Still straining toward what is ahead...

This is supposed to by my way-overdue blog post about how to making hosting a holiday gathering a cinch.  Or I should be telling you all about the great time I had at Christmas, or about how excited I am to be starting nursing school in January.  And all of those things would be good and true.  But if we're honest, that's not what I spend the majority of my time thinking about lately.

This is.

I miss London.  A year ago, I was anticipating 3 months in London-- away from my home and my friends and my dogs.  I was excited/ nervous.  I hear songs on the radio now and start to think "I wonder what London will be like" because the songs came out at this time last year and those were always my thoughts when I would hear them.  I didn't know how I would dress while I was over there or what I would do with myself all the time or if I would get homesick.  It was scary, but it turned out to be a fantastic experience

Rewind life two years, and I was in Honduras, having the best experience of my life so far.  I wasn't super excited about that before I went either.  But I went and I loved it and I want to be back there now.  And I want to be in London now.  And I want to have the comforts of home and my dogs and my friends.

I know that Jim Elliot says "Wherever you are, be all there," but I'm kind of having trouble with that. When I was in London I wanted to be home, and now that I'm home I want to be in London.  (And then I think about Honduras and how I never wanted to come home from) I try to be fully present in each moment, but that's hard when you know that the world is bigger than right here and life is bigger than me.  And (in my defense) Jim Elliot is not the Bible.

Neither is C.S. Lewis for that matter, but his quote resonates with me a little more. 

"If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world."

This world cannot satisfy my desires, only God can do that.  So I strive "...to take every thought captive to obey Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5). He tells me again and again that His plans for me will be exciting... always.  I look back on what God has done in me this past year particularly--teaching me to rely more and more on Him, and to seek His plans for me, not anyone else's.  And I look ahead toward nursing school.  And I know that He's got something pretty big up His sleeve. So I will wait patiently and be faithful to complete each task He gives me, and some day I will be looking back on that adventure like I look back on London and Honduras, grateful for the experience, and longing for my heavenly home where I will feel complete and whole.