Summer pt.2

Okay, so there was no Summer pt.1 post, but now I'm into the second stage of my summer vacation.  Mom and I moved from Oakesdale, WA to Valparaiso IN over the last three days.  It was a good trip and I'm proud of mom for sitting in a truck for so many hours at a time.

It was a bittersweet time in Oakesdale.  I was really looking forward to a time of growth and reflection and above all else....goodbye.  With my mom moving to Indiana, I fear that I won't be back to the inland empire for a long time.

This year (if any of you have read my posts this year) has been an interesting one for God and I (well not for God, he knew it would happen!).  He's been teaching me a lot about what it means to follow Him and how much I've been prideful and idolatrous, it's been a hard year.  I was conflicted between two feelings going home: 1) (the lofty one) is that I needed a break from the hardness of life and wanted to veg out and have fun and 2) (the hard one) is that I wanted to cut ties with the town I grew up in.

I am a nostalgic person and I spend way too much time thinking about the past and not the present nor future.  I have spent a lot of time thinking about things, events, demons from my upbringing I wanted to set free.  The problem is that I did nothing to let Jesus set them free.  I was lazy and really didn't want to let them go, I was in my lofty state trying to soak it in rather than set it free.

The person that grew up in Oakesdale Washington is dead.  He has been renewed into a different creature. A creature that seeks to worship the Creator and not the creation that He breathed out.  The old is dead, the new is life.  The problem is that I started to see the dead when I was there and missed parts of him.  I wanted to relax and be him again.  I started to be him.  I forgot about why I was created.  I forgot Jesus (kind of).  I remembered Him with other people in prayer but I forgot about him with my own heart.

It was a sobering drive for me to leave the northwest.  Had some good talks with by friend Joel who showed me grace, love, and a sobering look at who I was.  The farther I drove from there the more I felt like myself.

It's been a weird trip, but a good one and I'm very thankful that I got to have it.  God has been merciful to me.