The Complex Life of a Church Janitor.

It's always interesting to conduct an informal retrospective.  By cataloguing my life over the past few months, I realize how much my heart is blind to blessings and the collision of God in my daily life.  Equally as important, I am able to identify the moments in which God's presence was fiercely apparent.  Over and over again, I find myself dumbfounded at the grace of Christ that permeates my life.

There have been challenges.  I've seen loved ones slip away.  I've found myself accidentally mention a name in a prayer for a person who is with the One to which I pray.  I've experienced the fading of friendships as physical and emotional separations took their toll as time crushes forward.  My personal strengths and weaknesses have become shockingly apparent over the past few months.  When given the chance to remain silent or attempt to reach out to people, I frustrate myself with my complacency with silence.  I've witnessed the rapid evolution in my understanding of responsibility and teaching.  Before I started this school year, I never fully realized how true teaching involves the education of the entire person.  I've wept for my students, as well as rejoiced for their successes.  I once heard a professor attest to these emotions and shrugged it off as weakness.  With my experiences this year, I now know these emotions are a sign of strength and commitment.

I can look back and focus on everything that went wrong or not as planned.  I could shake my fist and ask the unanswerable questions that everyone always seems to ask of our infinite God.  

Instead, I realize that it is in my weakness and brokenness that God is found.

He is the God who grieves with us.

He is the God who breaks the silence and whispers to our hearts, "Let me redeem your relationships."

He is the God who weeps and rejoices with us.

He is the God who revealed on a cross that apparent weakness can be ultimate strength and sacrifice.

I've been thinking a lot about Esther lately.

I read the book twice this week because I really like the story, the characters, and the entwinement of God into the events even though his name is never mentioned.  It's a story you can't help liking.  It has all of the qualities we want from an underdog story and the purposeful action of God we desperately want in our present lives.

I like Esther.  The story reminds me that God leads us into situations and brings people into our lives so that we might serve him in each moment... but there's a detail I've overlooked every time I've read the book until this week.

When Esther was made queen of Persia, it was in the tenth month of the seventh year of King Xerxes reign.

The events we remember in the Book of Esther (the threat of genocide by Haman, the courage of Esther, the triumph of the Jews over their enemies, and Purim) did not happen until the first month of the twelfth year of Xerxes reign.

There's four years I forget about in the story.

There's four years of Esther's life the Bible does not speak about in detail.  All we know is that Esther was queen of an empire and that she hid her Jewish heritage.

I always overlooked this small detail in the story, but I now think God put that detail in the story on purpose.  In the four years between Esther's coronation and her courage to face injustice, she must have wondered why God had led her to the palace.  

She was not from Persian royalty.  Esther was a descendant of exiles and a woman of a religious minority.  The choice of Xerxes to make her queen probably seemed more like random chance than anything else.

I'm convinced that in those four years, Esther probably stopped more than once to ask God, "How did I get here and why I am here?"  These questions are ones we all ask we encounter change and especially when we have to wait months (or even years) for God to reveal answers to these questions.

Esther had to wait four years to find out why she was placed in the palace.

This fact gives me hope.  Knowing that God slowly revealed his purposes in the life of one of the Bible's greatest heroines encourages me to trust that God is slowly revealing his purposes in my life.

This post is more of an update rather than my usual jumble of thoughts about the colliding of the infinite God in my finite life.  Long story short, I might need to change the name of this tumblr.

As some of you might have known, I graduated college back in May and interviewed for various teaching positions throughout the summer.  After much prayer and dealing with the unique implications of ends and beginnings, I accepted a teaching position.  With this position, I decided it was best to leave my work at the church.

It's been different.  I've been adapting to new people, places, pressures, and joys as I dive into teaching full time.  It's been great to recognize that although there have been ends, there's also a lot of beginnings at this point in my life.

I don't know what the future holds, but I have the feeling that I'm where I need to be at the moment.  I could change the name of this tumblr, shift the direction of my posts, or just flat out cease writing down the beautiful mess that is my faith; however, this blog was never about a job.  This blog was never about writing a quotable quote or attempting to wrestle with theological questions.  I started this tumblr to write down the myriad of thoughts I develop as I experience life in Jesus.  

I can assure you that I'll continue to write down my thoughts because, let's face it, I'll never be able to stop marveling in how God continues to reveal himself in my life.

I want to thank every person who has followed, messaged, asked a question, or somehow made sense of my spiritual searchings over the past few years.

I can't wait to see what all the beginnings of this season of life have in store and I hope you join me in the journey.

Lord,

I give my days to you.

I give you all the times I say yes and no.

I give you all the strengths you develop in me along with all the weaknesses and insecurities that lurk within my heart.

I give you all my worries and doubts.

I give you all my work.

I give you reign in all of the relationships in my life.

I give you the rightful place as the third cord in the weaving of my friendships.

I give you the ability to draw people near and let them fall away.

I give you the moments when all seems meaningless.

I give you the moments when all seems hopeless.

I give everything because it is all yours anyway.

I give everything because it is all temporary.  

I give everything because only you provide meaning.

I give everything because you are my God, which is the only thing that matters.