April has been month of fullness…Full of love, light, joy, challenges, and heartbreak. It is hard to believe I have been here 3 months already. I wish time would slow down just a little. I finally feel settled into my life here, and am beginning to love and appreciate the slow rhythm that is life in Uganda. Time isn’t the most important thing here, which has been refreshing, but also a little frustrating at times.

Coming from America, I find it is often hard to just sit still for a moment. We are hard wired to always be working toward something. Achievement equates value. My brain has been conditioned to think this way, and it has been hard to step away from that mentality, and adjust to a culture where relationships are put above everything else. This, by far, is the biggest challenge I have met in my time here. The achiever in me constantly wants to be given a task to complete, and I have worried that at the end of this year I will walk away from my job not having accomplished anything of value. That I will return home to the emptiness I felt in that first year after graduating college.

I was talking to Rachel, one of my sweetest friends, recently about my time here and the challenges I have been facing, as well as the worries I have about the future. I told her I worry if I will have a job when I return home, if I will ever get married, if I will have a family, where I will live…the list goes on and on. My mind sometimes races until this overwhelming fear wells up inside me, “what if my dreams don’t align with God’s will”. During our conversation she told me, “You’re an achiever. You’re so used to doing…In college you researched two capstones at the same time, you were the president of multiple clubs. You did so much. Maybe instead of doing this year, God is telling you to just be.” Just be here in these moments with Him and the people He is surrounding you with, and not worrying about accomplishing a list of tasks or what your life will look like come January or five years from now.

Because the reality of it is, He already knows all the answers to these questions that have consumed me for the past few weeks. And the truth is, as scary as it is to say, I may not achieve all I thought I was going to in this year, I may not have a job when I return home, and I may never get married and have a family. In the midst of all this fear, I have been asking myself some hard questions about what it means to love God. Will I praise Him even if His will doesn’t match up with mine? Do I trust that His plans are ultimately what is best and the most fulfilling for me? Do I have faith in Him even when His promises have not yet been received? The decision to follow God here was an easy one, because it was what I also wanted. Will I follow Him even if it’s not where I want to go? I love the lines Shadrach, Meshach, and AbendNego utter to King Nebuchadnezzar when he threatens to throw them in a blazing furnace:

“If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”
Daniel 3:17-18

Even in the midst of uncertainty and death they still said, “Not my will, but yours Lord”. I want a faith like this. I want to grow so close to God, that I know even in the midst of my uncertain future I can trust that His plan will always work out for the glory of His kingdom, and that if I follow that plan I will be fulfilled no matter if it aligns with everything I want in life.

Jesus said, “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself, each day has enough trouble of its own” (Matthew 6:34). These words couldn’t be truer. Ultimately I don’t know if I will have a job come January, I don’t know if I will get married or have kids. But I do know that God’s in every one of these moments I am experiencing here, and I don’t want to miss the sweetness He has planned for me in this year because my mind is worrying about what is going to happen eight months from now. For now I just want to be with Him, taking in everything He has to teach me, building relationships with my new friends here, and learning from our office staff. I want to trust that He holds where I will be come January, and because of that I don’t have to worry about anything.

One of my favorite songs our staff sings is “Nearer My God to Thee.” Here it’s considered a funeral song, so they don’t sing it very often. But when they do, they sing it so beautifully and with such passion; you know they truly want every word they say. The words are simple, yet so beautiful:

Though things go well with me
Comfort in life
Friends, Food , and Property, Money and all
Still all I want shall be,
Nearer My God to Thee, Nearer to thee

I may not know where I will be eight months or five years from now. My life may look exactly like I picture it or God’s plans may look nothing like mine, but I do know in this year “still all I want shall be, nearer my God to thee.” And I will keep singing those words every time my mind slips to worrying about January, for January can worry about itself.