As you can probably well imagine, living in Europe and in
France no less is still like living in a dream. I got to go to Rome, Italy this
past weekend for just the weekend, (a blog about this will be coming soon… as
well on Paris… sorry!!). But seriously, who does that?! I am loving the
opportunity to take advantage of everything while I am here, but within the
last two weeks especially it has been really hard to be here. I know part of
that is I am just now passing the halfway point because according to my sweet
daddy’s countdown, I’ll be home in 46 days… WHAT?! I have been living here for
longer than that. Kind of incredible to believe.
These past few weeks were especially hard I think because so
much was happening at home that I was really missing. In the span of 2 weeks, I
had 4 friends get engaged, 1 very best friend, and then I had 1 dear camp
friend pass away at the age of just 22. I truly have found such peace in
knowing that without a shadow of a doubt, she is in Heaven, doing line dances
with the Angels Camp DeSoto style. It was Homecoming at Wake one weekend and I
saw pics on pics of all my friends together at the football game, at
President’s Ball, and doing everything in between together that weekend. My
younger sister won homecoming queen at our high school and I can’t tell you how
much I would have loved to be there celebrating with her. All of the girls she
was on court with were deserving, but I’m just so proud of her and the woman of
God she is becoming. If you don’t know Frances already, you need to. She will
rock your world. My other sisters will too. Missing them alot.
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It is cool to see God’s hand in all of it though because as
much as I wanted to be home for all of those things, no one needed me. Humbling, for sure. My
friends who got engaged got to share with people at home and their friends
abroad, and I was able to talk to my friends who were even more affected by
Martha’s passing than I was on the phone sharing stories and asking “why?”
together. My family was not planning on coming to visit at all this semester
but right after I left, plane prices dropped significantly and my mom decided
she really wanted to come over. So I got the absolute pleasure of hosting my
mother here, while all of that was going on at home. We had been planning on
her coming since the middle of September and all of these “FOMO moments” were
going on while she was with me so that was such an incredible blessing and it allowed me to focus my energy elsewhere, towards spending time with her. Such an
absolute joy.
I am currently reading Kisses
from Katie, one of the birthday presents I received from the incredible man
of God I still get to date despite the distance, and I am going to be really
honest, I think I have been putting reading it off for so long because I knew
it would be hard for me to read about someone else living out one of my dreams. From
the moment I heard what the book was about, I knew it would make my heart long
to do the same thing. For anyone who doesn’t know the book, it is about a 22 year girl
from Nashville, TN living in Uganda with 14 adopted daughters. She gives up
herself daily to show the love of Christ to everyone she comes into contact
with, including those reading her book. It sounds crazy, but I think it would
be an absolute blast. People are always surprised to hear this, but I really
didn’t want to go to college either. I wanted to go straight into the mission field,
wherever the Lord led me. But my parents were persistent, in a healthy way, that
I go to college first. College has been great and has had its ups and downs for
sure, but I hope and pray that it is not the best 4 years of my life. 2 and a
half years into it now though, I can already see how the Lord is using me going
to college, Wake Forest specifically, to mold me for a greater purpose,
starting with the incredible people He has put in my life. I have made truly
the best of friends, and the Christian community at Wake is something that has
been an incredible asset to my walk with Christ. I am being molded even more so
into the woman of God He wants me to be by the people He has placed in my life-
the family I babysit for, the people I go to church with, my incredible
friends, the friends I’ve had to learn to let go of, and the opportunities I
have had, at school, abroad, and even at home to serve and talk about Him. I
can’t tell you how many times I’ve said I wanted to transfer to UGA or Ole Miss
simply to be with my friends and take more “enjoyable” classes, but I’ve been
so blind to not see that God has had a different plan for me all along. I still
am SO blessed with friendships at UGA and Ole Miss, and other wonderful southern
schools, but me staying at Wake only means I have to pay for a little more gas.
Who doesn’t love a good roadtrip, am I right??
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| Our family as of this summer- we were blessed enough to add another sister |
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Sooo much processing and self-reflection goes on while
abroad. It’s healthy, but it’s hard. A quote I’ve loved from Kisses from Katie
is: “Psalm 37:4: ‘Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires
of your heart’. I used to believe it meant that if I did what the Lord asked of
me, followed His commandments, and was a ‘good girl’, He would grant all my
desires and make my dreams come true. Today, this is still one of my favorite
passages of Scripture, but I have learned to interpret it in a totally
different way. It is not about God making my dreams come true but about God
changing my dreams into His dreams for my life.” Preach it Katie. I’ll update
more soon but know I am daily being humbled and rebuilt by our incredible Maker
and I’m happy I am not coming home just yet. Missing every one of you, but I’m
so incredibly thankful for this experience. Relying on God takes on a whole new
meaning for me now. So much love all the way from France.
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