So refreshing....

My body is usually the perfect thermometer for my emotional state. I didnt realize this until 2 falls ago when I would lie awake at night, worn out from the day-mentally-physically and I could not fall asleep. Then when and if I did sleep I never slept with visions of sugar plums dancing in my head. Then during the day I could rarely easily catch my breath. I thought it was due to some new mysterious pollen in the air. It was partially. This spring I was diagnosed with some mild form of asthma. More so, it was my body's natural reaction to things it didnt like. No need to recall the circumstances - live and learn. Nonetheless, every so often I think things are going smoothly and I find myself driving somewhere gasping for any air I can get. This makes my mom a nervous wreck. I have learned to live with the discomfort just knowing that my body is saying something....I just don't know what quite yet. The last few weeks this minor ailment has crept back into my daily living. I can ignore it for so long until, like tonight, I am sitting in class and the overly-ambitious 60+ year old man next to me keeps staring at me as I try to inhale. Staring only makes this worse, people. After a few obsurd episodes of this he continues to ask if I am okay. I hate the attention, really.
Things are okay. Things are so much more than okay but yet I can't figure out why my body is having these un called for spasms throughout the day. Usually I could begin to put my finger on the pressure that I am feeling in some realm of life but this time, really, nothing. My perspective on anything from cleanliness to the purpose of life has been so refreshed. Recently its like this huge puzzle piece fell into place and though the puzzle isnt complete - I can atleast get a jist of what the picture may look like. Isn't it funny how you are void of hearing about so called subject A and then all of a sudden you hear about sunject A as you pass by some coworkers on the way to the coffee in the morning. Later that afternoon you are in the grocery store buying animal crackers, a diet cherry coke, and Orbitz sweet mint gum and you overhear two strangers talking again about subject A. Finally, you get home and your cute roommates can do nothing but talk about Subject A. Irony? Maybe. How often does this happen to me and I tend to not think twice. But lately it seems as though every message in some form is the same message and it is a humbling and troubling one if we are honest. It's not about me.
I guess a few years ago God started showing me the bigger picture and how really I was just part of the bigger picture. Whenever I am truly able to grasp this I am blown away by the natural praise and sense of gratitude that I feel. Its when I take the focus off of me that I find my heart rejoicing for all that surrounds it. When I can only see me and my little world of mortgage sales and singleness I can barely see far enough to realize anyone else is even involved.
One of my dearest friends, Michael, was the first new-Charleston boy I met nearly 4 summers ago. Back in the glory days we would sit on our shady porch in the ghetto in Charleston. We'd look towards the battery. We'd sit on smelly couch and drink something to suit the mood and we'd talk about anything and everything. My response was always "everything happens for a reason." He believed me. Sorta. I didnt believe me at all. I couldnt see tangibly how my chaotic summer in Charelston, barely making mimnimum wage could truly be a part of anything more significant. If you have kept up with this blog you'd know that that summer in Charleston would be the summer that would change my life. Still to this day I have friends that will always truly be my fist loves, and I have confidence galore because of the mimi-trials we faced that summer just to pay the rent and have a few dollars to ride around town on the rickshaws. Nonetheless, a few years later and with confidence I know that every single thing happens for a reason. But the reasons aren't always about me. In fact, rarely are they about me.
My brother was diagnosed with diabetes when he was 11. I admire my brother more than any masters graduate or succesul business man I know. I dont admire him because he has been a martyr or because there is anything all too different about his life. Actually, you'd never know his pancreas didnt function the way mine did unless I told you. I admire him for his perspective. We sat in Augusta over a beer a few weeks ago. He is in his second year of med school. He wants to study enocrinology (I dont know how to spell anything with an ology in it). He wants to find cures so your children will not have to deal with the cards he has been dealt. He recognizes that everything happens for a reason and though sometimes unfair, the reasons arent usually directly about us. What I remember though is that others may face circumstances that effect me directly though they may be part of the action. All in all it is to bring God glory.
So the last few weeks I can't tell you how many conversations, lectures, sermons, prayers I have heard about God's glory being known. God created every thing. Every sound. Every animal. Every plant. Everything in order to magnify His glory. Everything. Tonight in class the instructor was giving examples of how this change of perspective nearly 10 years ago changed his life forever.
I truly believe that the irnony that lately this very same topic has crossed my path atleast twice daily isnt even irony at all. What if this really is a new chapter for me? I know, Michael, I have always told you everything happens for a reason. I am not backing down from this belief. I am embracing it in my own life. It sure is easy to look at your life and see how your current circumstances may lead to something more for you but it is almost impossible to do this in our own lives. I have been wondering where God is taking my career for 2 years now and it wasnt until lately that I truly grasped that maybe He hasn't lead anywhere because there is reason for me to be right where I am right now.

Inhale. Inhale. Inhale. Okay, got it. I am so refreshed. I am so grateful for this call to a greater perspective. I am not sure why I can't breathe but I have learned from experience that it just means He is up to something and I better hold tight. I'll keep you posted. I can't wait to see what He is up to this time.