This post will be short but I just wanted to catch you all up on some events that have been happening. I’m back in the States, got a new job, have traveled three times in the past four-ish months, suffered some losses and wins, but most importantly, I came home. 

It’s been hard to come to terms with. I left Japan. I broke my contract and came home early. A place many dream of being in — I walked away from. It was too much for me, not where I was meant to be, and I was lonely. I felt adrift, just floating to survive.

Then came a wave of realization: I could go home. No — I needed to go home.

After much prayer and a couple of phone calls, I cleaned my apartment, left the area I was assigned to, and quit.

I never wanted to be a quitter. 

I never wanted to break a contract.

I never wanted to be the girl that ran home when things got hard.

Notice how those three sentences started with I, I, and I. My family tried to support my decision to stay but they also wanted, actually needed me home. 

Stubbornness runs deep in my family. I kept going, not wanting to quit, to break, to run. But funny how God meets us right in our fears and failures. It’s there that He does His most beautiful work.

For God did not give us a spirit of fear but of power, love, and a sound mind. – 2 Timothy 1:7

It takes power to persevere and it takes power to leave a bad situation.

It takes love to stay somewhere and it takes love to forgive when things are broken.

It takes a sound mind to keep your perspective on God, whether you’re home or far away.

None of these truths begin with I, because they only stand true with God. 

It was God who showed me how to exercise the power to leave. It has been God who reminds me of His love when I regret not returning home sooner and missing out on so much. It has been God who is keeping my mind through all of the overwhelming changes. God has kept me sailing and alive through the storm. Even through rest, He kept me afloat.

Things will happen — some we long for, and some we never wanted. But if we don’t anchor ourselves in God, we’ll stay adrift in the sea of life. All other anchors are temporary, but God will never let you go. He is always reaching for you in: success and failure, wins or losses, perseverance or quitting, strengths or weaknesses, He is always teaching and holding you. If you let Him.

So where and who is your anchor?

This hope [this confident assurance] we have as an anchor of the soul [it cannot slip and it cannot break down under whatever pressure bears upon it]—a safe and steadfast hope that enters within the veil [of the heavenly temple, that most Holy Place in which the very presence of God dwells],” -‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭6‬:‭19‬ ‭AMP‬‬