Half Way

written by Hannah Boning

It's almost impossible to believe how quickly the time has gone, how fast this adventure has flown by. It still feels like October in my head, somehow, and I can't seem to wrap my mind around the fact that no, it's halfway over. Halfway over? How can it be halfway over? We just started.

But here we are, it's January, and people are starting to ask what we're doing next year, we're starting to talk about jobs and school and plans. It's easy sometimes, to get so caught up in tomorrow and the next day and the next month and the next year, the what-comes-next – especially in a program like this one, this short time – that I forget to sit back and look at what's around me.

Because what's around me? It's so beautiful. It's so good. I miss it, sometimes, when I'm trying to figure out how to answer the so what's next and so what do you want to do questions, and also trying to do my church history reading, and memorize all those Bible verses, and make sure I have clean clothes to wear to work tomorrow and feed myself and be on time to morning prayer. I miss how good this is, what a gift this year is. That's really the only way I can describe it: it's a gift.

I'm surrounded by the best people. They love me so well, even when I'm not loving them well. They want the best for me, and they want me to be the best I can, and they love me toward Jesus. They're teaching me and serving me and blessing me. Sarah and Stacey and Graham and Kyle and Sean, this family that we've built - sometimes it's messy, but family always is - but we're trying our best to love well. And Tripp, and Sarah, and my mentor and my host home and my coworkers, and the people that make us dinner and open their homes and let us sleep on their floors, they love us well. So many people give to make this program a possibility – give of their time, and money, and their homes and hearts and love. I look around and I see them, this cloud of witnesses, loving us in a million little ways.

In them all, I see Jesus. I see God providing and protecting and blessing abundantly. I'm reminded that God will always provide and protect and bless. I'm surrounded by a living testament to His love in this church and this community that has completely and totally opened their arms and welcomed the Fellows in. They love us and I see Jesus moving in their midst, saying see, daughter, see? I will never forsake you.

So here we are. Second semester, halfway through. I'm trying to figure it all out, trying to come up with the next steps, but every day I am reminded that I don't need to fear. Every day I feel the tug to slow down, to look around. To see how good it all is, how beautiful.

Tripp asked us recently about the remaining half of this program. What do we feel God calling us to? What do we see Him doing? What do we want to press into, to learn, to experience during second semester? There's so much, so much I want to do and see and experience. I want it all, I want – as is typical of my usual overachieving self – to get everything I possibly can out of this program. I want to be the best Fellow you've ever seen. I want to learn and grow and develop as much as one person can do in nine months. But what I want to hold on to during second semester is just how good it is, how good God is. I want to be still and watch Him work. I want to live in gratitude. I want to delight.

It's halfway over, but that means we still have half left. And I think it's going to be good.