An End to Confusion...Think Again

My oh my, what an exhausting day today has been.  For the past two weeks, I have been waiting for Monday April 20 to come.  This was supposed to be the day when everything became clear to me.  I would be assigned the position of "Student Ministry Coordinator" or I wouldn't and that would dictate the rest of my decisions.  If only it were as easy in reality as it is written on this page.

I ran to check my email after my first class and the stretch between Otto Miller 127 and Hill Hall 463 never felt longer.  There were a hundred different scenarios in my head: I got it in Hill, I didn't get it at all, I got it in Ashton, I got it on the same floor as one of my friends...so many options.  Only one would be true, though, and it was the one I didn't want to be true.  The email simply said: Close, but not close enough.  Not those words exactly, but that's what I translated them to as soon as my eyes hit the screen.  Tears welled up in my eyes, even though I had prepared myself for this possibility.  I didn't realize until I didn't have the position how much I really wanted it.

The rest of the day felt so very long, but it was filled with so many blessings.  I felt this way a year ago when I didn't get the lead role in Guys and Dolls.  It's a feeling I never wanted to feel again, but here I am with the same sickening turning in my stomach.  My friends were surprised, my mother was more upset than me and I ran to the canal with my best friend to watch the ducks.  That's what we do when we're sad or confused...we just sit and watch them.  Watch their happy little lives and wonder what it would be like to be a duck.  She cheered me up and I was able to lay my head on her shoulder as my tears rolled onto her sweater.  A friend is one who knows exactly what you're thinking when you can't find the words to express them.  And she knew, yes she knew what I was feeling.  What a beautiful friend she is to me; I love her so much.

Of course, though tears were constantly in my eyes, the day did get much better.  So much love and support surrounded me at moments when I so desperately needed it.  Through big bear hugs, encouraging words and Becky Jo's message of "God has a bigger plan...a BETTER plan", my heart was uplifted so very much.  The worst part of the day was my two hours of solitude at work.  Normally there are three of us in the office, but I was all alone today.  Alone with my thoughts was the last place I wanted to be, but it was where I needed to be.  I could, much to my dismay, hear myself think and that is what helped me to pull through.  I left work and stepped into the beautiful sunshine that would be in the sky for another three precious hours.

So there I lay, among my friends, with my thoughts apart from the disappointment and fully focused on the beauty of these relationships.  I thank God for these friends daily, they are the ones who help me through my days, build me up and help me become the woman I am meant to be.  He has provided me so much and in those hours at the end of my day, I realized that all will be well.  Becky Jo was right, God does have a bigger and better plan for me.  

Frustration arose later this evening when I realized that I thought being an SMC was the plan and now I just feel lost.  I was heading down one path, and now God has told me to turn around and find a different path.  But what is that path?  I have been asking for so long and waiting for an answer for so long, yet nothing becomes clear.  Then I opened my Bible and the words of Psalm 13 were glaring at me from the page:

"How long, O Lord?  Will you forget me forever?  How long will you hide your face from me?  How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart?  How long will my enemy triumph over me?  Look on me and answer, O Lord my God.  Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death; my enemy will say, "I have overcome him," and my foes will rejoice when I fall.  But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation.  I will sing to the Lord, for he has been good to me." 

Those were the words in my heart (put much more diplomatically, though) and then there was an answer.  "I will sing to the Lord, for he has been good to me."  I will wait once more for the path of my life to become more clear.  I am at peace.

Your Will

I have been struggling to the point of madness over the past two weeks trying to figure out what on earth to do with my life.  To be a student ministry coordinator, to play on the Wednesday night worship team, to be in the plays, who to live with, what classes to take, what major to be, on and on and on.  This is what college is to me right now: an institution where we sit in classes to learn, yet our minds travel elsewhere.  Our minds travel to questions unanswered and a desperate search for the correct answers.  Relationships are muddled by the confusion in our own lives.  Tolerance levels for the people and actions around us are at an all time low.  It has been much too much to handle.

On Sunday, though, my wonderful father gave a sermon that was exactly what I needed to hear, perhaps even what I wanted to hear (So often, what we need to hear is not at all what we want to hear, I'm sure everyone has felt that way at one point or another).  So many questions were buzzing around in my mind and I wanted to find the answers.  No, I didn't want God to present them to me, I wanted to find them myself.  I wanted CONTROL, who doesn't want control of their own life?  The sermon was about us living the will of the father, rather than the will of ourselves.  Exactly what I needed to hear.

If I am to call myself a Christian, I cannot go about doing whatever I please.  There are things in my life that I love and have passions for, but I need to make room for new passions.  I need to do the things that Christ is calling me to do, but the struggle has been in hearing that calling.  It shouldn't have been such a groundbreaking realization to me as to why I couldn't hear that calling.  I was too busy and caught up in my own world to listen to His voice.  We all get caught up in our own thoughts, struggles and feelings, leaving no room for what is truly important: His voice in our lives.  One thing that stood out to me most was when he told us that one of the reasons we stop listening to God is that we're afraid of being called where we don't want to go.

After this statement, I realized that the Christian life is not meant to be a burden, it is meant to be an adventure.  I read a verse in Luke (in the Message translation) Chapter 6, vs. 24 that showed me this.  

"But it's trouble ahead if you think you have it made.  What you have is all you'll ever get."

If we don't take any risks or leaps of faith, we'll never get anywhere.  We will stay in the same comfortable place all our lives and never see the world that has been set out before us.  Faith is meant to take us places where we would never otherwise go.  It is meant to spread our capacity to love all over the world and live a Christlike life here on earth.  I have to give up my life to God, give up everything I have, drop it all and follow Him.

On Wednesday night, I came to the realization that no matter what I do next year, God has His hand over it.  What peace I found from such a realization.  How silly of me to hear the words "Your will, not my own be done" and never truly understand the meaning until now.  How foolish I was to sing the words of worship songs and on so many occasions, barely even believe what I was saying.  Oh, how my life has changed this year.  I thought coming to SPU would be going back into a safe and familiar Christian bubble of a world.  Yes, it is a wonderful Christian community, but it has challenged me in ways I never would have been challenged if I were on a different campus.  

This week is Holy Week and we sang tonight "Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again."  I sang these words with the realization in my heart that Christ gave up His life for the broken human race.  He gave His life to ensure the salvation of a group of broken people.  We are helpless, but through Christ's death and resurrection, we are able to have hope in a dark world.  I sang the words with a smile on my face: CHRIST WILL COME AGAIN!