soul searching and noda

So tonight was seriously one of the greatest nights I've had since moving to Charlotte. Nick accompanied me to meet my Lancaster art class in Noda for the gallery crawl and it was great fun. We weren't there long, but truly the best part was my ride home with Becky. We talked about family and really finding your place in life and finding your place with the Lord. I realized that God has given me the past few months and while I've felt so alone and so confused, He was totally with me the whole time. It finally dawned on me that I needed to come to Charlotte and make my own mistakes and do something that was totally off the wall and out of my own plan to begin to see who he's made me. Becky and I have such similar hearts and such similar backgrounds - we've both been fighting for this affection and sense of achievement in the eyes of others and I just realized that while I've been continually trying to ignore who God really has made me to be, I've missed so much joy & contentment and I've run a little from Him in the process.
It's like when you sit too close to the mirror for too long and your face starts looking pixelated and you realized thats really your face. So now I'm in a job that I never thought I'd be in and I really never deemed as a worthy career and it's so far from ministry in a church - but it's where God wants me and I want Him to use me there. These past few months I've realized that marriage is far less glamorous than I imagined and I'm certainly not amazing at it. It takes a lot of work and shaving your legs when you don't feel like it and it's a lot easier to just be roomates but that's just not what marriage is. I've figured out than in Columbia, a good deal of my time and relationship with the Lord was there because I thought it needed to be and I was shocked to find out that when I moved and got inundated by the world, my time with Him was far less easy. I have to fight constantly to not look like everyone around me and my quality time with Him is more and more like a battle every day.
I don't crazy love the magnified picture of my life that I'm seeing, but at the same time - it's where He's put me and it's who He's made me and it makes Charlotte & all the craziness of life seem a lot more understandable & now I can sort of start from solid ground to grow with Him and use my time more usefully for Him.
I'm excited & I love my becks.

Peace - Jco