My days are pretty aimless, I know I have work to do, but my mind is no longer here at Calvin. I think of graduation, of graduate school, of being in a new place that is a smaller-place-than-Grand-Rapids-and-Grand-Rapids-is-already-such-a-small-place, and of being alone again. Well, ok, I won't be alone for long, I'll meet new people, make new friends. But I guess I long for deep friendships that have already have been in existence, so that I won't need to start from scratch, and not know anyone for a while before I do, if this makes any sense at all. When I first came to Calvin, to the US, I guess I didn't know better than to be intimidated by an entirely new environment where I didn't know anyone. But now that this whole moving/beginning anew process is happening again, I'm a little frozen, a little timid, a little sad, a little scared. I pray for a person over there, a person that I can share my new experiences and life with over there. I'm excited, I'm afraid, but I feel comfort knowing that God will go before me.

Church today was, well, somber. And thinking a lot about journeying in life buried today's service deep in me. Somewhat, I suppose I cannot really truly understand or share...just is. The pastor of the church was diagnosed with ALS some five years ago, given a lousy prognosis but is going strong today, considering that prognosis. Over the year that I regularly heard him preach, I enjoyed it more and more, I felt there was more substance to his words (yes, I prefer stark reality, with the Fall). Today there was no sermon, but instead his retirement annoucement--7 months from now. What remained with me was when he came up to the stage to speak about where he is handling his health's condition. He tried to speak, but the overwhelming sense of knowing an assured death that's coming too soon. Then he said that he'll speak from the Bible, it helps. He said the words from Matthew 6:25-34. The contrast between when he tried to express himself in his own words and when he quoted the Bible kept running through my mind.

We speak of God, we kept the faith that He will give us words to speak, that we can be absolutely sure that we can keep our confidence in Him and He will place our footstep on firm ground. The pastor found difficult to speak about his illness, himself and his view on what is to come to him, but without doubt, proclaimed what God has for him, God's promises. The steadfastness the pastor showed held me, here was a man facing death, too broken to speak, but was absolutely calm and secure when relying on his God, letting the words of God speak for Him. Seeing this, I cannot say that there is no God that is living and very much interested and in tune with our lives.

So why worry? And yet I do. And then part of me imagines, me worried in a corner and Jesus coming and cradling me in His arms.