I will tell you exactly where I was today when it happened. I was sitting on a chair in Noël's living room, slightly in the dark, facing towards the kitchen. Noël was in the other room and her mom asked me a simple question. "What has it been like for you to graduate in May, go to camp during the summer, go to China, come back and spend time in California, then moving onto Texas to get married, then going on your honeymoon, then coming back to California to soon leave again for China." I finally was able to figure out what the heck is going on: my world has been flipped upside down.
For two solid months I will have been a vagrant, an eternal guest, able to get by, sleep another night, and keep warm because of the generosity of others. For two months I have been easing into a relationship with Noël given very unusual circumstances. I was given just about 4 weeks of an engagement period, where some people get several months or even a year or two. For the past six months I have not done any type of normal "church" thing. I was ripped away from the pinacle of my education, where I was learning about the complexities of the human experience, and pumping out 15-20 page papers, and I was placed in a country where I do not understand anyone or anything, and where it is my paying job to hopefully improve students spoken English from a 3rd grade level to maybe a 6th or 7th grade level.
If you are reading this, you have probably heard someone say (spiritually) "I really feel like the lord is molding me," or "my experiences are really changing me for the better." I can honestly say that these past few months have been the most dynamic, challenging, ridiculously difficult time ever. Plus, to top it all... I suck. In so many ways I have failed, I have missed the mark, I have forgotten to credit Him, I have been impatient, I have been selfish, etc. Some of you have been close to me and might have seen a difference in me, for most, you might have noticed it in my writings right here. They are still my voice, but it is a different voice- a more bitter, intellectual, detached voice.
My world has been turned upside down. Praise God that it has been, and I hope to never be righted, for my life to be abated, normalized, or have it dished out in managable portions. I want nothing to keep me from serving Him and others better daily.
Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.

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