ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
It's nearly the end of June. Within recent weeks, I have left my job, visited both Minnesota and I'm actually in Tennessee right now ,fed a goat, traipsed through mud in lavendar sandals, drank milk (jaws dropping yet?), been hit on by the old sushi man at Ukrop's, been called Miss America and invited to Dollywood by the German waiter at the Little Dutch Restaurant, was an accessory to a potential stalking crime with one of my crazy Richmond girls (she's nameless, ok?)..and so on. I'd have loved to have documented, beautified, and given life to all of these wonderful and bizarre experiences via the written word...but, alas, I had to return the iBook G4 to Goochland County and thus grieve the loss of daily publication.
Between travelling to the deep South from the upper Midwest, from pit stops at my parents' house and new hometown and just 4 days in Richmond since school let out, I'm almost exhausted! (But these trips and travels were all incredibly awesome so I'm not complaining one bit). I've been able to visit with lifelong friends and new ones and God has blessed conversations both for me to learn and to teach others. So, little did I know that this month would contain for me a series of what my friend Kristyn may call 'divine appointments.' (I might be taking a bit of liberty with the term). I prefer to think of each encounter with each individual as being a divine appointment and that life is a comprised series of such moments.
The month began with what I WAS referring to as a "Newton's law" week, until I was kindly corrected--I wasn't falling down all of the time and experiencing strange bouts with gravity but everything that could have gone wrong DID go wrong...so Murphy's law was in full effect. It was the kind of week where I had to trust God hour by hour, since that seemed to be the schedule Murphy's law was taking place that week. I covered and bathed everything--and I mean, EVERYTHING--in prayer--and God is faithful and He brought me through it all. I think that, as someone who calls herself a Christian, I should be like this all the time; you know, rely on God hourly, and not being "anxious about anything, but in everything bringing my concerns and petitions to God." I wonder why it took me so long to get it and to live it.
In the midst of this, good friends--the kind that know your ins and outs and continue to love you, and you reciprocate equally--came to see me in Richmond, on an afternoon's notice. A friend I haven't seen in over 2 years was in town the same weekend I was recently, and even last night was the most blessed time of fellowship. Three of my closest girlfriends from Carson-Newman (two of whom were roommates) and I were able to visit and sip coffee and talk and laugh--those moments were so precious to me--in college, you don't realize how awesome it is to be able to share every meal with your best friends or live in the very same building as some of the people closest to you--and you don't get a chance, really, to have that occur again with any sort of frequency. As we were together, I truly felt as if not a day had passed since those times.
I am so thankful for this cushioning of true fellowship that God has provided for me. He sends encouragers and teachers at the right time, all of the time. As I enter the summer, I have only vague, unstructured ideas about where I might be living and what I might be doing--and I'm the girl who loves to have a plan. Can you believe that I'm not terribly stressed about the uncertainty of a not-very-distant-at-all future? I really believe that these divine appointments have relieved me of anxiety and helped me build up my trust in a big way. Locationally and professionally, changes are coming.I think I've finally heard God say, "Charlotte, see what happens when you go along and make your own plans and try to forge your own way? Why don't you leave the plan for your life to Me from now on?" And this is amazing.
posted by Charlotte @ 8:47 AM
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