This is ticket buying week. My newest paycheck and lots of saved up money are nearly going to be blown in one fell swoop.
I'm going to Europe. Again.
That sounds so snooty, but I don't mean it in that way at all. I just can't believe it myself. Now that I'm researching, comparing prices, and figuring out specific dates is it only becoming more than a dream.
Two years ago when my sister and I were in Belgium, we met this lovely couple through the Petries. This fantastic pair saw in me talent I was afraid to pursue, and encouraged it. In just an afternoon, they each in their own way were able to bring out in me thoughts and dreams and work that I had left buried.
They invited me back to study art with them and the idea has always been burning in the back of my mind but I wasn't quite ready or the timing was not quite right. But the time has now come.
So this summer I am off to ask more of myself than I have been, to pursue passions I have let fall to the wayside and to grow. I am going to put off creative fear and just work through it.
I am so blessed that Hans and Norma are so giving to put aside their time to pour their knowledge into me.
My wandering, artistic, passionate, gypsy heart is going wild with excitement to be in Belgium again. Not only to live, but to learn what I love there.
This adventurous soul had been striving to be where it has been planted; to love, learn, and grow in the staying. But it has been longing to go.
I have learned that I don't have to have a plan for my life. I used to have one. I used to have several. They were pretty good plans, even godly plans, but my hope was in the plan and not the God who gave me life and breath to make the process of making plans even possible.
I have pretty much given up on planning. I am just living. Living and taking one step after another as the path is laid out before me.
So I suppose my life looks a bit random. I've hopped around from job to job and different aspirations, but one thing remains the same: Jesus, and my life is not random to Him. I have learned what I needed to learn in each different situation and I hope, I truly hope, that anyone looking at my life can say that I am changed (in all the good ways) because of them.
The last entry I posted was a little over a year ago, listing my resolutions for the year, and I can truly say that each and every goal have been insane areas of growth. This past year has been extremely difficult, but I have learned to love others and forget myself, be thankful and joy-filled in every (most. Ha!) circumstance, to persevere past disappointment, to be myself and not care what others think, and to be strong and speak where it is needed.
And most of all I have learned that Christ is enough. I am seriously counting trials as joy for the steadfastness of faith that it produces in me. I am counting any gain I may have or could have as loss for the surpassing value of knowing Christ. I want to know Him. I want to be like Him and love like Him.
And those things don't come from me, they are His work in me. I am changed because He is good and He is God.
This trip.
These plans that I am making for it.
They are not my hope and joy and my life.
He is.
and this is just the next step.
The next part of my great, life-long and never ending adventure of knowing Him.
The God who loves me.
So stay tuned.
I'm rebooting the blogging.
Travel is far too much of a learning experience to neglect documenting.
It'll be awful.
I write how I speak.
Passionate bursts out of thin air and droll musings.
More focus on feeling than correct details.
Sorry, but not sorry.
I'll get better.
I'll talk about Jesus a lot.
He's my favorite.
You don't have to read it.
But it's who I am.
Not sorry.
oh, and artsy things.
There will be a lot of that.
I think I'm tired.
My sentences are getting choppier.
and horribler.
(That was a joke.)
ok, whatever.
Here we go.
