A Fork in the Road

           What is God doing? What does God want?  Questions I have asked often in the last two years.  There are so many ways to describe AIM to someone.  My personal favorite is “an emotion, spiritual, and physical at times rollercoaster”, but something I would never change. It has been a journey, but I think I’ve learned a lot about how to answer these questions in a healthy way. I don’t believe that I could ever say I fully know what God is doing, but I always know that He is working. I don’t believe I could fully know what God wants, but I know that He wants for us to know Him more, and be happy doing that.

            I never have been good at making big decisions; I always wonder if what I have decided is what God wants. I have started to learn in understanding God’s love for me—that in the decisions that I make, God does want me to be blessed. The biggest decision that I had to make recently was where I wanted to be after my field time. My options were California or Texas. I went back and forth for the longest time about where I wanted to be, the answer was both, but as we all know I can’t be in both places at once. I was then reminded that it doesn’t matter where I choose to be because God is always working. I struggled with that for a long time, remembering that God may give me two different paths that I can choose from, but He isn’t going to bless me in one and not bless me in another. I find that the only time I won’t see God using me, is when I don’t let Him use me. I constantly need to remember that God is showing us things throughout the day that I can be doing for Him. Sometimes, I’m just not looking.

            As of this last week I have had to remind myself once again of all this, also remembering I may choose something and God may change that up a little to work in different ways. As I said before I had this big decision on where I was going to go after the field. I chose to go to Grass Valley, California because it just seemed to be working out and that God was just putting more open doors there (pretty cool thing to see God was helping me out). But, throughout this last week God has changed that and has blessed me more through this process. I am now moving to Auburn, California where I will be able to live and work in the fields that I wanted to before, but couldn’t. But there are also so many ministry opportunities here. I have seen God just change around plans, but open up ways that I can choose to give myself to Him and let Him use me.

            I thank God for the times that He has given me and the things that He has allowed in my journey with Him. I don’t look back and regret anything, because He is the one guiding me. I thank God for the choices He gives me, but I also thank Him for changing those around when needed.

            I encourage you all to make choices based on what you love to do. I encourage you to choose to walk with God in each of those choices that you make, because if you are looking towards Him, He WILL use you. 


-Jeni Bandanza
 Leon, Mexico 
 AIM 2009