One Month Later

I have been home three days short of a month, but it feels more like 3 months since I left the Japan. It has been a lot harder to transition back to Texas this year than it was last. I have enjoyed seeing family and coming back up to College Station, but I definitely have had my fair share of reverse culture shock moments. I think one of the hardest things about coming back it just trying to fit the parts of me that have been changed this summer into the shape of me that was left behind, if that makes any sense. I have been changed, some big ways and some small ones. It feels kind of like trying to fit a puzzle piece that was reshaped, even just a little bit, back into the puzzled you took it from. It hasn't been as hard of a transition in College Station as I thought it would be, it has been to be back with the wonderful brothers and sisters Father has blessed me with here. I have been so encouraged to hear their stories of the summer and what God did all over the world on almost every continent through our BSM. As amazing as that has been, until recently I had really been struggling to stay in the Word.

One thing that I have learned about myself over the past year or so is that I am very good religious person. By that I mean that sometimes I forget that Christianity isn't about a list of rules and I try to live my life that way rather than treating it as a relationship. God has really been changing the way I go about my quiet times. I am one of those people that is pretty consistent with having a quiet time each day, but that doesn't always mean I'm doing it for the right reasons. More often than not I do it because I know I'm "supposed" to. Jesus is the most important thing in my life, my Creator and Savior, I should want to spend every second with Him. I owe that to Him, right? Just this week I have finally been able to get into the Word because I want to, not because I have to. And what God has been teaching me is going back to the basics, but it is so new to me. It's not about how much I read, it's about how much my heart is in it. I have heard it said that is better to eat smaller meals more through out the day than just three big ones because it will actually help you eat less. If that is true about our bodies, why wouldn't that be true of our spirits as well? Why do I put so much stock into spending time in the Word in the morning, check it off my list, then go through out my day without ever giving more time to God? Doesn't it make sense to spend as much time with Him through out the day? When you're in a relationship you don't want to just talk to the other person once a day, you want to spend as much time with them as you can, talking through out the day. That is how we should approach our relationship with Father. He is, after all, our First and True Love.

In addition to all that, God has been taking me back to what the gospel is. It really is a folly to the perishing. But to those who are saved, it is beautiful and wonderful and unfathomable. Jesus left His perfect kingdom in heaven for this dirty, sinful world in order to experience everything we do. We do not have a high priest that has no sympathy on us, He knows. He knows what it's like to hurt or be confused or even how to battle religion to experience the Relationship. Our God is so great and His love for us reaches so much farther than we can know.

Thank you all for your prayers. This will be my last update. You can probably check back every now and then because I am sure I will still blog from time to time, but more for my sake haha. Please continue to pray for Japan, the people we met, and the missionaries that are still living there. Please pray for my teammates as the are also adjusting. Some are graduating this semester, some are back in high school, one left two weeks after we got back to a foreign country for 10 months to teach English. God is still working in all of us. We all appreciate your prayer. Love you all. Sayonara!