life as a jigsaw puzzle

my apologies that i'm just now getting around to sharing with ya'll the kinda big life decision that i made a week or two ago. after what seemed like an eternity of being in limbo, i have finally come to a place where i know what my next step is going to be...i'm returning to illinois! (well...at least i think. please read on.) it was an extremely hard decision because there's definitely stuff about life in california that i will miss. it's happy and sad all mixed together. i realize once again that those two emotions can perfectly co-exist. it doesn't make sense to me...but the happiness doesn't lessen the sadness, and the sadness doesn't decrease the happiness. what a phenomenon.
but...as the story unfolds, just the other day i received a message from an organization i had applied to two different times, most recently in december. they wanted to schedule a phone interview. what?! you've got to be kidding me, i thought. what is the Lord doing...why couldn't this have happened just two weeks ago. it's crazy because just before i got the message, i was out for a run by the ocean. i was taking it all in...enjoying the beauty...and talking with God about things he's doing in my heart and life. and in those moments, i definitely acknowledged the fact that it will be hard to leave, but in my heart, i learned that i was ready for this move. i was ready for whatever it holds. i shouldn't be surprised at how the Lord works and how his timing is so much different...but i still am.
so...as i scheduled the phone call for tuesday, questions and emotions were swarming around in me. i won't pretend to know what is going to happen. all i know is that i'm back in the waiting room:) if you happen to be reading this, will you pray for me? especially on tuesday. my hope is that the Lord clearly communicates something to me. no matter what the outcome, i realized through this that my excited to go home is genuine. sometimes it was hard to know if i was just talking myself into wanting to go back to illinois. but now i know it came from the heart. my first response when i got the call wasn't, "yes! now maybe i can stay in california!", but it was more like, "oh no...what is going on? why this? why now? what do i do?"
in church this morning, the guy was talking about how when Jesus rode into jerusalem on the sunday before he was crucified, it wasn't what people were expecting. (just like so many other things in his life). he was on a donkey of all things. definitely not something that anyone would normally associate with a processional into the city. but he went on to talk about our own expectations of God and how often times we pray for the Lord to do things on our terms. like doing a jigsaw puzzle where we have the box top to look at to see what the picture is going to be, we have this idea about how our lives are going to turn out or how God is going to act. so today i'm praying that God would show up on his terms. that i wouldn't try to fit the pieces together in a way that i want them to go, but that i would let him put the puzzle of my life together in a way that is best. which usually isn't the way that i thought.
and i can tell you this...going back to rockford was not the way i thought my puzzle was going to turn out. and whether or not this interview on tuesday will be something that was just meant to affirm that decision, or if it's going to create a different picture...i'm still learning to trust.

much love,
b.