I would like to hereby use the "God's plans are not my plans" excuse as my reason for neglecting my blog for the entire last half of my semester in Europe. Before you chuckle and think to yourself, "HAH, I knew she wouldn't be able to actually write about every trip!" let me explain. It's a good excuse and here is why.
Firstly, I did not consciously give up on my blog while in Austria, it just...happened. One trip ran into another adventure which ran into another journey and here I am back in Maryland trying to make sense of the blur that is my Gaming semester. To be honest, it makes no sense to me. Somehow, two months ago, I was running through the courtyard of a centuries old monastery with a stuffed backpack bouncing behind me to catch a fast train to where ever my heart led me. Compare that lifestyle to my average day in America and it's almost laughable how absurd the idea seems. Now tell me how and when I was supposed to sit down and figure out what it all meant and write it out on a blog?! I mean seriously who do you think I am, I was traveling across Europe every four days for crying out loud, ain't nobody got time for blogging!!!! Ok, I'm back to being serious now, sorry.
This summer has offered me a lot of down time alone in which to think and pray and sort out the whirlwind of spontaneity that I experienced in the past four months. When you follow your heart and spirit almost exclusively for that length of time, it can be very confusing and distressing to be forced onto an airplane and re-planted in your old life and, in a matter of hours, have to be able to answer THE inevitable question, "How was Austria???"
[Just so you know I will always say "It was so awesome!" and pray that you don't ask the next inevitable question which is "What was your favorite place?" to which I will say "It's hard to choose just one, but it was cool to see both Popes!" There, we just made both of our lives a lot easier by eliminating that small talk! Phew.]
Nevertheless, there is something incredible that happens when you do just that: follow where ever your heart and the Spirit may lead you. It is a beautiful lesson in blessed trust that can only by learned by taking that leap and just....keep on going. I could write for pages about the examples of this that I discovered on the daily. When the Spirit within you says GO, you go. When He says STAY, you stay. When He says LOVE, you love until it hurts. Then you love some more. I truly went many places and met real people that I loved so much it actually hurt.
[side note that I am realizing as I write....This kind of obedience to the divine will and death to one's own will is not something that should stay in Europe. It's not a lesson that I experienced just so that I can look back on it. Every. Single. Day. needs to start and end with full trust and full commitment of the will to follow where ever we are led to go no matter how crazy or impossible it looks from where we stand. I need to do that way more. Noted. ]
So. Bottom line. I didn't finish my travel blog because I now know that I wasn't supposed to do it then. There are so so so many aspects of those trips that I have only just realized by reflecting on them in the past few weeks. Yes, the memories may have been more fresh and vivid for me to describe right after or during the trip...but those are mine to keep. :) You might think you do, but you probably don't actually care what I physically did in Salzburg or Hallstatt or Wadowice or other random places I went to with unpronounceable names. That's what Facebook photo albums are for. I want you to know why I will never be the same. I want you to be able to have a peek beneath the surface of my transformed self. I want to show you how the old has passed away, and behold, I am made new!
"So whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come. [2 Corinthians 5:17]
to be continued...
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