perspectives

Moving back home was something I looked forward to because, for some reason, I thought three years of growth in another town meant I would come back this new, mature person who could start over. So much has changed over the past three years regarding my connections to this city, and I figured it would be a familiar environment but a completely new community. I would find a new job, get involved in a new church, and plug into a new group of friends.

I do believe that will happen eventually, but it's starting to hit me -- that there is still history, and there are people and old situations I can't quite run away from.

Just because you leave a place doesn't necessarily mean you can leave the hard stuff behind and it will all just disappear. Because when you come back, some of that hard stuff will be waiting for you. Moreover, some of that hard stuff has grown or changed in its own way as well, which can cause either more or less conflict.

I know I have grown over the last three years. Coming back has made me see that I had left some things unsettled, and now that I've started to face these things, a lot of things aren't going the way I would like. There is a lot of confusion, a lot of ambiguity. All my life, my first instinct has been to demand order, demand closure, demand clarification -- or else I run away.

This time, I am choosing to focus my thoughts and interests on Christ. Instead of regretting the way things have turned out and questioning God's sovereignty, I am choosing to humble myself under His mighty hand and look at my circumstances with a new perspective.

These are opportunities to forgive 70x7. To love. To always trust, hope and persevere.

view of Pikes Peak from where I sat with 

my dad after he fed me wisdom this afternoon