Fruitful future

I don't know why but I have spent so much time trying to write this. So I guess this is what if feels like? Almost 10 months away from my family and my home. I now can say many things that I wouldn't have been able to say before. I came this year searching for guidance and to see what I am going to do with my life. And I am no closer to finding it then I was ten months ago.
But one thing I am closer to is God. After all these months I now have realized that there is no point in searching and planning your future because God already has it planned for me. And this year all I was doing was accessing and analyzing everything I was feeling but not really feeling it. For almost the whole year I was just thinking about the future. And then I realized, When will I ever have these experiences again!? Stop it. And live and be in the moment.
At the beginning of year I had wrote things on my wall to remind myself to not do.

Things to remember:
-Join and be in community
-You are usable
-There is a cloud of witnesses before you
-You can do all things through God who strengthens you
-Don't be to hard on yourself and laugh
-The things you struggle with and who you are, are not the same thing
-See the good

And these things have continued to challenge me everyday.
I came with these ideas and all these goals to fulfill and those are important yes but what is more important is to live, to be, to serve and to love.
The thing that I have really taken away from this year is not the job I had or the experience of teaching. I will take away the moments where I was actually living. I tend to get hard on myself and I run back into my shell and of course this has happened this year. Instead of spending time with my family I read a book, instead of enjoying time with friends I stayed home alone, instead of staying positive I got hard on myself. Instead of leaning on God I leaned on myself.  And at those times I could have been loving and serving and living. This year I learned it is important to be to get involved to not always stay on the sidelines like I do. When I was in community, laughing and doing the spontaneous things that I never thought I would be doing, when I was serving without intentionally serving and loving even in the hard moments those were the times that mattered and that I will always remember. And the times that I leaned on myself are nothing compared to the times I trusted and was used by God. We are usable. Isn't that weird. I can be used by God. And so this year I think that is the most important thing I have learnt. We can live a life that can help change the world and we can do something more than just going to an average job. We can show love and we can serve the people of this earth and life will be so much better if we do. We can be used by God and can help heal the earth.
We had a training in Vietnam talking about serving and living out God's call. It really stuck with me.
A quote they had said also stuck out, " The act of doing something is powerful."
And I just thought about my time here in Laos and though I may not be doing much here, the act of coming and working and serving is powerful. We are doing something powerful by being and living, serving and loving in these communities.   I had been watching a video on my friends blog and it shared the verse:
“The only thing that matters is faith expressing itself through love.”

-	Galatians 5:6

And it's all to true for my life now and all that matters in the future. So what I will take away from this year is that I should never lean on my own and should always depend on God and not just that I should live and serve him because my life will be all the more fruitful for it.