Garden Variety Neurosis

So, tomorrow I am going to call my landlords and inform them that I simply cannot keep my apartment, and I will be moving out as soon as possible. I have been out of commission for a few weeks now, and I have still got a couple more weeks before I can even go back to work part-time. It is simple math...I cannot afford to keep the apartment anymore.

On Friday, I am going to talk to my employer and tell them that I will not be returning to my job. Moving out of my apartment and in with my family means that I can no longer commute back and forth to my job. When I move in with my folks, my current job would require nearly an hour commute each way. Again, simple math...gas prices and time spent on the road would not make it worthwhile to maintain my job.

All at once, I am letting to of two things that I worked hard and struggled long to obtain. Letting go of that, and embracing the very thing I worked so hard to move beyond.

This letting go is painful. It is certainly not what I would have chosen for myself, if I had any control over this situation whatsoever. But, I do not, so I am faced with some difficult choices and painful sacrifices.

I am also faced with the choice of how I will respond to all that has happened in my life over the last few weeks. Certainly, I have my moments where I find a quiet place to just cry a bit and process all that has happened. But, moment by moment, I am choosing hope over despair.
I am choosing to place my hope in God's greater plan, and trust that His purposes in this will surpass the pain of the moment. I am choosing to place my hope in the belief that nothing in our lives is wasted, and the outcome of all of this is going to be far more amazing than anything I could ever imagined for myself. I am choosing to believe that God meant it when He said that He knows the plans He has for us, and those plans are meant to propser us and not to harm us, to give us hope and a future.

I do not understand why God has allowed for these things in my life. I may not ever understand. I do know, however, that I can choose how I will respond to this, and in whom or in what I will place my trust. I choose to trust God and His plan for me in all of this.

I have been through many trials over the last few years. Things that have tried my faith to its very core. I look back on all I have been through, and I can see that God was faithful in all of it. I look back on the days of struggling I've endured to this point, and I think to myself, "I got through that, I can get through this." And it is true...if nothing else, I have learned much about God's faithfulness to carry me through things that, without God, surely would have consumed me.

Though You slay me, I will trust You.