'd just be teaching in a different department, to a different demographic group, - another trip overseas, and options to consider for my Master's and the application process to move toward going overseas for several years. None of these are overwhelming or urgent at this point - which I like, I'm trying to take my time to make some of these decisions - but all of them carry the seeds of hope and the potential of changes.

I like that: having hope - obviously first and foremost in my Father who plans good and perfect things for me, but also for what those good and perfect things may be! - and I also like the potential of change... and yet, it's absence from directly impacting my life at the moment.

It's really wonderful. Holistically. I'm seeing God around me, I'm learning more about Him every single day and being humbled and refined from that process. I'm learning things that my intuition tells me I've needed to learn for a long time, but never taken advantage of the opportunities to develop characteristics of contentment, thanksgiving, humility, submission, and solid, committed, passionate, sustained delight in God, who He is, and the logical response of a life poured out for Him.

Am I perfect? By no means! Do I think I've almost got this? Not by a LONG shot! But I am THRILLED with how I can see God working in my life. Just like Paul stated writing to the Philippian church - the work in me will continue to be done until the return of Jesus. I'm so thankful for God's continued progress!