In the Moment...

The beauty of Chicago is the urban aesthetic appeal it holds, resting close to my heart as I have always enjoyed it. I really like big cities. I love looking up & seeing buildings barricading me in. So well kept with their mysteriously clean windows & comforting lights.. I've never really understood why I have such a heart for the big cities, since they're typically just a breeding ground for a worldly lifestyle void of any impact or influence from Christ, but I don't too often question it. Instead, I thank my Father for creating me the way He did, giving me the heart that I have. I love the city, maybe from the perspective of a girl with a mild intrigue for photography, though lacking proper means & direction to pursue it. And maybe simply because He made me that way. Regardless, here I am, in Chicago, & thanking my Father for my very temporary surroundings, rather than sulking in any circumstances. I was talking with someone a few years ago, & I remember saying something that has continued to stick with me. I said, "If I allow myself to become negatively affected by circumstances, then I'm in bondage." I was thinking about this last night as I was sitting on the Mega Bus in a gas station parking lot around midnight for the better part of 2 hours. Yesterday was a day I had been looking forward to for some time - it was the day I would leave Kansas City & head back to Michigan to join back in with my family (immediate & spiritual) for a few weeks of life. This particular bus trip for me has been the only one that has not included an overnight lay over in Chicago. (I am so blessed to have friends who live here.) My bus from Chicago, IL to Ann Arbor, MI was scheduled to leave just an hour & 40 minutes after my first bus arrived in Chicago. Beautiful. But the bus broke down numerous times & I was left telling myself everything will work out in the end,(or “þetta reddast" as it is in Icelandic), as I watched the time on my phone inform me of my next bus's departure without me. I was convincing myself that the Lord was going to supernaturally transport me as I prayed for it in the Spirit. For hours. But here I am, in Chicago, drinking my fused tea latte & sitting at a small table by myself in a coffee shop 5 hours away from my destination. I don't always understand how the Lord works, but it is another thing I don't too often question. I just trust Him & pray for grace to let Him move. For the person with an agenda that suffocates any participation of the Holy Spirit, this would likely be a stressful & frustrating situation, but I find it so freeing to cast my perplexed, yet adoring gaze higher than towering buildings & beyond the sky into the heavens, & look at the agenda of my beloved Father rather than fume at my own being inconvenienced. Oh, what it would look like to have the only thing composing our plans be the fulfillment of His.. I want to be in a place of creating so much space for the Lord to move; I want my goal to be the glorification of His name, not mine. I want to be totally covered by Him. In that, I feel no circumstance would be a waste, but an opportunity. No bondage, only beauty. Such beauty...