In an earlier post (that was never published) I wrote something about feeling like it was starting to be time for me to move on from here. BUT, I felt that this desire was my own and not the Lords so the post ended with those words and the last being "and so I stay."
I've been hunting quite a bit for what I should do with the next few months of my life and I can honestly say that I feel the Lord is releasing me from the Ranch. I have been so blessed by this place and these people and feel that the Lord has done so much in my life through both, I will never be thankful enough. It has been such a neat season of life living away from home, supporting myself, building community, being taken in by Ranch families, and experiencing so much of who the Lord is. I know that as I process this season in the months to come so much more will come out of them than I realize even now.
While I am excited to be moving on to a new place and new experiences I am also dreading all the good-byes. I hate good-byes. A lot of times I avoid them until the last possible moment and then when I do finally do them I try to make it as quick as possible because I know that if I don't then I will lose it :-). I'm already dreading saying good-bye to everyone here and I realized today that it is (most likely) only three short weeks away from happening. I'm sure that those weeks are going to fly by faster than I will even realize. Hopefully I can be as intentional as possible with the little time that I have left.
At the beginning of the year I went to one of the morning of staff devotions at the Ranch (I usually have to work at my other job so this was a nice treat to get to attend). This particular morning the CEO was leading the time and he issued a challenge to each staff member giving us 15 minutes to go and pray and think and choose one word that we felt like the Lord was giving us for the year. As I thought and prayed the word that came to mind was Surrender. I felt that this year was/is going to be about surrendering my time, money, ambitions, talents, thoughts, ideas, etc. This is something that I feel we are always being asked to do but more often than not I find that I am not focused on surrendering but rather just living my life for myself (whether I realize it or not). Already, as I look back at the last few weeks I can see instances where He was giving me the opportunity to surrender but I choose not to. This is such an easy thing to say and so much harder to live out. I'm finding that there really is no way to get through each day well without the strength and guidance of the Lord, I am so weak.
As I continue on in another week (my weekend are now in the middle of the week) I hope and pray that I will keep the word Surrender at the forefront of my thoughts and actions, setting aside my own desires and seeking after the Lords. Please help to hold me accountable to this.
