Turnaround

It's been quite awhile since I wrote in here. I guess that's because things have settled down a bit. I don't have a job right now, and I should admit that I worry about money a lot, but I have been amazed by two things. One is how little it actually takes to live. I have discovered a lot of things I can do without. The other is that God does provide when you put your trust in him, and I really am hopeful that a job is just around the corner.

I think things got more stable a few months ago, as I neared my one-year mark here in Baltimore. A lot of friends had told me that it would take awhile to get truly adjusted in a new city. But I was impatient, and I let the natural growing pains get to me and make me depressed. I was kind of a pain to be around during that time, and I'm sure a lot of people were waiting for the funk to pass.

And then it did. I think one morning I just woke up and realized that my prospects here in Baltimore were actually quite good. I had made a lot of good, honest friends. I had found a wonderful church where I was baptized into a truly loving community that lives for Christ. A lot of relationships that needed healing had found themselves healed. Others were (and are) more-or-less the same, but I have actual hope that they will heal one day, and my life doesn't have to stop while I wait patiently.

Maybe it was because I moved to a new apartment, closer to my friends and my church. Maybe it's because I got more organized. Maybe it's because God finally thought that I had learned my lesson. And what is that lesson? Well, I suppose it's that I can get through anything. Not on my own, of course, but then again, I'm not ever really alone. For the longest time up here, I felt like I simply couldn't do it. If you know part of what I was going through for the first eight months or so up here, you know that I wanted to quit and move back to North Carolina.

But I didn't quit, and even though life up here still has its challenges, concerns and stresses -- money being one of them, grades being another -- I have a lot more resolve than I once had. I trust God to carry me through. I trust that true friends will stand by me, even though I know I can be a high-strung, Type A, aggressive, moody, desperate, temperamental, abrasive personality. But I also know my good points, and the great gifts that God has given me. And I really hope that people will understand and appreciate them, and look past the bad stuff. I hope to love and to feel loved in return. But I know that even if I don't, I'll still make it. Things have turned around, and they'll keep turning.