My life recently (May - August)

In May my wife and I graduated from college. I have been doing construction over the summer, she worked some and studied for her N-CLEX test to become a registered nurse - and passed! Then we went to Morocco from July 15th - August 5th. We have been back 11 days, which honestly seems like 3-4 weeks for some reason. I was really sick, I mean REALLY sick from Morocco and have not gone back to work, but am planning on it tomorrow. Now our life is less focused on planning for our trip but more on finding "career" jobs and being adults, which for me has led to huge amounts of anxiety and worry in my life.

This really has created a mess because I just flat out have not been trusting God with our future or with our daily lives. Today after the service at church, I saw my pastor Shaun. After asking me how I was and my answer being "okay," he said he appreciated my honesty. I felt like I needed to talk to him, so I asked him about how he is trying to sell his house and what's going on with his new ministry. Without me even saying anything about my worry he began to tell me how he has had a lot of worry and anxiety in his life for the first time in around 10 years (he is moving to Beaverton and expanding his ministry over there). He said that when guys get worried we drink too much, spend money, and do other things... I think he has been talking to a lot of guys recently who had been worried.

What he said was so encouraging because everything totally applied to me, and it was very encouraging to know that even the mentors and leaders in my life struggle with sin (worry is a huge sin). What was even more encouraging was the escape he had found from worry. He said that we need to stop looking at our bank accounts all the time, trying to figure things out for ourselves. We need to let God do the things we keep trying to do. That's hard for me because I know it's true but it's hard to apply it. Meaning, it's really hard to let go and believe that Jesus will really take care of things, that I don't need to be perfect right this second, that God will really provide for us financially, and that we really can be happy along the way. All I can do is trust...which means I do way less than I have been trying to do.

Andrew