New Orleans, here I come!

Everything leading up to this point has been a mystery journey to an unknown location. There are still the unknowns of the next year, but one thing I do know is that my life will change. I love being able to say that I'm officially going to New Orleans! I can't wait to experience the life of this city and everything it has to give. It amazes me that these people live in a city completely destroyed by Katrina, but continues to be a power house of music and spirit. I look at pictures of the devastation that still exists, and I'm floored at the resiliency of the people to rebuild in the most positive way possible. I know that I will be blessed by this city every day throughout my year there. I only hope that I can be as much of a blessing.

All of the people I met over the past weekend have totally enriched my life. The community of support I found within the arms of complete strangers reminds me of the love that God has. To go into this place is to truly experience heaven on earth. The laughs I experienced and the tears I cried have left me yearning for more. August couldn't come sooner! Up to this point YAV has been a plan. It was a direction I decided to take in my life toward my future, but after this weekend, YAV has become a way of life. If we had this love for complete strangers all of the time, this world would be and unstoppable force of God! The comfort I felt being hugged by people I had met just hours before cannot be described in words. These people didn't know where I had come from or what my life had been like in the weeks prior; they just loved me.

Everything is moving faster now. The days leading up to that letter seemed like months, but now everything is happening so fast. Soon I will be mailing in paperwork and interviewing with possible placements. It seemed like years away not too long ago, but in only 40 day I will graduate from college and begin a whole new chapter in my life. Only weeks after that I will experience another incredible weekend of Pathways and a whole summer serving God's children at camp. YAV orientation will be here sooner that I know it!

"Before a word is on my tongue, you know me completely, O Lord." Psalm 139: 4

This Psalm was shared with me in two completely different circumstances, and I feel that it was given to me as a gift from God. God knows me completely and has known me since creation. There is nowhere I can run to escape His love, and even in my darkest times, He will be by my side as my rock. Even when I am fallen and bruised, he guides me on my path. There is no step I take that He has not already seen. He is the ever present figure in my past, present, and future.

So no matter where God takes me in the next year, or even in the next weeks, I will hold strong to the knowledge that my challenges are commissioned by my Father, and the one who knows me wholly.

Everything is about to change.