Full Circle

It's amazing how things come all the way back to where they started. Having new experiences with old friends counts in my book. Last week, I got a chance to spend time with some of the people I volunteered with last year. As a group, we headed back to Louisiana for another trip. The group hung drywall, laid tile, painted, tore down siding and put up plywood. I got to see progress at a place where I had helped in April. What had been slab concrete, brick, and studs in April now has drywall, painting, flooring, and almost all the fixtures installed. It was an amazing thing to see the difference. That was going "full circle" in a good way.

Life sometimes goes full circle in a bad way. Just last week, Dad had an accident with a deer on the highway. The car still runs, but the cost of repairing the damage would be more than the cost of obtaining a used car. Over ten years ago, somebody else in the family had an accident with a deer, and that car had to be replaced.

For a while, I wondered why God would let things like this happen, but I'm not about to give up believing. I have seen more than enough to convince me, and more than enough to convict me. The full circle that life sometimes takes may be a way for God to communicate with us. Maybe He wants to say "Here's the problem you had a while ago. Can you do a better job this time?" It might also be a way to say "Get up and get going. I never promised that you would be safe."

It's got me thinking again, about where I belong. If I hadn't been going "full circle" on the trip to Louisiana, I would have been in the car with Dad. Would I have been able to make a difference? Possibly. But since I wasn't there, that difference is impossible for me to make. In fact, even my body weight could've made a difference. For all I know, I could have made the accident even worse.

So we come full circle mentally: Do I belong in Ohio? Could my time and energy be better spent in Louisiana, or in some other place where help is needed? The question has remained in the back of my mind for a long time, and seeing things in life circle round again makes the question come back also.