A Seed-Planting Year
By Michael

As I fly through the ninth and into the tenth month of this program, I want to step back a moment and reflect on what has occurred and is continually taking place for me. There are no real words for my particular experiences and feelings at this point- everything is still to raw for me. I can only speak generally and say that this has been a God and graced filled year amidst everything that has transpired.

I could have never expected what has occurred these past nine months, and I know now that I can’t expect what will happen the rest of the year, or even what I will get out of this year when I look back at it five years from now. God has taken over my life and experiences because I have learned to leave everything up to Him. This was a very hard lesson for me to learn and one that I will continue to evaluate and mold as time progresses, but a very worthwhile one because it is the only way that I can empty myself and re-center my life.

For me, this year for me has been a shell. The experiences and people have been great, but any number of people or experiences could have fit into it. They were all vehicles for my learning, for God to work through to get to me. The life lessons have been the core around which these experiences have swirled- things that I can take to other experiences and people.

This year truly has been a seed-planting year in that I have only begun to realize who I am, how I work, where I fit into life, and where God is in my life. These are very general points that I thought I had mastered coming into the program. As the months passed, my concrete perspectives have eroded leaving me unsure and vulnerable, and I am only now starting to figure out how to put the pieces back together, as God wants me to put them back together and with a new set of eyes. I now have a bag of tools to use for myself in relation to God and others. This is a basic bag that will continue to grow as I use and develop it. I will forever be more attune to my actions and those around me, and thus I will left to be constantly thinking and struggling to make a difference, and I know someday that will give me peace.