Abundance

I get to live within driving distance of this!  Praise God man!

It's been awhile.  I graduated, hung out in Holland, and then drove my car 3,000 miles home, seeing friends old and new all along the way.  Now I'm at home in Washington, living with my family and looking for a job before I leave for Thailand six months from now.

I'm in a transition.   I was driving into Washington on my trip, and decided to turn on "Home" by Ben Rector to commemorate crossing the border into my home state.  I regretted this decision by the time the first verse was over.  He sings, "But there's no fools like the ones I love oh no, so good Lord Almighty take me home."  When I think of "my friends" I think of my Hope friends- all still back in Michigan or scattered around the country and the world for the summer.  That's my group.  My crew.  My pack of goons, the fools that I love.  I don't get to go back to that.  That's not home anymore.  And it's not as though everything is exactly as it was back there and I'm just not there.  It's gone, and it's not ever going to be like that again.

Today I was listening to some music that I've had for at least a year and never actually listened to, House Fires, perpetually free on Noisetrade.  It's what I think of as "house worship," just a bunch of people hanging out and singing praises to Jesus with acoustic instruments.  One of their songs is "God of Abundance," which repeats over and over again, "You're the God of abundance, You're the God of abundance."  My college years certainly were ones of abundance.  An abundance of friends, community learning, sleep deprivation, coffee, and opportunities for worship and teaching.  I loved it.  I'm listening to the song, and remembering the feeling of sitting in a group of people that I love, singing just like that.  Oh the abundance of those moments.  I'm thankful for how deeply I drank them in before I left Holland for good.

The biggest temptation as a graduating senior is to be cynical and angry that the "best years" are over, and that life is nothing like what it used to be.  I'll probably go through this around the time school starts again, but I haven't been feeling this super hugely since graduation.  I was in Holland with said friends, and then I was reuniting with more friends and seeing new parts of the country (basically everything I love).  As another random gift from the Lord, a dear Hope friend was visiting the Seattle area within a few days of me coming home.  It's the littlest things that make me the saddest.  The moments when I wish that so and so could share a moment with me and realizing that that might realistically never happen.

Truth doesn't change though.  Though college was a time of much abundance, God is still the God of abundance.  For me now, it's an abundance of evergreen trees, job applications, and mountain views.  It's an abundance of time with God Himself.  It's an abundance of interceding for Thailand and the people that love.  God Himself is abundance.  An abundance of love and grace and redemption and truth.

This is where I choose to fix my gaze.  On God and who He is.  On the fact that He continually wants me to live fully as His daughter, in spite of my constant actions to the contrary.  Not only does He often provide more abundance than we even see, He is abundance.

This doesn't mean that I don't miss my people, because I do, in a quiet, deep, constant way.  But I've already seen so many people "again," from whatever season of life they are from and I have six more months in the States to do that, not to mention all of the new friends I'll make in my time here at home.  I know that this is where God wants me to be right now, and that gives me such a peace.  He is the God of abundance, wherever, whenever, whoever, whatever.  Amen and amen!