All Strewn About

With clothes draped every which way around my room, I have begun to pack.
Dresses and folded shirts and rolled up pants... 
My heart is in fairly the same condition, with thoughts and feelings and memories and anticipations strewn every which way inside the room of my heart.
People have also begun to ask me if I'm ready or not... as if we were playing a game of hide and seek or something:
Ready or not, here comes a plateful of change.
More accurately, I'm not sure if I'm ready... which is also a strange place to be in.
I think a lot about this past year, and about all the fears and prayers that I invested into what I hoped would happen once I graduated, and here I am: on the brink of an amazing journey. My hopes and dreams are actually coming true. This is actually happening.
I remember many times Winter and Spring quarters where I described my state as being, "on the edge of a cliff, about to jump off into the unknown, with only a wobbly hope that God would catch me in the end." What's more, more than ever, I feel I am approaching closer and closer to when I'll jump off that cliff, and I am also more than ever reassured that God has already been preparing a way for me, and been holding me this whole time.
In many ways, I felt like I had pushed my way into becoming a missionary with GEM, and one of my fears was that I might be imposing on them or just going by my own sheer will. But then to hear that the missionaries in Dublin and the staff at GEM headquarters were wonderfully excited for me to come and be apart of them... I was absolutely relieved.
There have been several moments in my life when I've declared, "God, if this works out, there is no way that I could have done this on my own; it must be You working."
It seems to me that God actually wants to incorporate our passions and desires and talents and gifts and weave them into His will. I've come to conclude that it was Him who inspired me to push as I did to be apart of GEM, that it was His thought for me all along.
On my last day of work, I showed Kyra where I was going on the inflatable globe (that we sometimes would throw back and forth). "WE are here," I would say, pointing to the left-hand corner of the green United States. "And I'm going to fly Alllll the way ohhver Here!" pointing to the small, yellow island that was Ireland. Then she would try it. I'm not sure if she really got it, because after Ireland she would jump me into the Huge yellow land mass that was China and then off to the North Pole. I'm not sure if I really get it either, except that I've begun to pack, and I'm down to less than a week left.
My art auction went well. The saying goodbye to so many people all at once part was overwhelming, but the food was good and I love my friends, and am happy that many of them left with pieces of my soul in painting form. I am so thankful for how many people are being supportive; I'm going to greatly need prayers, because transitions and feeling successful at what I do is hard for me sometimes.
At Bethany Pres, someone interpreted God's words that had spilled off of someone else's tongue: I Am Your Redeemer. I Love You. Your Debt Is Paid.
I let the tears spill out of me, because my heart needed to hear that so much.