The Year of Traveling

This time last year, I found myself writing a brief summary of the year 2009 in my journal. I had failed to keep a consistent practice of updating it, and I took the free time over the Christmas holidays to write down some things to help me remember the year. It was fun, it was interesting, it was neat seeing how things had changed over the span of 360 so days. Long before it was December, I think, I decided this year would be the Year of Traveling. Oddly enough, this past year has taken me to some places my eyes have seen and feet have trod while also revealing new territories I have never seen at all. Over the year, I have seen so many things and places, beaches and mountains, and it has been a tremendous year. I had the pleasure of walking the beaches of Destin and Pensacola, Florida, even though the wind blew hard enough to cause the sand to cut. I watched fireworks under the sky of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, for the Fourth of July on one of the most restful trips of my life. I visited New Albany, Mississippi (twice) to celebrate the marriage of two friends (actually, four, really), plus an unforgettable late-night escapade to Holly Springs... I sat (literally) in three different cities, Jackson, MS, Memphis, TN, and Springfield, MO, for all four sections of the CPA Exam while also getting to enjoy the company of friends and family while doing so. Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and South Carolina played a part in a 12 day solo trip to visit multiple friends and one mom. I also got to see Nashville, Chattanooga, and Atlanta again later on with other friends, who I had the honor to grow closer to (and share the awesomeness of my mustache. And my JP-ness). I slept in a new warm sleeping bag in a new big tent in a new beautiful place with my old wise brother in the Sipsey Wilderness, only to return home to hop back in the car to play "Fellowship of the Ring" for a night. I also spent time in GTR, ATL, SFO, YVR, and YXY, seeing the bottom of the Golden Gate Bridge while laid over in San Francisco for 6 hours, waiting for my flight to Vancouver at 6:00 A.M. before getting to spend several days driving the length of British Columbia...

It's truly been an amazing year, yet none of these travels are of any real significance. This past year I have also seen God traversing through my life, picking up burdens I did not have to carry, cutting chains that were holding me back, while placing new thoughts in my mind and revealing light to the paths He wants me to travel next. He has shown me a need for me, for my abilities, my services; He has shown me the truth about the Body of Christ: "The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, 'I don't need you!" (1st Corinthians 12:21). We each have a part to play! How awesome is that? It's not that we are needed, but we are wanted! God wants us to have a part in His body. Yet another truth comes with this as well: there are billions of people in the world who do not know the love of the Father. People who wake up every day fearing men, famine, death, maybe even life, yet if they would only know to fear the Lord, the only one who can, after death, send a man to hell. What is death when you have already crossed over to life? Praise the Lord for Life indeed! (Oddly, this statement can be taken in two different ways, both of which I find applicable)

There is so much more I have learned over the past year (even more like the past five months), and I do not have the time for it now. But I do like to look at Romans 8:23-25:

Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit,groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

It is so refreshing to know that Christ's work is not yet complete in us. May we all be patient in this New Year, the dear 2011, on waiting for the work God has for us.