this is my story.

I've been feeling the need to write a (hopefully) brief, look-what-God-has-done post lately. 

One of my favorite ways to remind myself of God's faithfulness is to reread my prayer journal, and I've been doing that a lot over the past few months especially. I've been amazed by the reminders of how God has woven all the intricate details together...how he's been using all the plot twists and character developments for my good and his glory.

If you've been following this blog from the beginning, you probably know the majority of this story already. But for those of you who only know bits and pieces, here's a synopsis of what God's been up to in my life the past few years:

Even though I grew up in a Christian home and was always at church events, my faith really became real to me in college. When I was younger, my faith was based more on morality than anything else...I identified as the "good girl" who always did the right things (or at least, I didn't do any of the "wrong" things...and oh how I judged the people who did). God graciously started to strip me of that arrogant attitude in college when I made plenty of mistakes of my own and he showed me more and more of my own sin and need for grace.

Things really started to change for me my junior year of college when I went to the Passion student conference in Atlanta. There, God began to wake me up to my own selfishness...that this life is actually not about me (SHOCKER) and, with people daily dying of starvation and sold into sex slavery, there are just so many needs in the world. Simultaneously, I began to grow in my relationship with Christ as the pastor of my home church challenged us as a church to read through the Bible in a year. For the first time, I began to read the Bible daily, and God began to transform me and draw me closer to himself. It blows my mind that, even though I claimed to follow Jesus, I had never really read all of what he chose to communicate with us...It's like I was trying to write a book report without ever having read the book!

As my heart started to change, my desires started to change as well. Never (NEVER) before had I considered joining the Lord in his mission of gathering the nations to himself. But, somewhere along the way, God started to kindle a desire in me to share his story of creation, separation, salvation, and restoration with people who may not have heard it...to tell of a God who loves them so much that he humbled himself by becoming like them and taking all their guilt and shame upon himself so that they could be reunited with him forever--the ultimate rescue mission and act of sacrificial love the world has ever known. 

But I fought it. Because, after college, you're supposed to settle down and get a good job and get your life together, right? So, I started walking in that direction. However, a week after starting a full-time job, my pastor showed a video during church about ways to pray for the country of Italy. I'm not much of a cryer, so if something drives me to tears, I notice. I remember that being the moment that God made it clear he wasn't going to let me just ignore him. Little did I know then that he would not only take me overseas but would call me to the very country he used to stir up my heart for the nations that day. 

Fast-forward to almost a year later when I'm making preparations to go to Italy for two years to work in a non-profit art gallery, teach English, and help out with a church plant. However, as anyone who was around for the early days of this blog knows, visa issues landed me back in my hometown--jobless and restlessly waiting--for almost three months. I remember that being one of the hardest seasons of my life...already having plans to go but not yet being able to go. Those were days of much uncertainty and ambiguity and anticipation and anyone who knows me well at all knows I'm not great (understatement) with the unknown and with shifting plans.

But, just when I had begun to accept that going to Italy might not work out and I was offered an opportunity to work as a journalist in Thailand instead, my visa for Italy arrived in the mail! 

And so, I embarked for Italy in January 2014. And nothing turned out the way I had planned. 

My original supervisor left Italy a few weeks after I arrived. The art gallery closed. We had to move into a different apartment. The small, solely American-led church plant folded. 

But God exceeded ALL my expectations. Though challenging in countless ways, my time in Rome was better than I could have asked or imagined.

It was also a time of great suffering and great growth, especially when my supervisor's wife died in a car accident a few months before I returned to the U.S. The months following the loss of a woman who had become such a dear friend and mentor to me were some of the most painful of my life so far. BUT...God used my own experience of grief and especially walking alongside her three young daughters in that season to lead me to pursue a master's degree in counseling and wanting to focus specifically on children who have experienced trauma and crisis situations...which led me to working for an organization that uses horses as therapy for children in crisis!

But...did you catch the timing there? If I hadn't been delayed in going to Italy because of my visa, my timeline would have been different. I would have had to leave Italy in June or September at the latest, which would have meant I would not have been there when Kyra died or when her family moved back to Rome and I wouldn't have been able to walk alongside them and my Italian church family in all of that. And would that have meant I never would have been led to get a counseling degree or work at Hope Reins or just generally live where I'm living right now?

And there's another thing that wouldn't have ever happened if I had left Italy in June... In the summer of 2015, an American family lived in my supervisor's apartment while they were in the U.S. visiting family for a few months. This family was praying through moving to Italy as well. I quickly learned that they were from the same city I was considering moving to to go to grad school. So, after getting to know them a bit during that summer in Rome, I got reconnected with them when I moved back to the U.S. and started my counseling degree. They immediately invited me into their home and family and church, and we bonded over our mutual love of Italy. 

And now, three years and many delays (including an unexpected fifth child) later, they have finally moved to Italy to help with a church plant there. And my church raised money (the EXACT amount that I needed) for me to join them for three months! So, Lord willing, I'll head that way in September to help with the kids while they're in language school and just generally try to support them in any way that I can.

Oh and there's also a potential long-term opportunity to return to Italy and a wonderful man that have both entered the picture in the past year, and I honestly don't know exactly how God's going to tie it all together in the end. But that's a story for another time ;) 

My point, though, is that sometime things (like delays and disappointments) can seem so senseless from our finite perspective. But what if the story isn't over? What if this is just an internal or external struggle that is part of the rising action of your story? What if your story hasn't reached it's climax (or its resolution) yet? God, after all, is THE master storyteller. He's been doing it since the dawn of time. And sometimes he's a God of suspense...of all-hope-seems-lost moments and last-hour deliverances. Just keep reading. Maybe your own personal "visa delay" is just God writing your story in a way that is so much better (albeit SO much different) than what you could have dreamed up for yourself. The God who made everything from the wind and waves to the way your eyes reflect light is a pretty creative guy. 

Well. So much for that being brief. But six or seven years is a lot to sum up! 

Hope this encourages you to lean into the Lord, even amidst doubt and disbelief and disappointment and disillusionment. I pray that the privilege of falling in love with him and trusting him to lead you is or becomes part of your story.