Something that I've so been, not only challenged, but encouraged by is the idea and knowledge that God knows. It seems silly, and like, duh Sara, God knows, but it's a deeper more complex kind of knowledge. There have been multiple times since I've moved to LA that I've been in situations where I look at where I'm at now and say, "Wow, God knew. He knew I would be here, and THAT'S why that didn't work out or THAT'S why that happened."
So, I've never thought that I struggled with that whole aspect of 'putting God in a box' and limiting what I think He can do. I know it's something that is spoken a lot about in Christian communities, and within personal and spiritual contexts, allowing God to break out of that box we put Him in and letting Him have full control. I've understood that concept, but I've always thought that I've been pretty good at knowing that God is bigger, wiser and more powerful than I expect and giving Him free reign in my life. In these last 2 or so months that I've been living in LA, God has been in a very small, cramped box, that has actually been tucked away on a shelf somewhere, unused and forgotten about. I didn't understand what was going on, why things were happening and where He was in it, so He was confined to when and where I needed Him. That time was cold, ugly and fruitless, but I was in control. Somehow, I felt like that was enough, because it distracted me from how alone I felt.
After slowly breaking out of that cycle, and taking my God box off the shelf, I realized that there was so much more to this that I wasn't seeing. Things that hadn't made sense for months were starting to all fall together, and I had the most amazing revelations, which encouraged me to keep going. It encouraged me to keep pursuing the truth, the truth that I had once known so well but turned away from the minute things got challenging.
The things that I realized during this time are simple, but so profound to me. I realized that God knew me before I thought I did. I came to this point, maybe a little over a year ago, where I thought I knew who I was. I had my shit together, I was a good person who loved and followed Jesus, and was willing to devote my life to bringing the Kingdom. That's all awesome and great, but because I know all that, doesn't mean that I don't make mistakes and don't stray from what I know to be true. Like I said before, in these last couple weeks I've been making a lot of mistakes. Nothing that was terrifyingly serious, but making decisions that weren't wise and that weren't characteristic to who I was or who I'm called to be. After making a series of these poor decisions, my mother sat me down, via phone, and voiced her concerns about my latest ventures. She didn't reprimand me for being young and stupid, she didn't make me feel reckless or childish. She voiced her concerns as a mother, yes, but as a spiritual covering, as a discipler. She showed me where her concerns were, where they may take me, gave me Godly, wise and maternal advice and left it up to me to decide what I wanted to do about it. It was very objective, but it was covered in love and her desire to watch me grow and flourish on my own and in Christ. Just because it was done well, doesn't mean it didn't sting, but it was just what I needed to hear. See, God knew what I was doing and God knew what would get through to me, but the thing that surprised me the most about how much God knows me is that God knew just how and when that needed to be communicated, and by who.
My parents are absolutely incredible, and they're very different from lots of other parents I know. Growing up, I was never pressured to do certain things because it was on their agenda. My dad didn't plot my childhood so that I would become a pastor/in ministry just because that's what he was and that would make him happy. They never pressured me to pick a certain school because it was their alma mater, or to choose a career because it would make more money/cause me to be the most successful I could be. I watched parents of my friends put these kinds of pressures on them, and I always wondered why my parents didn't do that. I knew that their parents did it because they cared, and sometimes I would wonder, "Do my parents not care enough whether I succeed or not? Do they not care where I go to school, where I live, how I do my life as much as other friends parent's do?" These questions never plagued me, and never brought up much of a stir in me, but they came and went as different life circumstances have come up. What this whole season has brought to light is that God knew just the kind of parents I needed, and that was different from what my friends needed. Seems silly and easy enough, but it took me a while to grasp. He knew what kind of child/teen/adult I would be and who would best steward and point me towards the Father. In my parents allowing me to make my own decisions, and the lack of pressure to do things a certain way, I learned how trust Jesus. And in that, I learned that my parents trust Jesus enough to entrust me to Him. They stewarded me towards Jesus enough to trust that when it was time for me to live my life outside of the confines of my parents limits, I would look to Jesus for what I needed, where I need to go, and what I need to do. There's a freedom that I'm living in because of my parents that is thrilling to me. A freedom to be able to trust Jesus, know His voice and follow Him where he leads, and have the open counsel from my parents who trust, know and follow Jesus as well. It astounds me to know how thorough God is. I'm so thankful for what my parents have deposited in me, that I'm now just tapping into. No human could be as intricate with relationship as our Father, not a chance.
Over the last couple months, things have happened that I haven't understood. They've happened, and then fallen through and I didn't get it. I didn't understand how such a gracious God could take away something that appeared to be good. I didn't understand how He worked, how the prophetic worked and how free will played a part in this lovely thing we call the fallen world. I was hurt, angry, disappointed, and confused and couldn't figure God out. I've had this preoccupation with figuring God out, deciphering how what He says and what He does correlate with each other, and so on. For these last 6 months, nothing was making sense to me, and I was blaming God for all the things that were going wrong, because He wasn't letting in on His plot to apparently ruin my life and take away the things I wanted most. Totally rational, I know. :) So, when I got to LA, things were all falling into place like I mentioned before. I landed an awesome job, having a blast taking the town with my best friend and life was good. When that whole ship crashed, I realized that I had nothing solid to stand on. I had been navigating this whole thing, that was supposedly a God breathed thing, by myself. I had taken LA into my own hands and making decisions separate from what I thought or knew God to be. When life crashed, I crashed. I fell apart and didn't understand what God was doing, yet again. The crash caused me to seek help, help that I had always been too prideful to seek out. In this time of seeking help, things came to light that I didn't even know to be hidden. I started seeing parts of myself that I didn't like and I didn't want to be a part of the permanent me, the me that I was becoming. So now I'm in the process of working through my shit, not avoiding it now that it's out in the open. It's not easy, but it's incredibly enlightening. So in this revelation of the ugly, I realized how the things that I had been longing for over these last 6 months would have been catastrophic if they had played out the way that I had planned. My hidden ugly would have sabotaged the entire thing, and I would have ended up a million times more hurt and in a deeper hole that would have been harder to climb my way out of. See, I didn't know how these last 6 months were going to pan out. I didn't know life was going to crash in front of me. I didn't know that LA would be this difficult, yet this fruitful. I simply didn't know. But God did, and he saved me from the misery I had in store for myself. He has these things perfectly planned, and I'm sure He graciously laughs at the plans we try to make without Him.
It's a simple thing, and I'm sure it will be something that I find myself face to face with for the rest of my time here, but it's so reassuring to me to know that even when I fall through, I've got the ultimate back up plan
