Alpha and Omega

Hi. I'm Katie. I hate change. I love comfort. Nice to meet you.

I'm feeling uneasy today. Today is my last day at home for a while. Tomorrow I leave for three weeks at Columbia to take some masters classes. While I am deep down excited to live in NY for a bit and further my education, the nervous/homebody part of me often wins. I know that in the Christian life, God certainly does not call us to comfort. This is a hard truth for me to swallow because I love my home, my routine, my coffee, my puppy, my nightly bath, my TV shows - in short - I LOVE comfort.

This summer I've been preparing to go to Columbia while keeping up with my work for YES, and there are so many details that I have fretted about. I lie awake at night, my mind racing with financial aid, housing, travel, reading, registration, tuition fees, and missing the first three weeks of my school year back in Houston. It's enough to keep you up till 2am. In the midst of all this, God has been teaching me through other means that my life is not guaranteed to be the same tomorrow as it is today. Maybe my two years from now or five years from now will not look like I thought they would. This makes me crazy and causes me to demand details of God.

And in making these irrational demands of God, I suddenly understood the error of my requests. Why should I need to know the details of what my life will be like next week or next year or in five years? My demands exposed the weakness in my faith. God already knows, and that is enough. One thing that kept coming to mind as I studied and prayed was that God is Alpha and Omega. He is the first and last, the beginning and the end. If he knows how it all begins and how it all ends, then certainly He knows everything in between. So now as I lie in bed worrying about how I'm going to do it and how everything will come together, I try to change my inner conversation to a prayer asking God to work out all the details and give me peace to go forward confidently even if I don't really know what tomorrow will look like.

Here are some verses that have spoken to me in this period of uncertainty:

Psalm 139:1-5
O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord. You hem me in - behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me.

Revelation 1:8
"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty."

Isaiah 46:10
I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.

Lamentations 3:22-23
Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, "The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him."

Psalm 1:2-3
Blessed is the man whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither.

Ephesians 2:10
For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

I will be updating you on my adventures in grad school starting tomorrow...eek! Thanks for your prayers as I make these transitions over next month!