steps.

I've always had this way of marking my life by my summers.  It started happening that way because I loved camp so much, and it's where I wanted to be all summer.  Camp turned into You Lead and missions trips.  Those combined with trips to see the friends I'd made all those weeks had me gone all summer long and left me with lots of memories wrapped up in my heart.

By the time I hit college, I didn't have the free weeks to do camp like I once did.  And by the time I graduated, I really didn't have the free weeks anymore.  So what I had marked my life by felt like it was slowly slipping away. 

Have you ever wished someone would just write a book and tell you all the things they wished they would tell you before a certain life event?  I would just love to have a series of books "Things I Wished Someone Had Told Me Before Graduating High School," and then continuing books on college, getting your first job, getting married, getting your first job you really liked, having a kid, and so on.  If I thought I had any of those figured out I would have written those books long before now--I could probably make enough money on them to have my summers free enough to do all the great things I want to do.

But I've realized that God knows me better than that, and He shows me just enough of the picture so that I can keep moving forward.  And that there wouldn't be so much beauty in His blessings if we didn't have to wonder about what was coming next or how we would get through. 

It's a lot of give and take.  This summer I'm finding God leading me in a different path than I have had my heart set on for the last summers.  But He's tugging me in this new direction that feels so good, and feels like my future.  It feels like the next step, and that something good and something big is coming.

So here's to everyone figuring out that next step - praying that you have the trust in God to show you the next step only at the right time.  And here's to all of us praying that we have the courage to take that step when we're faced with it.