Going Back.

"Sheila, you're going to go back."

Rarely do I hear real words impressed clearly - boldly! - on my heart.  I think I have mentioned before about God's clear words to my heart when so many times He has said:

"You're right where you're supposed to be."

And he has said that all these times, not totally in order:

• I'm not married.
• The jobs I've worked.
• The school I'm at.
• Every year, the place I'm studying.
• I'm studying nursing.
• The challenges I've faced and am facing.
• An eating disorder.
• The relationships I've been in.
• The times I've fallen.
• The home I have.
• The country I'm from.
• The place I will be for my life.
• The calling He has for me.

And when I list it out like that, I realize just how often He has said that to me.  The words I wait for, I long for, in the most trying times.  The greatest affliction - and there it is, when I find the stillness in my heart and listen, and then I hear Him calmly say: 

"Sheila?  I love you.  You're right where you're supposed to be."

And though He ministers so often to my soul, He grants me peace and love and joy where I least deserve it, when I hear those perfect words, I am always astounded.

So in these weeks of questions and challenges, when I wonder how God will take me back, how I can live according to the incredible gift of the place in which God made me.  How could I be given such love, such pain and joy for that place, such relationship with the family God has poured into my life and with whom and by whom God has molded me?

It's a frightening thought.  

So when I sit and listen, and he whispers to my soul:

"Sheila, you're going to go back."  

Not as a command, but as a promise.  Not as a threat, but as a joy. 

Because somehow, in this crazy mess of life, He has a good plan.  And I can trust it.

Because He Loves Me.