Oh Lord, I've been waiting for you

Save me, I’m lost
Oh Lord, I’ve been waiting for you
I’ll pay any cost
Just save me from being confused
Wait, I’m wrong
I can’t do better than this
I’ll pay any cost
Save me from being confused
Show me what I’m looking for
- "Show me what I'm looking for" Carolina Liar


I haven't been able to blog for a while, for several different reasons. The first being technical. My browser was interacting funky with blogspot. Second because I plainly didn't feel like it. Sorry, it's the truth.

So I didn't get into grad school.

This wasn't just a blow to the ego, it was a blow to my heart. A sharp, sharp blow of disappointment, anger, frustration, hurt, and pain. Especially when I was already at a place of doubting where I was suppose to be heading and where I thought I was suppose to be going. Stuck on a couch for 6 weeks does plenty to the mind as well as the body. I was angry and pissed off and I cried alot and I sat around depressed and watched 3 season of Chuck in a weekend. I was lost and confused and frustrated. I didn't want to move--in fear that if I did I would just encounter more disappointment, more hurt, more sadness.

But I can tell you this, now that I'm on the other side. God is good. Beyond anything and everything I ever imagined. Beyond rhyme and reason. Beyond faith and failure. Beyond limitations and achievements. God is good. This I know for certain.

Colt McCoy said, after the Longhorns lost of the BCS Championship, "I always give God the glory. I never question why things happen the way they do. God is in control of my life, and I know that, if nothing else, I'm standing on the rock."

It's true. For the last 3 months, living in uncertainty and doped up on painkillers, one thing has rung true--I'm standing on the rock and God is in control. My foot has healed to almost perfect condition. There were no complications. No unforeseeable problems. Nothing. And while the first six weeks were painful, now that I'm on the last six weeks, it's hard to remember the pain at all. (Ok, that's a lie).

Truth of the matter is this: God is good. God is beyond good. Oh how he loves us. His love just overwhelms me.

I recently turned down a job with Invisible Children. I've wanted experience with a non-profit so bad. I've wanted to be out of LA. I've wanted to find community. I've wanted. I've wanted. I've wanted. Sometimes what we want--often times--what we want clouds what we really need, what our hearts truly desire. I turned it down because it was unpaid. They countered with a "small stipend." But by then I had already decided to change my attitude and work with a few friends who already started a design business doing exactly what I want to do with my life--except for the fact that they are based in LA. I also decided that while it's important to work this summer for a non-profit, what's more important is to spend time with my friends and my family. For the first time in my life, I decided to pick friends and family and Jesus over work, over success, over reputation and skill and growing my talents (which who is to say I still can't do that while focused more so on my friends). And how amazing was it to tell my best friend that I pick her over one of my latest-get-famous-quick-job-opportunities and to hear her shock, her excitement, her joy that finally, maybe just finally, I was getting things right.

That started the ball of blessing rolling. It's funny how small decisions, small attitude adjustments open us up to seeing a world of difference and to seeing how Jesus is right there in front of us.

I recently returned from a work trip in Hawaii where I got to shoot photographs of construction sites all over the island, on army bases and on housing complexes and wear a hard hat and steel toed boots and be all legit. I'm designing a website for one of the top electrical companies on the island and that just simply astounds me. God astounds. God ridiculously, continuously puts me at awe. I'm blown away by his love, his mercy, his grace, his goodness.

And while it's still painful to know that I didn't get into the school of my dreams, painful to think about living in NYC again and walking those streets listening to the hum of passing cars and the honking of angry taxes as a dream still put on hold, I get it God. For the first time, I think I might actually get it. It's all about right now, but it's not having all of it right now. And God is in control. He gave me dreams and desires and passions, but he didn't give them all to me for this moment. Life's a marathon, not a sprint, after all.

And while I might feel like I'm not going anywhere. While I might look at myself and see living at home, following my dreams of becoming a graphic designer not entirely the way I mapped it out. While I might see the late night questions, the implied curfews, the roommate-less situation as something that is hindering me from MY plan, truth of the matter is I'm still on God's plan. I'm still following him. And that's really all I can do. All we can do is follow God, pursue God, press into God--and he does the rest. We can't do more, he doesn't ask for more--it's all he wants and it's all we need to do.