Day by day

So where am I and what am I doing?

I’m currently in Indianapolis recuperating from jet lag and move-your-life-back-across-the-ocean exhaustion.

And I’m writing grad papers. At least I should be writing grad papers. Turns out I’ve got a bad case of writer’s block. So I’m writing on my blog instead.

I’m also sorting through and purging boxes upon boxes of stuff. When I left for China six years ago, I threw boxes, bags, and baskets of stuff in a closet in my parents’ house on top of other baskets and boxes of remnants of my childhood. I planned to return to it all a year later, when I thought much of it would still be relevant and useful. Turns out six years later, not much of it is relevant and useful. And after whittling my life in China down to two fifty pound suitcases, I was in a purging mood.

So that’s where I am today. But what’s next?

Good question. And if you happen to find the answer, please be sure to inform me.

Here’s what I do know: come Sunday I head back to Wheaton to {hopefully} complete my graduate degree. My grad program? It’s been great. But after four years I am very ready to be done.

After July in Wheaton? That’s where things get a bit foggy. Most of the time, we have a pretty good idea of what the next six months or year is going to look like. We may hold that idea loosely, but in our minds we’ve got a course set in front of us. That’s not so much the case for me right now.

I thought I learned to tolerate ambiguity when I lived in China. Apparently the Father’s not done teaching me that lesson yet. Don’t you love it when you think you’ve aced a course and then you get told that was just the kindergartner’s level? Apparently I finished Ambiguity 101. And now we’re moving onto Ambiguity 501.

Not that there aren’t some hopes and plans in the works. After six years apart, there’s a plan for a college roommate reunion in the fall. There’s the plan to attend at least one Ohio State football game {and please don’t get me started on how I feel about the program completely falling to pieces right as I regain the ability to attend a game for the first time in six years}. And there’s the hope that a certain long distance relationship might be transformed at some point in the fall to a short distance relationship.

But right now, it’s all about living day to day. And I’ve been drawn back again to one of the pictures that the Father loves to use with me when it comes to trust and dependence–manna. You can only gather what’s needed for today; anything more than that is guaranteed to spoil. And so I collect what is enough for today, trusting that tomorrow, just like today and so many mornings leading up to today, that there will be manna waiting just outside the door.

Who among you fears the LORD and obeys the word of his servant? Let him who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the LORD and rely on his God. Isaiah 50:10