2 Corinthians 2:14

For anyone who doesn't know, my family is in the process of moving. Let me explain that whole situation before I jump into this story.

It started when my parents took a trip for their 10th anniversary to the Rocky Mountains a few years ago. They flew to Kalispell, MT., and enjoyed Glacier National Park and the Bison Range and places of the like for a whole week. When they came back, my mom really wanted to move there.

Of course, because of the serious snow and our large family, it was only in the talking stages, and we felt like we realistically couldn't move all the way across the country, away from everyone we know and to an acutely cold climate. We don't even know how to survive in that kind of snow. So we never moved past the talking stages, though my mom still hoped to, and I was becoming quite curious about what Montana was like.

Last year, we took a family trip back out West. It was the best trip of my life, if I haven't told you about it many times before. We made a big loop touring Glacier, Yellowstone, and Grand Teton over the course of two weeks. The bone chilling cold was quite a pleasure to me, and I enjoyed every step of every hike we walked. I discovered that being in a colder environment, I was much more energetic and happy. I'm obsessed with the Rockies if you can't tell. The evening we loaded onto a plane in Jackson Hole to come back home, I decided that I would never be happy until I was in the Rockies for good, and was never ever, unless I wanted to, coming back to the East. It was simply to boring and too hot.

I held onto that dream, and I let it grow into a wild and unruly vine that wrapped around my heart and strangled it. A few months ago, that was all I could think about, and I became a pretty negative person in my thoughts because of it. If I saw a sunset: "Would be prettier with a couple Rocky peaks in front of it". If I saw a deer: "This is puny. So nothing compared to the elk I saw in Yellowstone". If I heard the bird singing in the trees: "Where's the elk bugling"? So yeah, nothing was good or enjoyable because all I could think was how something else would be better.

My advice to the reader: Visit the Rocky Mountains, by all means, but don't come home wishing you could stay. Instead, be grateful for the blessing of visiting such a charming and wonderful place. That's where I messed up. I came home, and rolled in self-pity day and night, because, poor little me, stuck in this 2,800 sq. foot house with a 7 acre yard with plenty of clothes and food and clean water. I wasn't grateful for being able to go, I was just mad I wasn't still there. DON'T do what I did.

Let me also point out, my view of the Blue Ridge Mountains also shrinked to puny hills with sticks. I didn't want to move there at all. So you can imagine how deep my ship sunk when I found out we were moving to the Blue Ridge Mountains. At first in my heart I refused, then I decided to be miserable the whole time. Also, I never prayed about any of this until I had to.

Here's the actual story I was going to tell you now that you know the backstory. I wanted so desperately to move to the Rocky Mountains. And now, here we are, leaving my new friends and long-lost, God-given family, to go to a place I did not even like. As I was laying in bed one night, I finally decided to tell God all about it, even though He already knew.

So I told Him all of my concerns, and let me be vulnerable with you, I didn't just talk to Him. I let Him have it like you would to a kid who ran his finger through your delicately piped icing on a sophisticated cake. If God was so good, why did He give me special people and allow me to grow to love them just to rip me from it all 18 months later? I was, out loud, fussing and complaining to God about how I didn't like this plan and this pain, and since it was my life, he shouldn't be doing all this to me.

Then in mid-sentence He stopped me and ever-so-gently whispered to me "2 Corinthians 2:14". The Lord had not directly spoken to me in such a long time, and as he did it was like He poured Round-Up on my heart. (Remember the vine?) It melted away all of the anger. So I picked up my blue Bible and found it quickly. It said "Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ and through us diffuses the fragrance of his knowledge in every place." That made no sense at first and then He broke it down like Pastor Dylan (the youth pastor at my previous church) does.

The first part meant that God is leading me to triumph, not misery. You might pass through misery to get to the triumph, but that's not the final destination. Heck, if anyone is my life's GPS, I want it to be God. His plan is to prosper me and give me a hope (Jeremiah 29:11). And friend, that's His plan for you too as long as you are living for Him! So, first He set me straight on the fact that He had been helping me all along and wants to continue to do so. And He reminded me that I have to accept His plan and follow along if I want it to work.

The second part of the verse is really important to my calling. I haven't mentioned that before, as this is my first blog post, but the Lord has called me to the ministry in another country. God said "I mean, how many times have you said to me 'God, use me. Use me to bring people to you and glorify your name in my life?'" And now He was showing me that our moving was going to lead me to at least one person whom I am going to help, or maybe even lead to Christ. Now I couldn't help but notice that the change in my mood and mindset right then was a God Thing! (BTW, listen to Anne Wilson's song God Thing if you haven't).

Looking back now, it was pretty rebellious of me to think I knew a better plan for my life when He created me, not vice versa. But, I mean, how good is God not to just say "Forget it, she's too dumb to know what I'm doing anyway", but to take the time to speak to me and reassure me about what was happening?! So now I can know and have confidence that our move is the right thing to do, and now as I sit in an 800 sq foot trailer where I share a room with all my siblings, I'm grateful for having a house right now at all.

So the moral of the story is that we need to trust God in ALL circumstances; the broken things and the blessings. Have a blessed day.