Should I Stay or Should I Go?

I still keep hearing hints and suggestions in conversations with neighbors, in the news, in sermons at Church. I still keep "hearing things" that suggest to me that I need to go back. I do not know whether these "things" are a general call that I can answer anywhere I am, or whether they are a specific calling to go to a specific place and do a specific thing.

There are many ways to serve God. All that a person has to do is "get plugged in," or find a spot where there's something to be done. But I keep running across things, even in the worship at church (not just in a specific message that a specific preacher is trying to give) that make me think of trying to return to Louisiana to help.

Our former preacher has found a new calling in Tennessee, and has moved there to serve God. The details of this calling involve job openings for the preacher and his wife, their desire to move closer to their home towns, and the fact that both jobs are "service" jobs. Not only are those jobs their "dream jobs," that they had always wanted to do, but those jobs also serve God.

Since the preacher moved away, our church has had several different people preaching for the past few weeks. For all of them to use the same "party line" seems like more than just a co-incidence. But I do not suspect conspiracy on their part. If anything, God is working "in the background."

Sometimes I wonder if I'm just a "glutton for punishment." But if my life is truly an "inverted life," I have got to ask whether the following statement is true:

"If Chris would come after me, Chris must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me." (Matthew 16:24)

I substituted my name to emphasize the point of all this. If I am being called on, I may have to give up what I have around me in Ohio and the (in)security I have here. I have plenty of reasons to go and plenty of reasons to stay, and it's the sorting through them all that's creating the pressure I feel.

Trip Three?!?

I have no idea whether or not I should go! There are all kind of considerations to be made first. For one, I've used up all of my eligible "vacation" time. For another, my financial situation may be "stable" but it is certainly not "solid" right now. I am certain that at the current rate, I will run out of savings and checking account money sometime after the first of the year, 2007.

I am fairly certain that if I go on a third trip, that it will be extended, because each of the past two times that I have gone to Louisiana, I've wondered why I should not stay.

If you've been reading Hilltop Rescue and Relief, then you know that the need is great. So do I.

It is becoming not just a need that I am aware of, but a need that I cannot ignore.

Any comments that you have at all would be very welcome.