Change of Address

Well, I've been in Bangkok for ten days and I still can't get myself to understand that I won't be returning to the States after three weeks of asian vacation.

I live here now.

I've been meeting so many amazing people since I've arrived and they all ask the same question: "What brings you to Bangkok? How did you end up here?"

I give them the short answer for now - I'm working in an administrative/assistant/teacher role at Christ Church. 

What I keep running through my head though is: How did I end up here?

Some of you reading know very well, because I've done nothing but vent and complain for the past year to you, and for that I apologize.  But thank you for sticking with me.

Let's refresh our memories...

Summer of 2013 I applied to a teaching job in Spain after being told that they never have enough applicants but always have spaces that need to be filled by teachers.  I applied, interviewed and was told that it was the first year they had ever had more applicants than spaces to be filled and wouldn't be needing me.

End of summer 2013, made a contact in London to work in their coffee shop that helps women get out of sex trafficking.  I skyped with the founder many times and I felt like it was such a perfect fit.  But I wasn't sure that it was the right choice at the moment.

Fall of 2013, three different corporate partners from Starbucks walked into my shop, each gave me their card, asked for my resume and encouraged me to go to Seattle.  A friend of mine and I had already been planning a vacation out west to stay in Seattle so timing was perfect.  I had a tour and meeting set up, and six copies of my resume with letters of recommendation.  From the moment we rolled into town I was sold. But corporate Starbucks and I were not.

January 2014, I met an awesome British couple who serve in Bangkok Thailand who wanted me to come work for them.  It was a perfect fit.  This was it! Or so I thought.   A month after I had met them and was convinced this is what I was supposed to do, the whole plan fell through.   

Spain. London. Seattle. Thailand. No. No. No. And, no.

Cool. 

Now, I being a pastor's daughter my whole life, I knew the appropriate response to this by continuing to be faithful in the small things, in the responsibilities and relationships I had; knowing that God would provide, He would open another door. Right?

No. Not in the slightest.  Cue two months of rationalizing everything because I was mad and I deserved to do what I wanted.  **Oh Lord, thank you for your grace.**

Once I had awoken from this distorted reality bubble I had created, I begrudgingly started to look for something else to distract me from the fact that my heart was turning into something I never wanted to be.  So I made a plan: I'm going to Thailand anyways, even though the job fell through.  I would take a class and become certified to teach English and go see where it took me.  I didn't change my attitude, or my ways.  I have never been so much of a complainer in my entire life than I was the last four months of my life.  It was disgusting.  It was like "The Picture of Dorian Gray" where he sells his soul to remain physically beautiful to the world all the while his soul is deteriorating.  I could feel my soul deteriorating. But I just kept ignoring it until I realized that the plates I'd been trying to balance were actually bowling balls, and I wasn't balancing them.  I was just covering myself with them pretending to be awesome. Which eventually leaves some damage.

Yet somehow in the midst of my blatant ignorance bubble for the well being of my soul, the job in Bangkok re-opened.  Why?  Who cares.  I was done asking questions.  

So here I am.  Restoring.  Remembering Whose I am. Remembering that it's not all about me. (though writing a blog about myself seems contradictory... go with it)

Thus I leave you with something way more breath-taking than what I've just written:

"God created us to orbit around him, to center our lives on him.  When Go says, 'don't eat or you'll die.' What is our first response? 'Why?'  But God doesn't explain;

If you obeyed God because you understood what he was doing and how it would benefit you, then you'd actually be stationary...God would be a means to an end, not an end in himself...

...But remember, it may seem to you a very roundabout way indeed, and you must not doubt the thread.  Of one thing you may be sure, that while you hold it, I hold it too...don't try to go backward.  Don't turn to the left or right.  Jesus' kingship will not crus you.  He was crushed for you.  He followed his thread to the cross so you can follow yours into His arms."

Tim Keller~King's Cross