Untitled.

A little over a year ago, I started on a journey. I was just beginning my second semester as a senior at Grove City, and things were going really well. Tantamount to all other successes was the amount of time I was spending studying the Word and praying. For the first time in a long time, I was really hungry for Truth. I was voracious in my reading, and the Lord was not silent in His teaching.

I began sorting through a few career options and decided on spending a year in Seoul, South Korea teaching English in an elementary school. I was thrilled! I felt God's promise in it, and I was optimistic about having a "plan" for after graduation. Graduation came and went and the countdown to Korea grew smaller and smaller. I endured a week of intense doubt; but I forged ahead, empowered by words from Hosea.

By the time mid-July rolled around, I had devoured almost all of the New Testament and a good chunk of the Old Testament. The Lord continued to speak to me, and my heart was more open than I recall it ever being. It was a time of great joy and hope for me. I was so thankful for the opportunity to travel and teach; I was so excited for what the Lord would do in that year.

On July 28, 2009 I flew from Charlotte to Dulles to San Francisco to Seoul.

On August 14, 2009 I flew from Seoul to Seattle to Charlotte to Baltimore.

All that happened between those dates is important -- perhaps it is not too much to say that it altered the course of my life. Those days contained, without a doubt, the most intense emotions I have ever experienced: daily oscillation between joy and sorrow, hope and dejection, excitement and melancholy.

I sought the Lord but felt as if I was holding on by a thread thinner than a silk worm's silk. I tried hard to find Him, knowing He was the only one that could preserve me. He did not fail me; not once, but I was full of uncertainty. So I returned home. I smiled. Said I was thankful to be back. Said I was certain the Lord had a plan. Said I was glad for the opportunity. Said I was optimistic about the lessons in it.

The next two months were strange. My heart was a torn: I wanted to trust the Lord for whatever He had for me, and I wanted to curse Him for leaving me high and dry without a plan. Some weeks I felt powerful testaments of God's love and grace. Other weeks I wanted nothing to do with Him. As my job search continued to flounder, the latter kind of week became more and more frequent. I was slowly giving up. I was tired. I wasn't willing to try anymore. I was hurt; hurt that I had trusted and that trust had failed me. I wasn't willing to make my heart that vulnerable again. Almost everything I did was halfhearted.

Somewhere in the back of my mind -- or maybe it was the recesses of my heart -- I longed to be back in the place I was before I went to Korea. The place where I was passionate about everything: living, loving, serving, being. Disappointment and hurt left me limp as a rag doll. But part of me still wanted to love the Lord and serve Him and experience grace daily.

Although I had essentially decided I was going to give up on faith if something didn't happen, I kept telling myself to just wait it out, that eventually it would come back to me. This "season", as my Christian-ese called it, would end soon and I would be on the road to a better spiritual life. However, as C.S. Lewis learned long before I, "Mere time does nothing either to the fact or to the guilt of a sin." (The Problem of Pain)

I kept waiting for God to change so things could be back to normal. I kept waiting for the immutable, perfect, divine God of the universe to change so that I could have my life back the way I wanted. And I possessed all of the pride, arrogance, stubbornness, and stupidity of someone waiting for something like that to happen.

But recently a truth occurred to me. A truth that I have known and treasured for many years. A truth that is hard to write about because it means that fault lies in me. A truth that is cause for joy because it means I can go forward in peace and trust.

The Lord is no less faithful than He was before I left for Korea. My faithfulness has waxed and waned with an especially long bout of waning these last two months, but the Lord has remained a firm constant. Waiting for me, patiently; despite my impatient waiting for Him. The change in my plans was drastic. It shocked me, caught me completely off-guard, made me angry and sad. It changed me, but it did not change the Lord. He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He is infinitely patient, loving, kind, and forgiving.

Starting now, I'm on a new journey -- a journey of re-discovery. A trek to make up for the weeks and months that I've lost; a pilgrimage to remembering what it is to trust and love and feel. I long to feel joy again, and I know, in time, it will come. Because I am turning back with grace and strength provided to me by the One who never turned away in the first place.