Biblical Dragons & Smoking Walruses

Almost exactly a year ago I wrote a blog post entitled "Honey Badgers vs. Unicorns." Personally, I believe this is one of my finest literary achievements (mostly because it incorporated both honey badgers and unicorns and boats). If you missed it, here it is: Honey Badgers vs. Unicorns

If you don't want to read it, let me sum it up. Last year at this time I was in a super weird place because the guy I'd been engaged to had broken up with me in the middle of the missionary convention in Kansas City after we'd made plans to get married and move to Africa and whatnot. To be completely honest, I had never been more devastated or confused about anything in my life (except for maybe the time Jen's dog ate all the donuts I'd driven a super long way to get. That was heartbreaking. But then she [the dog] bought me more so it was fine. Moving on…).  The point is, I was having a really hard time seeing how God was playing into this whole situation.  I had been so sure that God had led me to that guy, to overseas missions, to that entire life. I was so confused about what God was doing, why he would lead me into that situation and then just absolutely drop me and leave me lost and hurt and unsure about my future.

In last year's blog I wrote about Noah and how God told him to build the ark and then didn't speak to him again for like, 50 years. Then Noah got on the ark and everything flooded and God didn't speak again for an entire year while they all lived on a floating zoo. But Noah didn't give up, he kept tossing birds off the side of the boat and eventually one came back with a branch, etc. etc. You know how it ends. My point was that sometimes we just have to keep going, doing the best with what knowledge we have, and trust that God is working something out, trust that he knows best and that he really does love us and won't leave us floating forever.

I survived for months on just that promise, that knowledge that God knows better than I do, that he does love me and that he is faithful. I relied a lot on the book of Job. I felt a lot like him (in a much less dramatic "my whole family died and my friends are the worst" type of way) in that my life was completely changing in ways that I had no say in and I didn't feel like I'd done anything to deserve it. I just kept telling myself that, like Job, I wasn’t there when God created the world, I could not, in fact, "pull in the leviathan with a fishhook or tie down his tongue with a rope." I'm not even sure what a leviathan is, which would make it that much harder to find him and tongue rope him.  (Sidenote: in Job 41:19 God's definitely describing a dragon, right? I mean, "firebrands stream from his mouth" and "smoke pours from his nostrils" and "his breath sets coals ablaze and flames dart from his mouth" That's a dragon, no? I want more than anything for that to be about dragons). In any case, I continually reminded myself that I might be afraid and lost and confused, but God isn't, God is still there, God is still guiding me and he won't just leave me floating forever.

This dragon is my favorite because he looks like Marshall

And he didn't.

My bird throwing (read the blog) paid off. Just like Job, God gave me back twice what I had lost (I'd say more like 1000x what I'd lost but you get the idea). Here I am, a year later, working in a job that I love that fulfills me more than I could imagine, attending an awesome church with awesome people that I absolutely adore, and engaged to the most incredible man I've ever met that makes me realize why it never worked with anyone else. In four months I'll get to marry a man that loves me more than I thought possible, who treats me better than I thought was realistic to expect, who has the most genuine and loving heart I've ever seen, who loves Marshall almost as much as I do, who is as awesomely obsessed with TV shows as I am, who is hilarious and fun and doesn't care that I only wash my hair every 4 days and not only lets me hang up pictures of walruses smoking pipes, but buys them for me because he knows how much I'll love them.

I literally have this picture hanging in my house. And it's awesome.

The most amazing part of all of this (well I don't know if it's the most amazing because a lot of these things are amazing and it's really hard to categorize and rank amazingness, but this part is also very amazing) is how clearly I see the way God worked things out in my life to be so incredible. If I hadn't gone through all of that last year I wouldn't know and trust the Lord like I do now. I wouldn't have the same perception of who God is. I wouldn't know myself as well as I do, either. I learned so much during those months about who I really am, what I want, and what God wants for me. 

But if I hadn't gone through all that there is absolutely no way I would've met Ben (not just because I'd be married to someone else, although that is a fairly large part of it). Ben and I met online (Match.com, to be exact) which is hilarious to me because 1) I never ever thought I'd do online dating and 2) Even when I signed up I very specifically told multiple people I wasn't going to actually seriously date anyone I met online, I was just going to go on a bunch of dates to meet new people and have fun (which is also hilarious because Jen bet me like, $1000 I'd find my husband on Match.com and I assured her multiple times that would never happen. I will pay my debt in cookies and hugs, Jen). If Ben and I hadn't met online there is almost no chance we ever would have met at all. And if I hadn't gotten dumped in the middle of the missionary convention in Kansas City I never would've signed up for online dating. 

It's also kind of crazy because Ben and I had both been engaged before (something that came up on the first date, which is funny because I'm pretty sure that's like the #1 thing you're not supposed to talk about on first dates). The fact that we'd both been engaged not only helped us relate to each other, but it really helped us understand what the other had been through (or in my case, was still going through). Ben really was instrumental in helping me work through a lot of the issues caused from my breakup; he literally knew exactly what I was going through.

So my point is this: not only was God faithful and loving and caring, not only was he watching out for me and orchestrating something better than I ever could've imagined, he did it all in an incredibly clear way that gives me the ability to look back and see exactly how he was working in my life, exactly what he was planning and exactly what he wanted from me and for me.

I know not every situation will be like this, where something awful happens and then God completely redeems the entire situation in a year, leaving you way happier and better off than you were before. I know that God doesn't always "fix" things that seem broken and that he doesn't always leave a clear path of where he's been. I know that. But I also know that God did all of those things for me, and for that I'm incredibly grateful. Looking back over this past year is an amazing testament to who God is, how faithful he is, how much he loves me, and how incredibly well he cares for me, even when I can't see or understand it. 

I still can't believe how awesome God has been over the last year; how much he's given me, taught me, showed me. I can genuinely say I've never been happier than I am right now. God brought the perfect opportunities (and the perfect people) into my life at exactly the right times. It's bizarre to look back and see how precise God is in his timing and his choices for us. I will forever be thanking God for this past year. But right now, I'm mostly just thanking him I'm no longer floating.