Life is a Highway

Ah, hindsight is 20/20. I'm wishing for some hindsight at this very moment. It sure would help with the decision making process. But then again, life just wouldn't be as fun, or as stressful, that way.

So, I have entered into a new position in my family. I am apparently the family resource center. I used to be the problem child with the eating disorder. Now, that position has thankfully come and gone and walaa, here is Alison, the new call-if-you're-having a problem or want to chat or tell a secret girl. I really like it, it's very interesting. Mom calls, Dad calls, Jackie calls, Brad calls. I don't know if I suddenly have a sign on my forehead that says social worker or what, but suddenly people (family and friends) are telling me deep stuff. Or perhaps I have just grown up. Or perhaps all of my treatment and experience has made me painfully aware of different struggles and the need people have to be accepted right here, right now, no excuses. I don't know what has changed, but I like it. We are walking through a crazy world and we might as well walk together.

Today I listened to recordings of Anthony Hopkins and Eric Clapton speaking in AA meetings. They each spoke for about 20 minutes and it was truly awesome. I have a burned copy if you would like to listen to it. They each spoke about the power of God, how they don't understand how the program works, and how they don't ever care to know. They can't do it on their own, so they are simply trusting in something greater than themselves. I love this. I think they believe in the same God as I do. A God so powerful and unassuming and saving. A God who works if you allow Him to work.

I was talking with a friend today who was really concerned about her future job move and making sure that she remained in the will of God. Now, I believe that I am a part of God's will, but the view about choosing the "wrong" job instead of taking the "right" job and suddenly you have missed God's will for the next two years until the other job will hire you back is way to confining in my opinion. I believe that I have been called to social work. Why? Because it suits my strengths, my love for people, my natural gifts, and it makes me happy. I think that we are called to where the longings of our hearts meet our gifts as individuals. I think Christians too often overlook the simple yearnings of the heart in search of billboard answers from the Lord. I'm tired of Christianity simply because I think it makes God too small. I think God is in the simple things, the small things. I think God will use me here if I stay in Birmingham. I think he will use me in Utah. I think he will use me wherever I go. I'm not afraid that I will go to Utah and have missed the boat because somehow I was supposed to know that I should have stayed in Alabama even though I never read that in the Bible and God never put a bumper sticker somewhere telling me to stay. He is bigger than that.