Meanderings

It has been a challenging but very good week. Challenging academically, challenging emotionally, challenging spiritually, challenging relationally - and good in every one of those areas. God is moving, as always, and at the moment I can actually see a little bit of how His hand is moving.

It is enough - more than enough, really. Faith is, after all, the essence of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen... and faith and trust are deeply intermingled. I can and will trust Him regardless of whether I can see.

I'm praying a lot. More than I ever have in my life. It's not enough. God is continuing to call me deeper, to a greater faithfulness to serve that way. I have so much to grow in.

I am not going to be home for Thanksgiving. I will probably be with a friend here in the OKC area. (Previous plans fell through.) I miss my family like crazy - more than I have at any point in my college career. I wish I could be there for one who's hurting right now, wish I could simply be there with the rest... For the first time, I am really struggling with being so far away, being so removed and so unable to help or to contribute to the family. It is not that I have not felt these things to any extent before, but I feel them deeply, strongly, passionately for the first time since coming to college. I wish I were there.

I miss FFI folk... many are at a reunion right now, and I am glad for them. I wish I were with them. They are a family, too, of another sort.

I have a great deal of work yet to do this semester; not least among that load is the composition for a wedding.

Another pair of friends got engaged tonight. I am incredibly glad for them. (If you read this, congratulations!)

I am lonely, in so many ways, right now. And yet, I am very contented. Funny, how the two can stand together so easily, not opposed at all. I trust God with where I am right now, and that diminishes the desire for deeper companionship not in the least.

Clarity.

Hope.

Frustration.

Excitement.

Anticipation.

Trepidation. Even fear.

Worry.

Rejoicing.

Trust.

All mixing together in a single churning mass.

Different from before. Not for the same reasons - and for exactly the same reasons. I look back a year, and things were so different. I was so different. I hardly recognize myself. I look back two years, much less three, and I do not know the man I see in my past. Praise God.

A year ago, I asked out the first girl I'd asked out since coming to college. She said no. I'm glad - not because I think ill of her at all, but because of all God taught me through that. 52 weeks to the day. Looking back, I shake my head in awe of all that the Spirit has done in me in the time since, and even all He did in the weeks immediately following. The whole last year is like that; that instance is but one memorable example (and neither the strongest nor the worst).

Many of my friends are dating or engaged. Others have recently broken up. For some, there is perhaps a relationship on the horizon. For others, there are neither prospects nor overwhelming desire. For some, there are broken hearts and frustration. For all of us, there is a need to trust God with where we are.

God has blessed me richly in every way. I am learning to thank Him for that instead of dwelling on what I do not have in a particular instant. We have been given much.

I have a busy day tomorrow. I have church in the morning, lunch with an old friend from high school in the early afternoon, several hours of composition (I'm hoping to get about two minutes of music written) in the later afternoon, final dress rehearsals in the early evening, dinner, and then a Student Composers' Recital. I'm terribly excited about all of the above, most particularly the lattermost. Few things are so rewarding as hearing one's own compositions performed. And I have many friends coming, for which I'm incredibly grateful.

All that to say, God is good, though my mind is a tumbled mess at the moment. I bid you all a good night. May Christ rule in your hearts forever!

- Chris