Reflection

Wow it has been over a month since my last post. It's not that I've been too busy to write, just that I've been, well, lazy. I haven't been in the right mindset to write the deep stuff that drives me. I've been focusing on what I haven't been able to do, rather than where God has me right now.

You see, March 3rd was my last day with World Help. I knew the time was coming for me to leave, I just thought that it would be the summer when I had planned to move to San Francisco. But before my trip to NY I found out that World Help had to make budget cuts and since I was leaving anyway, it made it a lot easier to include me. My world was rocked, my comfort zone destroyed. It's so much easier to say that you'd serve God in the gutter or wherever He places you until He asks you to lay down your pride and position and become a driver at Papa John's. I must admit that the last month has not only been humbling but humiliating at times. I find myself working for a kid that's still in high school after I have worked for 2 years for one of the giants of modern day missions. I find that I am slapping pizza dough instead of standing in front of thousands of people proclaiming the gospel. But then days come when you are sitting there with that high school boss of yours and you see how troubled and broken his spirit seems and you understand exactly why God has brought you to this little pizza shop on the corner of Church and Fairy.

I couldn't understand why God would bring me back to Martinsville, if even for a short season. I couldn't understand why I would be humbled and humiliated. And then God showed me. I had, for only a brief moment, the opportunity to peer into someone elses heart and feel their pain, to understand their hurt. And then it all clicked, this is what we're called to do. Not stand in front of thousands everyday, but to sit and listen and be a friend. God created us to long for relationships, to develop friendships, to bring others to Him by our example. Again my humility reached an all time high.

Over the past month, God has allowed my world to be turned inside out. He has given a clear path for an interesting future.

On March 3rd I ended my season with World Help, a place I will always love and never forget. On March 4th I asked Katie Rickabaugh to be my wife, suprisingly she said YES!!! One month from today, Katie and I will be married and will begin this crazy life together. This is my public invitation to you all.

And that's not all, after a brief honeymoon, she and I will begin our trek across country to our new home in San Francisco, where we will join our dear friends Kenny and Kelly McCord for a time of growth and allowing the kingdom of God to expand in us and hopefully we can bring some new things to the table. Call us adventurers but we don't even know where we're going to live yet, other than spending the first few weeks with Kenny and Kelly.

So as we start this new life I am reminded to always look with anticipation at what God holds for us next. I am also reminded to cherish what He has for you now, it may be a preparation for what's to come.