God is leading me down an extremely new and exciting bend in the road. I am leaving this February 21st to go to Oxford, England for the spring to be the Acting Warden (British term for Resident Director [no jail involved!]) and Jr. Fellow at C. S. Lewis' home and study center, The Kilns!!! Thank you all for your prayers and support. While there, I will be taking care of The Kilns, leading tours, writing for the C. S. Lewis Foundation, and hopefully soaking up as much of England as I can as I continue to learn how to put my faith into action.
Here's basically how it happened:
After moving back into my parent's home this Christmas, I started to get very worried about what I was supposed to do next. What I thought was my direction ended up feeling really wrong and I decided to look elsewhere. However, that left me with no direction and I started to panic and get extremely depressed, because I hate not having a plan and not knowing what I'm supposed to do next. I've been in a constant moment to moment battle between trusting God to be in control of my life and trying to figure everything out on my own. Sometimes I won and sometimes I lost.
A former professor and friend of the family of mine and his wife were incredibly encouraging to me at this time. They helped me put together a fantastic resume and personally delivered it to their friends at the C. S. Lewis Foundation (www.cslewis.org), who were in need of a Warden for the spring semester at The Kilns, where C. S. Lewis lived and where students of Oxford, scholars, and Lewis fans now live and study. I was called in for a first and second interview and was so encouraged by God's planning when I read through the job description. Almost everything on the list I have had some kind of experience doing either at Wolf Mountain Camps, CBU, or other places. God has truly been knitting things together, even when I have missed the connections!
For the past couple years I have been on a quest to learn how to have an active faith in Christ Jesus. Two summers ago I spoke at campfires about great leaders in the Bible who "By faith, did..." and I wanted to have faith like that; not just knowing the Truth in my mind and then trying to control my whole life by myself like I am always tempted to do, but to know the Truth in my heart as well and to step out into it and trust God to hold my steps in His hands. Since Hebrews says that faith is all we can have to please the Lord, then that is what I want to develop. And that has been my goal since then. And it has also been quite the struggle since then! It's also taught me how important it is to be able to hear His voice and obey!
I'm still working on it, but it has been so encouraging to find that every time I have been at my absolute lowest, God has done something incredible and perfectly needed in that moment to keep me going. I'm collecting Ebenezer moments like crazy these days!
Once again, thank you so much for your prayers! I can't wait to see how God will use this next opportunity to touch the hearts of others through me! It is so wonderful being the voice and hands and feet of Jesus. Please pray that my faith will continue to grow in strength and action, that I will be able to hear God clearly, that I will have the courage to obey, and that He will give me what I need to accomplish the tasks set before me. My confidence is not in me, but in He who strengthens me!
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