Araella is 4 hours west, happily and healthily tucked away at university. She has encouraged me to go - promising to visit me. Friends in Arizona have offered opened doors - I even have a key to one of those doors hanging beside my house key here, in Pennsylvania, where friends and family have championed me to follow my heart even if that takes me far away. Honestly, I could not ask for more supportive people in my life. So why haven't I followed my westward dream?
What have I been doing for the past year-and-a-half besides being Rae's mom? Basically, putting myself though school - just as I planned to do when I resigned from teaching - but for free! I have been studying and learning so much from the written and spoken words of experts who have shared knowledge through their books and videos. Crazy how that desire for more wisdom was fulfilled without spending one penny on higher education. Hooray for the public library and the world wide web! It is with a deeper understanding of concussions, cancer, health, healing, nutrition and the Bible that I find myself satisfied with my "sabbatical" and ready to go back to work. But where? Arizona? Hawaii? India? Why haven't any of my really good ideas come to fruition?
... Because, I was waiting for direction from Him. Araella was hearing Him so clearly and I was convinced that I should hear from Him like that also. Admittedly, I was at times frustrated with the silence, however I was also at peace knowing that I would eventually understand His Will. He was, after all, taking care of us during the waiting. (Oh how sweet it was to rest in Him, to allow Him to restore my soul, and to prepare a table before me during these months instead of fretting and wasting the gift of time that I had been given to spend with Him. How easy it could have been to get caught up in the world of worry that beckoned outside the door each day. For Araella's healing and for that rest I am most thankful.)
I have learned, over the past 11 months especially, to listen to God. I realize the reason I wasn't hearing Him tell me where I should go was because I wasn't supposed to be going anywhere! He had me EXACTLY where I needed to be - with Araella. All of my efforts to plan for the "next stage of my life" were ridiculous really. I only want to do His Will and I acknowledge that my way is incredibly short sighted and inferior. He was silent about where I should go - until this week, when I finally heard Him call me to go west - 15 miles west actually.
Through a conglomeration of circumstances that only God could orchestrate, I was offered a position to teach in Middletown. And I enter this gate with thanksgiving in my heart - willing to serve, with gladness, the students 15 miles westward.
Fondly forever,
A dreamer
