I’m well over a month into support-raising! Wow...saying this time has flown would be a ridiculous understatement. SO much has happened since GoWeek. Some good, and some not great, but through it all God has been amazingly faithful and near to me. Between grieving the loss of my grandma, officially quitting my jobs as a barista and homecare aid, and saying goodbye to my home and loved ones in Washington, my faith has been all sorts of stretched in this time. In seasons of massive transition like this, I have to constantly remind myself that God is the Giver of all good things. He is a perfect, loving, caring Father and He knows exactly when to give and when to take away. If I’m not convinced of these things, it makes saying goodbye to all the wonderful things in my life almost unbearable! However, because I know that God is wise and all-powerful, I know that when He’s moving me on from a place full of blessing and good things, it’s only because He has greater things in store for me. Those greater things may not feel or appear to be better than the former things in the moment, but I trust that whatever those future things are God intends to use them for my edification and for His glory!
I’ve found in the last 6 or so weeks that these truths are amazingly comforting, but they don’t negate the fact that any form of goodbye to something or someone you love is often accompanied by grief. For someone who never even expected to move back to Washington after college, I was sure able to reestablish roots and grow them reeeeal deep in the last year and a half living back there. Ripping up those roots hurts!!! It’s just not easy, despite knowing that it will all be worth it in the end. Plenty of tears have been shed lately and I know more are still to come. I just pray that God would continue to give me endurance through this support-raising process and that the enemy wouldn’t be able to steal my joy.
I’ve lost some momentum in the past couple of weeks, as my attention was more focused on saying final goodbyes to my Washingtonians and soaking up every last ounce of Washington goodness. The people, places, and general atmosphere all became so dear to me once again, so leaving was brutal. Not unbearable, but brutal. I’ve been in Provo, UT for the last week, staying with a friend, and I’ll be here for another few days. Then I’ll be finishing the last leg of my road trip to Phoenix, AZ where I’ll be moving into my parents’ house to finish out my support-raising time there. I’m already getting a little homesick, but I’m also feeling more freedom to move past the time of grieving and into the place of becoming genuinely excited about what’s to come! I don’t know what the future holds for me, but I do know that right now God has entrusted me with the task of support-raising and I want to steward that task well. So here I go!