Feeling Ready To Move On

I moved back to B. C.’s Fraser Valley in September 2006, and I’ve been restless ever since. Don’t get me wrong! I’m very, very happy to be home, & I’m very thankful for being back in close proximity to many of my friends. To me, this is truly the best place to live, and the most beautiful. B. C. really is super natural!

If I want to go shopping, I don’t have to settle or use a catalogue or travel a long distance to do so. If I want to see most of those most dear to me, I just have to make arrangements, & things’ll be on their way. Within an hour-&-a-half, I can be at the home or many of those closest to me, or vice versa. I am happy to be home, and I realised when I was up north that this is home. Nowhere else has a hold on me like the Fraser Valley does. I would move away – for a relatively short time – if opportunity came my way. Nowhere else, though, would be the same, and nowhere else would be where my heart is.

Since moving back here to B. C., I’ve been restless. Not to move away, but to do what my heart wants, and to follow my dreams. I haven’t had an enjoyable job since I’ve moved back, although I’ve met some great people through the jobs I have had, & at least I’ve been working. Now I have a full time job, which I’ve been at for a year, pretty well exactly, (I can’t remember the exact date I started, but it was November of last year, around Remembrance Day, I think) and I’ve met some very cool people there. Allyssa, with whom I work Monday to Friday, is a real gem. She’s one of the sweetest, most gentle people I’ve ever met, & I’m thankful to know her. God’s certainly blessed me with the people I’ve met in my life, & He’s blessed me with some of the best in my life.

When I started the job, I didn’t dream that I’d be there anywhere close to a year. I thought for sure I’d be doing something else by now, & I was so certain that God was going to have something else for me shortly after. However, that’s not happened. I’m still working there, but at least I’m full time. THAT’S a blessing.

However, it’s certainly not my dream job, & I feel wasted there. I don’t feel as if I’m living up to what God created me to do. I don’t feel as if I’m contributing anything worthwhile to society, & I don’t feel as if I’m really serving God as He has gifted me to do. *SIGH!* It’s so frustrating! I don’t wake up rarin’ ta go, & I don’t really want to go to work.

I do admit that the people – co-workers & most customers – do make the job worth it at all, along with it being full time, & people are a blessing from the Lord. They make things better when I’m feeling down & when I’m feeling as if nothing’s right or anything. To be greeted by those who really like me is always a blessing, and I am thankful for my blessings.

So if I’m thankful – really & truly thankful – is it OK for me to be restless as I am? That’s something I’ve struggled with for a long, long time, & I honestly don’t know the answer to that. Some people say it’s not, while others say it is. I’ve asked different people about this, but I’ve come to no definite answer. If you have an idea on this subject, please feel more than free to comment on that. Is my restlessness from God as a way to prepare me for something else? Is it from Him as a way to get me off my duff & get working on looking for something else, something that would help me obtain my dreams? Or at least do something I feel is a calling for me?

Or is this restlessness a form of unthankfulness? Is it something that’s from the devil, something that he’s using to take my focus off God? I have no idea!

All I know for sure in this instance is that I’m restless, & that I don’t know what to do about it.

Since last May, I’ve been a freelance photographer for the Agassiz-Harrison Observer, that’s been a really cool way to earn a little extra money. The way things are right now, I’m not able to quit my job at the coffee shop to pursue photography full time, but it’s a start, and it’s a beginning, & that’s a good thing. It’s a way to at least partially fulfill a lifelong dream – photojournalism – & that’s always a great thing. It’s made that dream feel like it has a greater chance of coming true, and hope is always a great thing. Then, in this last Wednesday’s edition, I got a story (Stuffed Animals For Charity) published! I couldn’t help it! I was at work when it was confirmed by my opening the paper & seeing my words staring back at me from page nine, & I squealed with excitement & jumped up & down a little.

Having people praise what I do always feels good. It makes me feel as if I have talent & as if I can actually do something other than what I’m doing day after day. It’s good to have hope.

Maybe my restlessness IS from God. Maybe it’s a way for Him to urge me on, to keep me pressing on toward whatever it is He has for me to do. He does work in mysterious ways, and who’s to say that my restlessness isn’t that? I have been shown that I’m at the coffee shop for a reason, whatever that reason is – including meeting the people I have – but I also sense that my time there is winding down to a close. Mind you, I’ve felt that before. So who knows? Maybe it’s wishful thinking on my part that’s causing me to feel as if I’m also finished there, but maybe it is God telling me to be ready to move on. I just don’t know, & won’t know until whatever it is that’ll take this restlessness away happens.

As I’m waiting for God’s timing & for the next part of His will for me to be revealed, I wait in restlessness. I’m going to take it as a sign that I need to keep focused on God – as I should always be – & to keep on doing whatever it is I’m doing until it’s time to move on. That means staying at the coffee shop as well as working on my photography & my writing. It means waiting for His timing & keeping patient – in a restless sort of way (there is such a thing, even though it sounds like an oxymoron) – as I wait to see what happens next.