The earth is yours

I vividly remember the conversation (read as: monologue) that I had with God over a year ago.

"Hey, God? I just thought I would let you know that I am applying for Oxford... whether you tell me to or not. I kind of just thought that I should let you maybe have a say in it. I guess I should kind of pray about it and I would be a bad Christian if I didn't, so I guess maybe if you want me to go, let me get accepted, and if you don't, then I guess I'll have to be okay with being denied. This is the only semester I can go, so I guess I'll take your no for a no and not apply again later. Amen."

It was not one of my finer moments.

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This semester is going to shake me.
It is a trial run for everything I think I want in my life.

Over the next four months I will live in a foreign nation.
I will study my two loves: Christian ministries and social work.
It is everything I think I want.

My tutorials will blend my two loves together, hopefully weaving the two interrelated fields together in such a way that I have a clear picture of where my career may be headed. My semester will be in a foreign land, testing my proposed calling to live overseas.

The semester is going to end in pain.
A heart mourning the end of a beautiful time, or aching to finally go home.
Confusion and frustration at a career choice that is not for me, or excitement and anticipation to finally graduate and get moving.
All options will be beneficial. All will give me direction.

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This town is beautiful. We are made in the image of the Designer, and man has done well to use the creative capacities bestowed to him. It is a most frustrating thing to take a photograph of a place so breathtaking and have it reduced into a two-dimensional small frame. Pictures do it no justice. I want to scoop up the town in my hands and keep it forever, keep it for me and my children and my friends and family.

But Oxford is already mine.
The earth is mine. The earth is yours.
It is a gift, bestowed upon us by the only One who can breathe life into being. I do not need to covet the sea, the mountains, and the valleys. I do not need to squash a cathedral into a snow globe. I do not need to try to fit the wonder that fills my eyes into a 4x6 frame. I do not need to be riddled with the fear of losing a place that I love. It is already mine. All has been given to me and all has been given to you. We simply need to breathe, breathe in the beauty and breathe out the glory.