Stretching Hurts
Five a.m. comes way to early on any day, let alone a day that leaves you feeling like you can‘t function as a human being. I stumbled out of bed and grabbed the clothes I picked out the previous night. Jumping around the room, I slipped them on one sleeve at a time as I rushed to get my things in order.
Jetting out the door I frantically did a head check, mostly to see if mine was still in place, and a double check to make sure I had all I needed for the day in hand. As I drove off to my last day of work, I was excited to think that that night I would be returning “home“. Getting swept up in the excitement of it all, I may have forgotten little details such as needing a key to get into my apartment when I arrived.
The end of the work day came, and I was on my way. I drove the three hours back to Honeoye Falls only to find out that neither of my roommates was home, nor were they going to be that night. Without a key, I was going to have to find somewhere else to stay. At that point, everything started going wrong.
Realizing that I had no minutes on my cell phone put me into a mode of despair. Not only did it take me longer than usual to get home, but I couldn't even call anyone! I had to think fast since it was already after ten o'clock and I had no place to stay. I thought of a few places to go and decided just to drive to the place that made the most sense to me…our fearless leader's mom and dad's house.
The reason for choosing their home was that my good friend, Rosie, is their daughter and also lived there. As I climbed the stairs and knocked on the door, I was met with yet another surprise. Rosie wasn't home. It was only her parents who were in their pajamas and getting ready for bed.
I told them my story and they offered to let me stay in their home for the night. I didn't know where else to go since I couldn't even get numbers out of my now dead cell phone with any money on it. So I thankfully agreed to stay at their home, and was grateful for the offer.
As I laid in bed that night feeling sorry for myself, I lamented at the fact of how unprepared I was for coming home. I didn‘t have a working phone, or a key or even a roommate to let me in to our apartment. “If I only had a key “I thought to myself, “None of this would have happened”.
After this day, I've since learned that sometimes things just happen and it's in those difficult moments when nothings going right that you learn to trust G. In Asia, it seems to be a daily occurrence to have things not going right. I guess its to be expected living in unfamiliar territory with people who speak a language you don't understand to have things go wrong. And since you have no choice, it grows you in your ability to trust that G will take care of the things you can't.
G's showing me that no matter where I‘m at or how crazy things get, the thing I need most is daily quiet time with him. It gives me comfort when I stop and think of how good he is instead of everything that's going wrong around me. When I think about the good things he's done and the way he takes care of me it's hard not to trust him.
I'm happy to say that not only am I learning to trust G, but those times of stretching and learning are also amazing inspirations for songwriting. From that fateful day I mentioned above came a song that I wrote and recently put music too. It actually doesn't sound half bad either.
It may hurt to stretch….ok, it DOES hurt to stretch…but know that G does it out of love to refine us, and grow us to be the best possible version of ourselves.