Let the Words of My Mouth

My mom always says, "God has a plan."  To be honest, it gets a bit annoying when you have heard it over and over again, especially when you feel there is no direction in sight.  It's never easy trusting what you can't see.

I remember pulling away from the Red Warehouse in Flint, New York after saying goodbye to my dearest friend since elementary school.  We were all crying and I knew my life would never be the same again.  Boy was I right.

In August of 1992, I packed up all of my belongings and made the 800 mile trip with my parents to Lee College in Cleveland, TN.  I was miserable.  I didn't want to leave home.  I didn't want to leave my boyfriend.  I didn't want to leave everything I had ever known.

Those feelings didn't change for several months.  I remember crying myself to sleep on many occasions.  I had met a lot of nice people, but I just didn't feel like I fit in.  I felt like the most misunderstood yankee in the southeast.

I prayed hard.  I wasn't sure what I was praying for, but I knew that if God indeed had a plan, I needed to be talking to him regularly so he wouldn't forget me.  My day-to-day felt the furthest from a plan that I could imagine.  In fact, it felt more like a train wreck.

Isn't God funny?  We sit around stewing ourselves into a fit about "his will" and all along, he is carefully laying bricks as if to say, "Hey dummy!  Over here!"  I would like to say this is the one and only time that I fought with faith, but unfortunately, it happened over and over.  I think I have it figured out.  I think I have a better plan.  I think I know what's best.  All along he sits back and says "I have a plan."

I still live in Cleveland, TN and pay many visits to my alma mater.  Today was different though.  There's something about "coming home" that makes you remember why you called it home in the first place.  It was the first time that all four of us have attended Homecoming.  It was a perfect afternoon.

As we walked back to the car after the game, a flood of memories hit me like a ton of bricks. It is, in essence, my birthplace.  I was born as an infant in Sodus, NY, but I became an adult somewhere between Church and Ocoee Street in Cleveland, TN.

New friends.
Heartbreaks.
Celebrations.
Renewal.

At the end of each chapel service we would recite Psalms 19:14

Let the words of my mouth
And the meditations of my heart
Be acceptable in thy sight
Oh Lord
My strength
And my redeemer

He is a redeemer, indeed.