Like a Sea Without a Shore

Have you ever had those times where your words seem like they can’t explain or describe what you are experiencing? That’s how it has been for the past month or two. There’s about a million and a half things I could talk to you about, but the words wouldn’t come when I’d try to write. Just know that my heart was full of pure joy for the last couple weeks of school. The freedom and transformation that I was feeling was amazing. Those few weeks were so powerful that I found myself being thankful for my dark season because without it I would have never been able to experience the joy that came with finally seeing the Light. I would rather have gone through everything this past year brought to be where I am now than to have stayed exactly where I was a year ago, a place where I was happy but not joyful, for the rest of my life. Even that statement seems to fall short in describing what was happening in my heart that last month of school, but it’s the best I have for you. 

My last night in Ogden we had what is now called a Fri-esta, and it was further proof that the friends I’ve found in Utah are some of the most incredible people I’ve ever met. Want to know how cool they are? Some of them might be coming to Prescott to visit this summer. Yeah, they’re pretty amazing. 

Leaving was not fun. Not at all. A few of us hung around for a while, and as I was sitting in an apartment that I would never be in again, (my second favorite behind one on North Dearborn Street in Chicago) I realized that the next day every routine and person I had been living with for the past few months would be gone. The summer that seemed distant for so long was right in front of me, and I had, and still have, no idea what it is going to look like. As my enhancing creativity professor would say, I was in a state of overwhelmption. 

You know that joy I was talking about earlier? Well that is the cure for overwhelmption. My joy came from seeing how God has been and continues to be in every single part of my life. Classes, work, recent conversations and old ones, books, music, and people. I used to see everything as being connected like one giant diagram with arrows going in all directions. Except now after seeing how everything is connected, my diagram of how God works has turned into a picture of me being completely surrounded and consumed by the ocean that is His Love (this song knows what I'm talking about). So I don’t really know all the details of this summer, but this year has taught me that God will be there through it all. And I hope that my heart remains soft so that simply knowing He’s promised to never forsake me will be enough. 

There is one thing that I did know for certain that last night in Ogden. The title of Utah family no longer exists. You all are my family. Friends that I miss so much that the other day I was planning on having some quiet time in a coffee shop, but when I figured out I wouldn’t be at All the Perks, I didn’t want to go anymore. Seven hundred miles has never seemed so far.

Deuteronomy 31:6

Be brave and steadfast; have no fear or dread of them, for it is the Lord, your God, who marches with you; he will never fail you or forsake you.