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If you asked me a year ago what I thought I'd be doing at this moment, I would never, ever guess this.

Right now, I'm interning at the Red Bus Project, a student initiative program of Show Hope, and learning more about the orphan crisis and how to advocate for orphans.
I'm living with a sweet, sweet couple that I only knew through a mutual friend and didn't meet until I actually started living with them.
I'm 930 miles away from my hometown and living in a place for the summer where I only know a few people.

I haven't even been here for an entire week and the Lord's faithfulness has been so apparent and overwhelming.

I was accepted for this internship in November and quickly began trying to find somewhere to live for the summer. The director of the RBP told me that it would work out, as a past intern found a place to live a week before she arrived. However, I said I was not going to be that person and set a timeline for all the things I needed to do prior to the internship, deciding that I would know where I was going to live by mid-March... Yet the Lord doesn't often do things the way I plan. I had been looking for somewhere to live for months, but every opportunity kept falling through. Ironically, I found out where I would live EXACTLY a week before I was supposed to be in Tennessee.

On Wednesday, the other interns and I were asked by our director to describe what the Lord is doing in our lives in two words...

losing control.

I was talking to one of my best friend's a couple weeks ago and told her that I felt like the Lord was loosening my grasp on every single thing I hold onto in this life. Where I was going to live this summer, relationships, and even things as small as classes were becoming impossible for me to control and plan. I was reminded of this quote by Corrie ten Boom, a survivor of the Holocaust:

"Hold everything in your hands lightly, otherwise it hurts when God pries your fingers open."

It has been incredibly difficult as the Lord has taken things out of my control and shown me how little I truly control. I've struggled and cried and fought and exhausted myself as I try to tell the Lord how I think things need to be done. Yet even through my anger and sadness and complaints, the Lord has never stopped pursuing. As much as I think I want, even need, something, the Lord is good to not give in to me. He does not give in to my complaints and limited knowledge because doing so would not be for my benefit. He is working all things for my good and will only give what is good for me, even though it may be difficult.

I'm learning that the easiest way is often not the good way. My mind is limited and although I think I know what is best, the Lord's plan is always crazier and better than what I thought possible.
I'm thankful that the Lord hears my heart and knows my desires, yet is loving enough to not always answer those cries and desires in the way that I see fit. In the most loving of ways, He reminds me that I am small and finite.

Loosening my grasp on things I hold onto has been hard and frustrating and I often want to give up. But I'm grateful to be known by a God who is sovereign over my big dreams and the seemingly insignificant hopes. Despite my sin and flaws, He is constantly reminding me of His faithfulness and sovereignty in my life.

I'm thankful for a God who is bigger than me.