One year ago I was on my way moving down to San Diego, about two hours outside of San Francisco, I had just left Portland that morning and it was just me and whatever fit inside my VW Beetle and the road. What a crazy feeling to look back on this last year.
One of the major things that God really was trying to teach me over this past year, and the lesson that continues to this very moment is the concept of allowing Him to shape what success is in my life. Sometimes I look at my life and I see it from the world's eyes. Sometimes I see coming back from San Diego before even one year was up as a failure, like I didn't give it a chance. But I went down one year ago with the intention of following God, and I came back with the same.
I have to constantly remind myself that success is rarely in the big moments when everything falls together, success is following God every step of the way even when it doesn't look right. Even when you can't see how anything's going to work out, you keep moving forward. I think God's more pleased with those moments than the more obvious achievements.
All of my life, even when I was turning away from the plans God had for me, I have been saturated in His presence. I haven't been able to escape it, and I find myself looking back at this last year seeing God's presence dramatically in every corner. That makes me happy. I miss San Diego, I wonder what would have happened if I had stayed, I wonder what would have happened if I had never gone, and who knows? I just wonder these things out of curiosity, I realize they're pointless thoughts, but then again, maybe they're not. It's brought me to a place where the less I SEE what God is doing or what God may have planned with a certain situation, the more I can SEE God Himself in that and not my own portrayal of what should be.
I heard a speaker on the radio this morning say, "Being filled with the Holy Spirit doesn't mean we get more spirit, it means the Holy Spirit gets more of us." I think I gave more of myself to the Holy Spirit in the last year, and whether I stay in Portland for the rest of my life now or move every 10 months until the day I die, I think that if I'm giving myself to the Holy Spirit more and more, then my life will be defined by my maker, and that is something to look back on and be proud of. Thank you to everyone who have been my support and link to God over the past year. It has not gone unnoticed :)
