Living

. . .another thought that I've been chewing on is what I ended with yesterday - me living.  When people ask about my YWAM experience I say that it was hard but good because I just needed that experience at that moment in my life.  Sometimes you have to get away from regular life in order to really deal with things.

I know that I returned home internally different than when I left last year, but I don't quite know if other people noticed a change or not.  One person from church commented to me that I 'looked different' when I came back.  All I know is that I let go of the things that were holding me back in my life - bitterness & anger - and I made the conscious decision to forgive and live a different life.  Especially in the church, we expect these huge life changes to happen instantly, but I would say that few of us experience radical change like Paul did when God encountered him.  It took a while for me to feel different inside (see my blog 'Altar' on Oct. 3/10).

Certainly, it's taken some time to adjust back to life at home this year.  It was probably March by the time I felt that my clock was back on track, the jetlag was gone, my stomach could digest properly and I was back to feeling like myself (only a new and improved version)!  As I started working back in school, and now at the woman's shelter, and as I gave time and resources to various charities, I started to feel like I was living - maybe for the first time.  Not living in terms of me being so busy that I barely have time to eat and sleep (which has been the case for the last few weeks), but the living where I feel like what I'm doing has purpose.  It's not doing to be in God's good books, but the kind of doing where I grow closer to Him because what I'm doing has God's purpose for me to know Him more intimately through the doing.