New Year, New Attempt At Regular Writing

2019 is here. Yay!
I think.

I've been back in the states for nine months now and I'm no closer to an idea of where I should be going or what I should be doing. In a lengthy post that I never finished writing back in May 2018, I wrote that I was taking a sabbatical. Well, I've been on it for seven months and I'm still no closer to figuring out things for my life...and that's okay. I guess.

"Inside I was dying a slow death."

It's been nice to rest and not have to worry about working. My last job in Korea left me a mess, feeling like a broken clay vessel that's been swept under the table and collecting dust. On the outside I was fine. My students were learning and I did above and beyond what my bosses expected during my time there. I also trained the new teachers, created materials, and plastered that smile on my face everyday because I knew I had to. But inside I was dying a slow death. During my 4.5 years in Korea, I was often sick from the polluted air, sick children, and constant stressful environment. From ER to ENT and all doctors in between, I barely made it out alive.  I had responsibilities at work and church and they were good, but without taking time for myself, I crumbled under the pressure.

Just over two years ago I found myself in the deepest depression of my life and I wasn't coping well at all. I was very close to doing a midnight run, which most expat teachers know means leaving the country overnight, even though I had another year left on my contract. I won't go into the details, but that dark period really destroyed me in a very literal way. I clung to God like I never had in my life because I knew if I took my grip from the corner of his robe, I would die. He got me through it. Honestly, I never know what desperation was until that time but I also knew that if I was broken, God could put the pieces back together, even better than before. And he still is, piece by broken piece.

"Today I am stronger than all the yesterdays before."

I'd like to say all is well now, but the residual scars of that time still pain me, and that leads me to today. Today, I am stronger than all the yesterdays before. Each day it seems I take small step forward and then the next a giant leap backwards, but it's still progress. I'm not where I want to be but I'm where God has me, in his arms, and so it's fine.



Why am I writing, now? Well, because it's a new year and I really feel like I should keep this blog going. Writing is healing for me and even if no ever reads this then, well, that's just fine too.

I don't have any specific New Year's goals, except to stop trying to figure everything out and sit patiently in the lap of an all-knowing and very trustworthy and capable God.

And Wait.

“But forget all that—it is nothing compared to what I am going to do. For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland." 

 -Isaiah 43: 18-19