the past few weeks have been confusing and challenging...just as the entirety of 2011. it's normal for a person to reflect on the past year as a new one approaches. personally, i contemplate important events; how they affect me and my relationship with God. and i also think about how those events affected relationships with people i care about.
i believe the overwhelming theme for 2011 is one word: nomad.
dictionaries define nomad as:
1. A member of a group of people who have no fixed home and move according to the seasons from place to place in search of food, water, and grazing land.
2. A person with no fixed residence who roams about; a wanderer.
this definitely defines me. i say this with both humor and honesty. i lived in four different places this year. i was an independent contractor for three different employers and held one "steady" job at starbucks most of the year. the post office has probably lost track of me completely!
i've felt very disjointed and lost for so long. this wandering is exhausting. and humbling. anyone who knows me well knows that home-making is therapeutic and fun for me. therefor, not having a home of my own robs me of that joy. and taking work just to pay the bills, (barely making enough to do even that), is less than fulfilling.
so, how do i recognize God's goodness and faithfulness in all this?
most of those moves were really painful and difficult. but i cannot make light of my friends, the Dores, who allowed me to take-over their guest room for two months. this was a real gift. and my parents have provided two rooms in their new home for me and my pesky cat, Shorty. also acting in loving generosity.
and working in four different environments did something special, too. i met people in each situation that i will always regard as blessings in my life. even if working together was short-lived.
i really want to put down roots somewhere. but i never counted on tulsa being that place. and, honestly, i still hope it isn't a long-term home for me. but saying yes to God is not conditional. that's not obedience.
so with each move, either in employment or where i slept, i did my best to follow God's leading. some people disagreed with my choices. they just couldn't understand what i was doing. one of the hardest things was not putting my trust in them but God in all of it. it sounds a little trite, but i'm sure satan did his best to use those situations to try and ruin relationships with my spiritual family.
what i've learned as a nomad is that i must follow Him and Him alone. even when loved ones believe they know what's best for me. job's friends thoroughly believed that his crappy new existence was the result of sin. and job asked God many, many questions. but God did not allow that pain and hardship into job's life because he was a worse sinner than others. no, God allowed job to endure for His glory. and then, by His grace, was restored.
it's been scarey and lonely. but i can also draw encouragement from the disciples. none of them had comfortable lifestyles after they met Jesus. completely the opposite. many of them spent the rest of their lives moving from place to place or in prison. yet, they finished their races with encouragement from other followers of Christ. and their lives are immortalized in the Bible forever giving hope to the rest of us.
so i still wait EAGERLY for His restoration in my life. i really hope i'm on the brink of something wonderful; something that i can rejoice in. but until then, i know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that God is so good and faithful. He has never left me in any of this.
i love one of job's responses to Him, "I know that You can do all things and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted." (42:2) and then confessed God's greatness and power with a spirit of repentance. i must hold tight to this; behave in that manner.
yes, for me, 2011 is the year of the nomad. and what if that's the life He has in store for me always? until He takes me up to my real home with Him. until that day i know i'll always be discontent with what earth has to offer. my heart was created to desire Him.
i suppose it's fitting that my last name, damon, is "nomad" spelled backwards. funny how that happened.
