I've been in a sort of melancholy funk the past couple of days. It's hard to remember where I've been, think about where I might be going, and enjoy where I am right now simultaneously. Yesterday I spent some time writing and replying to e-mails to both old friends and new, and I felt more torn than ever. I feel drawn to so many people, so many places... Maine, Norway, Ohio, Latvia, the open road, the perfect wave, etc. I'm not sure where my spot is yet: who I'm meant to be, where I'm meant to serve. God may choose to make it clear to me where he wants me, but a likelier possibility is that I'll be forced to choose. I hate decisions.

I think I'm going to try and wrap up my "official" journaling today - it seems rather appropriate. It'll be exactly two months since I started writing in this battered notebook, I don't have much room left for future entries, and I have a lot of work to do if I'm ever going to type this whole thing out and do any editing. So I guess you could call this the "State of the Noonan" entry - after considering where I've been and what I've experienced, how then should I live? Here goes nothing...

One thing that I've been feeling more clearly as the summer has progressed is a call into ministry of some sort. I don't know where, what, when, or how... but I don't think I can ignore the call any longer. To do so would be to live a lie, to turn my back on my Lord, and to ignore the advice, proddings, and counsel of a good number of people who I admire and respect. Just putting that down on paper is a scary process... I had to pause for a moment to gather the nerve necessary to actually transfer that idea from dream to reality. There's no use in dwelling on and speculating about the unknown, so I won't spend any more time trying to provide answers when I'm not even sure I know all the questions yet... but it is something I plan on pursuing in the months to come.

I think that if I were to assign a one-word title to what I learned and experienced this summer, it would be Trust. As I read back through this journal and reflect on the summer, the issue seems to keep popping up... Do I trust God? Really, truly, absolutely? I think that I'm beginning to get more of a taste of what it's like to truly trust God, and it reminds me a bit of what Moxie tastes like - but in reverse. Moxie has this amazing taste at first, which makes you wonder why it's not wildly popular... and then the aftertaste kicks in a second or two later, and you wonder why anyone drinks this stuff at all. Trusting God, fully and completely, seems to at first be a bitter experience: it can involve pain, sorrow, the stripping away of possessions, people, pride, and other words that start with P. But keep drinking from that well and soon enough you realize that beneath that first sensation of bitterness is a rich, full, cool, and satisfying taste of Life.

At the end of Zosna camp, we had a chance for people to share what God had been teaching them that week. I had felt God working on my heart all that week concerning the issue of trust, and when no-one came up right away to say anything I knew that I couldn't escape from sharing. So, I sat down and explained how trusting God fully was something I knew I needed to learn how to do, and as a first step in that direction I was going to commit to coming back to camp next summer. I knew that saying that was something I needed to do... God had been impressing it on my heart that entire week and, truthfully speaking, I think he was trying to do the same thing last year; I just wasn't quite ready to make that leap of faith (I like to be in control, to stay free, to keep my options open). But that desire to return has been on my heart the whole time, and I've let it influence my decisions quite a bit. I've turned down jobs, lived a spartan life, eaten a lot of beans and rice, all with the goal in mind (albeit sometimes in the deep subconscious) of making it back to Norway and Latvia.

And I did.

And suddenly, all of those sacrifices felt more like investments. After all, is it really a sacrifice if you come out the better end in the deal? I think not. I'm already aware of a possible schedule conflict next summer, I'm starting to wonder what sort of job will give me the time off that I'll need, contemplating whether more school is in order at some point in the future...

But all those things are superficial distractions from the deeper truth: I need God. And amazingly, God desires me. For what? To love Him, love others, and to live a life spent drawing near to him and bringing others along on the way. Everything else... everything... is not only secondary, it's basically non-existent.




(the end).