Russian Traveler (The Before and After): My Surreal Summer, Overflowing With Gifts

It's August 3rd, already! The next 23 days are going to fly by, and before I know it, I'll be starting my sophomore year in college. (Maybe that doesn't terrify anyone else like it terrifies me...) On the way home from the Grand Canyon the past 19 hours, I had a lot of time to think, mostly about my summer, my first summer coming home from college, getting a job, and almost living on my own. I've had so many "God moments", so many times where I have just taken a step back and said "Holy cow, this is ME!! I am the one living this life!"

First off, my summer in general is just a huge blessing. The fact that I'm able to come home and see my family and get a job because I'm that close to school is a gift from God. I was able to meet my two cousins' new babies, only weeks after they were born! That was a huge privilege, and a great way to spend my time at home before I left for Russia.

Russia. If you've been reading my entries, then you know what an amazing experience I had, what an awesome, long-awaited gift from God that trip was! Even now, almost three months later, I still can't believe that I have actually been to Russia. That trip had so many eye-opening moments, so many "God-is-so-totally-in-control-that-it-blows-my-mind" moments, and I still can't quite grasp that I was able to experience them. Moments like giving Valerie his Bible, or meeting a family of kids who are still together in an orphanage, or stepping into the Baltic Sea, or looking at my passport and knowing that I've visited four new countries. Moments like that don't come very often, at least in my life, and now I've experienced them!

Coming home from that, I was able to work, all summer. In today's economy, it was a huge gift to have a full-time job, coming straight out of a first year of college, and that job will help me get back to Russia next summer! (AAAAAAAH!!! RUSSIA AGAIN!!!!!)

There are little moments in my summer that simply can't all be recorded. Time with my family, teaching moments from God, catching up with high school friends, getting to see friends from out of town. Little things like that, that I take for granted! God has given me so much, and I have so much more than many people... I often forget that, often find little things to complain about. And it was my trip to the Grand Canyon that kind of hit home for me, how much I really have to be thankful for.

We drove through (let me count...) four states, two of which were new to me. Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. In the final two, we saw a lot of need, need that doesn't often come to our minds when we think of America and how well-off we all are. I saw homeless people in Santa Fe, we drove through many, many desolate Indian reservations, and saw several people in need of something more. It kind of hit me, then, just how much I have. I have a car to travel through four states with. I have a family to go on vacation with. I have the means to stay in a hotel and go inside the Grand Canyon National Park. I have a healthy body to hike into the Grand Canyon. I have medicine to help cure the stupid head cold I got. :)

It just kind of hits, when you're standing over the biggest "hole" in the United States, how awesome God is, how powerful He is, how in-control He is. One of my biggest struggles is entrusting all my problems, my worries, my concerns to our Heavenly Father. But after this road trip, after my little moments with His precious children, after my two-week, long-awaited mission trip, it becomes easier for me to see: We serve an awesome God, one who is worthy of our praise, our trust, our worship, our everything. To God be the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

Blessings on all that you do!