Another answer to the question of "why Europe?"

I am not always the best at explaining things.  Many of the things that I do, I do because I don't think about them too much.  For example, going to college was a given, moving to TX sounded like a good idea and going to Europe was a realization of a lifelong dream.  But what do I hope to get out of this trip?  Renewed faith?  Healing?  Some kind of direction?  I have never really explaied it very well, but tonight I thought of this analogy.

Imagine deciding that you need more culture, more depth to your life.  You hear that a new composer has composed a symphony and you decide, "what the hell, why not go."  You get the ticket, get all dressed up and go to the theater to listen to this new piece of music.  The lights dim, the composer comes out and shortly the first notes reach your ears.  You decide to close your eyes in order to experience the music more fully, without distraction.  Sitting there listening with physical eyes closed, your spirit is lifted on the strands of the music.  As it becomes more happy, joyful and light you soar with the music, your soul rejoicing near to bursting with all that is good in creation.  As it goes on, the music drops to a more dark and sinister place, and you decend with it as well, into all that has gone wrong, all the pain and sorrow and without meaning to you begin to cry because what you feel has so overwhelmed you.  The song fills you and awakens parts of your spirit that have been dormant, parts that you didn't even know that you had.  It awakens feelings that you didn't know you could feel, brings up things that you thought were buried in the past that had no meaning in the present... now you know differently and you know that when the music stops, you won't be the same person who came into the theater.  Even knowing that, you can't leave without riding the music to the very end, until the last note has died away and you can open your eyes again.

That is where the analogy ends, this trip is the song... God is the composer... where his song will lead me, I don't know.  Who I will be when this movement ends, I don't know either.  I'm learning to trust in the Lord and to have faith in his love for me.  Like so many other things in my life, I've always accepted Christ as being a given, of knowing Him in an almost scholarly way - by that I mean that I've accepted what I've been taught as true, questioned it occasionally but always come back.  I've felt the love of Christ occasionally in a dynamic kind of way, at retreats and things when I was in high school, but the feeling always faded.  Slowly I have started to feel the joy of the Lord - to see with new eyes the wonders of the world and of how He works in it.  I hope to come back a different, better version of who I am.  So, my friend, please pray for me, and for Ana as we take with journey through Europe with the Lord.