From 3West
  • Home
  • Blogs
    • Main Blog
    • People
    • Letters
  • About
    • About From 3West
    • Contact
  • Articles
  • Photography
  • Subscribe

The "But this isn't where I want to be," seasons.

4/17/2018

0 Comments

 
Picture
I can’t tell you how many times I told God that: “But this isn’t where I want to be.”
 
~

By my sophomore year in high school, I was convinced that if I was at any other school, life would instantly be better, and my problems would magically disappear .
 
I didn’t want to be in that season of life; a season riddled with friend problems, insecurities and pain. 
 
Even as a graduating senior, I thought nothing good would come from this time. I told God that all I got from that period was lots of tears, deep wounds and trust issues, loneliness and bitterness.
 
But when I look back now, I see him at work. I see that my tears drew my family closer together.
 
I see now that he has turned my wounds and trust issues that developed in that time, into a deep appreciation for the friendships that do and will last.
 

I see that he used my loneliness to draw me into him. He used my bitterness to really show me that my heart needed a lot of work.
 
Fast forward to the middle of my freshman year of college, and I was saying the same thing.
 
“God, I don’t want to be here.”
 
I would look at that view of UF and feel sick.
 
I was again convinced of something false. I was convinced I had made the biggest mistake of my life coming to UF.
 
The transfer applications open in my browser on any day that spring screamed what I thought was the truth: I didn’t want to be here. This wasn’t the place for me. I needed to get out.
 

But I didn’t leave for some reason. I stuck around, despite my attempt to convince God that I needed to be somewhere else.
 
Looking at the present, I see why he put me through that and kept me a Gator.
 

My freshman pain is the reason why I appreciate and seek true community so much. My freshman pain gave me perspective and showed me how much I blew small issues out of proportion. My freshman pain showed me truly, that God’s plan is always greater.
 
Sometimes I just have to wait it out, even if “I don’t want to be there.”
 
Just two days ago, I caught myself saying that again.
 
At the beginning of this semester, I had a dream of a summer planned with one goal in mind: to not be Orlando this summer. Circumstance after circumstance happened, and my “dream of a summer” completely fell through.
 
And guess where I’m 95% sure I’ll be this summer?
 
You guessed it: home. In Orlando. The one place I said, “No definitely not,” to.
 
Right after my plan exploded right in my face, I stomped my foot, and hit God with that whiney statement: “But God, I don’t want to be in Orlando this summer.”
 

With no other choice, I sat back and waited. I prayed for something to come up, so I wasn’t just sitting at home all summer.

Without giving too much away because I have nothing secured yet, something did come up.
 
In a completely chance way.
 
A dream of an opportunity if it works out, in the one place I didn’t want to be this summer.
 

Sitting here today, I’m face-palming myself and smiling.
 
Because who am I to ever say that where God is placing me isn’t the place to be?
 
Learning slowly but surely to stop telling him that I don’t want to be right in the middle of his glorious, perfect plan.
 
Because in the end, it always works out better than I could have ever planned.
 
Know this: it is so cool, freeing and humbling to just be wherever God puts you in life.
 

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”
 
Ecclesiastes 3:11

 
God’s timing is so sweet, friends. Lean in, and trust it. 


Related posts: Buckling up through chronic pain: when it takes me down, but God meets me in the valleys.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Jordan Ellis
    Gator Grad  • writer • coffee addict

    Picture

    Archives

    October 2021
    January 2021
    October 2020
    September 2020
    April 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    June 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017

    Categories

    All
    Blog Series: 21 Things I've Learned At 21
    Blog Series: Truthful Identity
    Dominican Republic
    Surgery Posts

    RSS Feed

About

About From 3West


Contact

Contact
© COPYRIGHT 2018 Jordan Ellis. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

From 3west: One Blog. two crutches. Lots of stories.

  • Home
  • Blogs
    • Main Blog
    • People
    • Letters
  • About
    • About From 3West
    • Contact
  • Articles
  • Photography
  • Subscribe