Oh, the Joy that Floods my Soul...

Last night (technically about 1:30 AM this morning), I posted the following status on Facebook:
I am up way too late again, but tonight it's not work. I'm just basking in God's goodness. There was this big thing that I wasn't certain I could do but I was pretty positive I was supposed to do. Then He made it abundantly clear that I HAD to do it. And now that I have finally given myself over to the doing of it (vague much?), the tension and anxiety and worry is just completely gone and in its place is growing an incomprehensible excitement. It's shocking to my human brain that I could so quickly go from such dread, fear, and indecisiveness to this level of anticipation in such a short time. But my human brain isn't calling the shots any more. I want to tell the whole long story in a blog post soon but I just wanted to post this tonight in case someone else is hanging on to the decision making control and getting eaten alive by the anxiety that comes with it... Turn it loose. Let your hands fall away from the reins and just relish the heavenly peace that floods your being when you finally turn off your brain and let Him do HIS job.

I truly hate when people post vague things like that, but I really wanted to hopefully encourage someone who might be facing a similar situation. However, I didn't want to leave it vague for TOOOO awfully long, so here is the whole story. 

Last spring, on the day that the "LIVE! with Kelly and Michael" show was going to be announcing the winner of the Top Teacher contest (a contest in which I made the Top Five and got to go to New York and appear on the show, and also in which I won a trip to Israel and a cart of computers for my school), my cell phone vibrated with an unfamiliar number. I had sort of figured at that point that I hadn't won, so I honestly thought it might be the producer who did my segment, calling to offer condolences. I said hello and heard these words, "Hi, Athena? This is ____ _____ calling you from Israel." I was a little baffled and thought for a second it was someone already calling to set up my prize trip, which seemed kind of quick. He continued on, telling me that he was calling from Yad Vashem and that they had watched my segment on the Kelly and Michael show on youtube. He said they were very impressed by my class and my teaching and knew that I had won a trip there. He asked if I had scheduled it yet and I told him we were planning to take it in the fall. 

{As I was talking to him, I was frantically mouthing to a teacher friend of mine (I was in her room when my phone went off), "IT'S ISRAEL!" She could gather what was going on from my end of the conversation and she quickly scrawled something on a notepad and held it up so that I could read it. The note said, "THIS IS YOUR CAR." :) (The winner of the contest won a new Ford Fusion.)}

He then told me that they wanted to offer me a spot, free of charge, in their 3 week intensive summer seminar for educators. You can imagine how my heart dropped when he said the dates, which fell exactly during my trip to Cambodia. Imagine again how my heart LEAPT when, upon finding out that I would be in SE Asia at that time, he said, "No problem. Same offer, next summer." I was absolutely on Cloud One Hundred and Sixty-Seven. And I knew that, win or lose that contest, I had won something so much bigger.

We corresponded a time or two over the summer and weren't able to make contact during my family's October trip to Israel. Even though I knew it was something I both wanted and needed to do, I could not feel a peace about committing to it. I delayed as long as I could until, one day in November or December, I sent a text to about 12 close friends and family members and asked each of them to both pray diligently with me for the answer to be made clear and also to offer me most logical and objective advice that they could. And then I waited. And prayed. The overwhelming sentiment from most of my people was that I should go. But still, I was so uneasy in my spirit. Or my flesh.

I decided to write a grant to hopefully get a portion of my travel expenses covered. As I started to write it, I had to do a budget sheet and knew that I needed exact amounts in order to do it. I emailed him again, both to get confirmation that he was going to cover the tuition costs ($1200), as well as to ensure that the offer still stood. I didn't hear back from him that week. In a strange way, I was almost relieved, like that settled it. Even then, though, I wasn't at peace. I decided to try one more time and emailed him at the last possible moment before I had to either complete and submit the grant or stop the process. That time, he wrote me back with an answer that I can only say was one step shy of a burning bush or an audible voice from heaven: he confirmed the tuition payment and also said that he wanted to cover my hotel expenses (an additional $1400). I was in shock. 

You see, I am what some might call a "fleece person". I am a professional at giving God all sorts of tests and ways to easily leave me signs about what He wants from me. What I am NOT good at is relinquishing control of the situation, making the decision He is clearly leading me to, and letting His spirit call the shots instead of my flesh. I view that moment I opened that email as God basically saying, "Enough fleeces, already! HERE IS YOUR ANSWER. NOW TAKE IT." I remember sitting at my desk in my empty classroom, tears welling up in my eyes, and physically feeling the tension and anxiety over the decision start to ebb out of my body. I sent several excited texts to my praying partners in this situation and I still have a screenshot of three replies that came right in a row that started the exact same way: "I didn't want to pressure you, but I felt like you would always regret it if you didn't do it." My mom's reply was even more interesting. She said that she honestly believed that the entire experience with being on the show was all working toward this as its end purpose, that the almost month in Israel and at Yad Vashem is what God had for me all along and the show is just the vehicle He used to get me there. I have actually looked at that program before, but never for a second realistically would have considered leaving my family and going across the world for a month of summer without this push. 

The miracle, though, is what has happened since. Just in the month since I confirmed my decision, an excitement has been birthed and growing in me that is incomprehensible. I know the moment of leaving will still be very hard and I know that I will miss my family terribly, but all of those fears and apprehension and dread that I felt about being away are just GONE. I think about this experience many times a day and I cannot WAIT for it to be reality. It's a strange sort of ... almost homesickness... for a place I have only visited once. I CRAVE another chance to see those ancient white walls against that brilliant blue sky, to again float the waters of the Dead Sea, to walk one more time across the stone and sand of God's days as Flesh. I ache to feel the waters of the Sea of Galilee run through my fingers and to pray once more at the Western Wall. And the hours upon hours I will spend at Yad Vashem, learning from the world's leading Holocaust experts and hearing the stories of survival from the mouths of those who lived to tell... I don't even have the words to express my deep anticipation. I cannot believe that this is happening to ME. But I am so tremendously grateful that it is...