My time spent living away from home with my best friend is coming to a close. I must say, it has been three of my favorite months of my lifetime. I am having a hard time not being devastated at the thought of leaving. My main motivation for returning home, my job, is now no longer available because the ministry cafe closed. (I was really upset about that initially but God has given me peace about it and I know it is in His will.)
God has taught me so much in my time here. A lot of my friendships have changed and I have been forced to cleave to him. He has given me clarity in my friendships; the ability to let go of some and the desire to grow others.
He especially brought one very special friend into my life. This friend is not a Christian, and at the beginning of our friendship I was hoping he would see Christ through me and maybe learn about Him, but God ended up teaching me through him. He and I share so much in common, and when we met we both had broken spirits as a result of how close friends had treated us. When I was with him, I saw myself and my thoughts mirrored in the things he said, and God revealed to me just how lost I would be without Christ. This only made me desire his salvation more and it is an issue that presses on my heart day after day. The truth in 2 Corinthians 6:14, "Do not be bound together with unbelievers; for what
partnership have righteousness and lawlessness, or what fellowship has
light with darkness?" was really made clear to me in my friendship with him. Never before had I realized that there was such a wall there. The inability of an unbeliever to come to Christ without Him opening the individual's heart was made so clear to me. Never before had I so realized the blindness of an unbeliever. Isaiah 47:6-7 "I am the Lord; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people a light for the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness."
God has really shown me how much trust I put in friends and how little I really should. They are only human, and in my mind I hold them to standards I myself do not meet. He has given me new perspective and motivation for seeking him to satisfy my desires.
I love this place. I love the people, I love the weather, I love the atmosphere... I love that when I'm here my mind is always pointed towards God. I weep when I think of returning home. I hope and pray that someday God will bring me back here.
At the end of this summer I shall be departing to California for Bible college. This was a chapter, and that will be yet another chapter in the adventure of serving God I embarked on in my early teenage years. I pray that I will always be willing to accept God's will for my life as what is best for me and when my plans change, understand that they were never God's plans to begin with.
~Melody
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