2 more days...

I am going back to Florida to visit in only 2 more days. I'm VERY earnestly looking forward to going. While there I plan to spend a couple days with my dad, meeting up with a few people i've told i'm coming (Clare, Alicia, Brent, Pastor Tony), and doing something that i'm torn about. I am planning on going back to my old Y in V-town and hanging with the people I worked with and the kids there for a bit. How will this go? Will I go back and be like, "Man, I'm glad I left", or will I leave thinking "What a mistake i've made leaving here"? Or, which I'm hoping, will I be somewhere in the middle?
The ironic thing to me is that about two months ago I was somewhat desperate to go back...thinking about going back even permanently. But now that i've started to adjust to TN life I'm optimistic about visiting, but also not so sure I would want to stay forever. When I first got to the Nashville area I didn't have work, no friends, didn't know how or where to spend my time. Now i've found my church time enjoyable, ways to serve others (which is always fulfilling), and starting to lay the foundations of some good relationships with people here. I am really liking the people I work with, and the kids I work with.
And even bigger: I've learned so much here...about other people, about myself, and, most importantly, about God. I've learned about empathy for those less fortunate (seeing the stark contrast between what poverty is where I came from and the reality of what poverty truly is outside of the Venice and Charlotte communities). I've learned about the value of, and what is, a quality relationship. I've started to garner (but not fully attained) a more intimate understanding of God's involvement in my life - and that it is actually there. It has really made a big difference in my life - if not outwardly, at least inwardly. And I know this inward change is what will bring about a longer lasting outward change for good.
I'm so thankful to God for things I used to take for granted. Food for example. Not just seeing others starving, but facing that week where my mom and brother had been out of work for a while and I hadn't worked yet. Being broke and getting to the point where everything was gone (literally) except the box of popcorn. Living off that popcorn for several days (I hate popcorn by the way) until God showed his providence in my life and provided - and we had no control over the situation at all.
On a side note, interacting and helping the poor and hopeless brings a whole new dimension to your understanding of the problem of poverty and how real and desperate it is. Not just mailing off money, or doing an online donation.
Will God always provide food? Surely by seeing other people's situation around me I unfortunately know that the answer possibly is "no". But I do know that God's love for me supercedes everything else, starving or not; ability to walk or not (I love walking - hehe).
I'm thankful for what God has done for me since October through my struggles. Leaving everyone I knew and cared for (twice in 6 months). Battling depression, the struggle of gaining weight, then losing weight, then gaining again because of my medication (and my love for fatty foods!!!). The thoughts i've had because of the label itself...words like "bi-polar" and "clinically depressed" are not how I want to describe myself. But despite those things I have this keen feeling that God sees me as much more than my weaknesses...much more than my failures...even though I can hardly believe it because I know myself too well for it to be easy to believe. I'm looking forward to being able to see the old things in my life when I go back home through a new lens. The lens that shows me that I am valued by God and that nothing can stand in the way of His furious, pursuant love for me and for other people.
In ending my scrambled thoughts for tonight, I relay this:
I recently read a book by Donald Miller called "To Own A Dragon". In it, a man was speaking to the author about his relationship with his son, and his relationship with everyone else in the world, to demonstrate God's love for us. In a nutshell, he said this...that when a man holds his son for the first time in the hospital, he just loves him. The son hasn't done anything, he was just the man's son (and that was enough). Every other relationship the man had in life was built on what the person had done for him, took time, often wavered, and sometimes even dissipated. His love for others was often contingent upon something - how he felt that day, how beautiful the person was, etc. But not so with his love for his son. It is as strong each day as it was that first day. That is God's love for His children, of which I am one.