Finally, though the insanity December rolled around and we hoped a plane to Italy for a week. It was amazing, for the first time in a year I was really happy and excited about something; and in all honesty it was the most time Jeremy and I had spent together since before he left Monroe. We seriously needed that time, and it worked out for good.
When we came back things began to change.
Our new pastor came and he had a great vision for where he wanted to take the church. The idea alone had me excited to see what God would do. I slowly eased out of my overly cynical pit and got more involved in life. Up until then I was living for the chance to leave, and planning where we would go.
I joined the praise team, which conquered a massive fear of mine.
I eventually officially became involved with the youth group as we put our vision on paper and made a plan for what we wanted to see happen. During this past summer God provided a group to come down and work at the church, our youth room got a face lift as part of that. We got to meet great people who encouraged me to follow closer to God, much like I had before all the chaos of Jeremy's graduate program. Every Sunday we see more and more youth come, which is amazing considering there were Sunday's where it was just Jeremy and one lone teenager.
I got a lot closer to the women at church and have made a lot of great friends who make me want to grow closer to God.
The funny thing is I had devised a plan to leave back in the Spring. There was an opportunity for Jeremy to do his internship in Alaska and then we could eventually move to Europe. But God apparently didn't share my vision for the next few years. Now we hope to stay past internship so that Jeremy can continue to work as the youth minister and with the other leaders of the church. It has and I think will continue to be a huge blessing on us as individuals and as a couple to be involved with the people and ministry here. And that is just awesome.
So there you have it, the beginning of our crazy graduate school journey. I say beginning considering we still have two years left of it. It is funny now to look back and see how God was working, and why none of my plans went as I had planned. I often wonder what would have happened had Jeremy gotten into school in the Fall instead of the Spring, and I had been able to come with him from the start. I also wonder what would have happened had we never left Monroe.
I really feel like God made it so I had to stay in Monroe for the time I did. Had we left in the fall I wouldn't have been baptized (that is a whole other story I'll tell you if you want to know it.), and I wouldn't have had the opportunity to serve in such an amazing women's group and learn what I did. They taught me so much, and for that I am very grateful. I went from a very good place where I could see God moving and felt very close to him, to a dry time when I couldn't decide if he had left the room or was just mad at me. It is so glorious to be out of the desert and back by the oasis.
Looking back was there a time God moved in your life that you couldn't see until you were out of that season?
