…a half…

one-hundred-eighty-four days… twenty-six weeks… six months… half a year… half a year… half…

I’ve been in Utah now for half a year… It hardly seems possible… And yet, there’s the calendar proving the point…!

These six months have passed by like Mario Andretti rounding the track at the Indy 500, pulling out a win… blink and you’ve missed him…!

…to my chagrin, it no longer feels like I just recently moved here… the dust is settling… roots are growing… so many reasons to be hopeful, excited, thankful…!

Now in a new state… a new house… new roommates… new church… new perspective… a new job… new friends… new adventures…

But one of the most surprising, exciting, yet, scary things has been the self-discovery… learning more about who I am… who God has made me to be… and, even how I’m broken… yes, broken, to my own dismay…

It’s been said that no matter where you go, you always take yourself with you… [Ain’t that the truth?!] There have been many times that I’ve wanted to leave myself behind, so to speak… To be someone else… Someone “cool”… someone that’s got it together… someone successful, in the eyes of the world…

Alas, I’m still just me… Sarah… with all my bundles of nerves, idiosyncrasies, “just so” tendencies… But you know what?… God continues to teach me, I’m enough… But more importantly, He’s enough…!

“…I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with unfailing kindness…”*

Yes, love… He has loved me in those who have loved me here… reached out in kindness to listen to my stories… invited me to dinner… included me in the group… cared about what concerns me…

“My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me… no one can snatch them out of my hand.”**

Yes, secure… so often I’ve doubted my security in Jesus, but He’s promised that no one can take from what is His… after all, He said, “I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.”***

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”+

Yes, sufficient… in moments when I’ve struggled, He has been right there… in the silence, the stillness, the uncertainty and confusion…

“Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to HIM be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.”++

Yes, immeasurably more than we imagine… so many new beginnings and new surprises… the future always held such an anxious grip on me, that I didn’t want to enter… and yet, Jesus reminds me He is the Author of new things…

And so, as I look back over the last six months, I smile with a tear in my eye at all His provisions… His faithfulness… despite my weakness… despite my denial of His goodness… despite my fears of things imagined… and so, He will also bring me through the next six months and beyond…!

*Jeremiah 3:13

**John 10:27-28

***John 10:17-18

+2 Corinthians 12:9

++Ephesians 3:20-21

pc: Sarah Coffey, Utah 2017

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