daily bread is enough

The past few months of summer have provided some real relief that I haven't felt in ages. There is something cathartic about this season. Whereas most college summers had always carried this mentality of "Okay, here's what's coming up next" and mentally preparing myself for the next step and semester, this summer has been so different. Although the new challenges have been abounding, it has also been such a growing season.

Now I find myself here again. College is over and all of it has been wrapped albeit a little messily in this compartment of my mind. L drove me through Livi the other day and I discovered that I didn't miss it much. No flashbacks or sentimental remarks even for the mushy person that I am. Perhaps it was a little too soon, but being back on campus was not a particularly fond memory. Beautiful as college was, by the time graduation rolled around, I was just about ready to leave and move on with the next chapter of life. There was so much more that awaited.

This new season that has come in has taken ahold of my life in different ways. It is a season marked with dusty boxes packed with all the trinkets I've managed to garner over the past two years of living away from home. The sentimental packrat inside of me is to blame for the organized chaos of my living situation. I lug home two suitcases, three duffels and a gargantuan plastic tub bursting with ratty sweats and tees, four years' worth of RU apparel that will probably end up collecting dust atop my closet shelf, and some odd numbered pair of shoes mixed in a giant trash bag (not meant to be thrown away, just an improvised mode of baggage).

As of this past Friday, all these things were loaded up into our old minivan and headed with me to my new home in Pennsylvania. For those of you who have been following my story and this blog for a bit now, you'll know that I joined staff with a Christian organization called Cru as a graphic designer for the year. Typing these words are crazy to me, but I can't believe that everything came together.

I probably say this every summer, but I've not grown so much in such a short amount of time. Like I said before, my Abba has been so kind and gracious to me and I know this. I know this full well.

Sit back friends and let me recap a little bit of the past three months to you.

On the last weekend of April, I flew out to Virginia where I met with some hundred other interns for the ministry. Over the weekend, the staff trained and walked us through all the logistics of joining staff. Five or six of us were all grouped into tables with different coaches who promptly handed us the pages with our monthly goal.

I choked a little when I saw mine. It was not a small number. I remember thinking, Lord I don't even know more than 20 people who would willingly support me! Not to mention, I had to raise this amount within 10 weeks (August 1st deadline). Panic set in first.

I started off support-raising beginning in May immediately after graduation. The staff had asked us to write up a list of 200 or so names of individuals we could ask from. I had put down roughly about 50 names, so I tackled that list and began working my way down.

Panic fueled that determination until about mid June. Suddenly, I hit a wall. Like, a very, very tall wall and mental hurdle I thought I could not overcome. That number I had to raise kept chewing at my mind and I couldn't see any way around it.

One night, I lay in bed until the wee hours of morning. I was so tired and exhausted but I could not sleep as my mind arranged and then rearranged numbers of supporters I had, how much I still needed, and my quickly dwindling list of people I could ask. If I asked this much from so and so, what if they only gave less than that? I would have to ask more people to compensate, I guess. Why didn't so and so give more? Was it because I didn't ask the right way? What if I was too unassertive? Maybe they misunderstood what I meant. 

I was miserable. I thought about how most peers my age were finding a stable job or what some would argue a real job after graduation instead of having to ask others to support them. I thought about the stability their jobs would hold year after year and how I would need to reevaluate after the end of next year. I thought about living in the big city and the comfort of friends and family within a reasonable reach and how I was moving to a place where I knew no one and had to start from scratch again.

I must be crazy, I thought. I started to count the numbers in my head again. How much more do I need, God? How much more? Then it struck me. Who has been providing for me in every season? Surely, if Abba had put me on this journey, wouldn't He continue to provide all I needed? Isn't daily bread enough, A? The truth was I had become so irritable at everyone and everything because this whole counting business had began swallowing me up that I left no room for faith in the One who had placed me on this journey.

I told God that night I would resolve to stop counting. Because if Abba had put me here, He was going to see me through.

Over the course of July, I watched in amazement as He brought individual after individual on my team. Never in a million years would I have imagined. I have met so many amazing individuals over the course of the past three months. Hearing how the Lord is using them for His glory has brought me to my knees in thankfulness many times. I have called, texted, vidchatted with friends, acquaintances, and complete strangers. Some were young married couples that I had only talked to once or twice in passing at church and some were aunties and uncles that have known me since I was a baby. There have been working friends and some friends still in school (either undergrad or graduate school).

Then the Sunday a week from my deadline, I woke up to an email from a supporter who helped me finish off my goal. I blinked in disbelief and felt the wave of gratitude wash over me.

My Abba is too kind and too good to me and I know this full well.

Daily bread is enough.

I seek for daily bread each day and suffice to say, it is enough. Not for another day more or anything less. It is what has carried me thus far in my life and will continue to carry me for yet another day.

Excitement does not begin to cover how I feel for what's ahead. To God be all the glory.