“Nothing is over!”

In this season of my life, it’s been tricky to figure out what to do with my time and hands. If you know me, you know that I like projects. Win, Lose, or Draw, I’m all about big and little ideas that have the power to change to atmosphere and structures in the places I am. Usually, there’s an issue to address and I find a creative way to take it on.

Fortunately, I suppose, everything is awesome. The people at QTEC are growing and making me proud every single week. People are making drastic huge changes in their lives to follow God because they’ve decided that His will is more important than theirs. Lives are being radically, and subtly changed by scripture and teaching. As individuals and as a group we are growing in how we reach out to our community, whether geographic, cultural or socially in the places we work, live and study. There was a while where we weren’t praying much, and now we’re praying crazy amounts and God is answering those prayers.

Which leads me to my dilemma. What does a soldier do in the peacetime? I’m accustomed to identifying threats, managing crises and running full bore into figurative fire fights, but now everything is awesome and I’m super proud of everyone and I don’t know what to do with myself.

I would use all the free time to do some writing, except I’m probably happier than I’ve been in a while and learning how to write out of discipline instead of necessity isn’t as exciting as drawing from my deep well of sadness.

The problem may be that Solomon taught me to enjoy the toil. Qoholeth, aka the Teacher, aka the Preacher, aka Solomon (maybe), tells me “there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God.” I journeyed through a continent and a half to find the peace that comes from enjoying the toil. But what happens when the work is, at least for the time being, finished. I have steeled myself for a long winter of journeying under overcast skies through thorn-bushes, but I find myself in a spring meadow, basking in sunshine.

Maybe it’s a brief respite from the struggle, a port in a storm, and maybe by the time I post this, new challenges will be be rumbling on the horizon. But in any case, I might need to learn how to be me in peacetime. What a Sunroot looks like that isn’t running into battles. Who knows!? The end.