A mere two weeks of freedom remain before I effectively
begin my adult life. A full time job at our local middle school, teaching
special education as a paraprofessional. (Praise to the One who provided this
opportunity after a tough interview and a pool of very qualified candidates.) It my deepest joy to have finally realized, after months of prayer and wandering of mind, where the next step of the Journey has lead me.
My childhood and teen
years long ago gave way to the inevitable adult reality in which I now dwell. But
there was something in those brief years of love, chaos, and adventure known as
my undergraduate life that was, in fact a mere dipping of the toes into icy
water. Those simple years in which I was shielded from the angst of looming
student loan payments, a search for a full time job, and the awkwardness of
being an absolute minority as a mid- twenty something college graduate in a
small university town. I knew many of
the realities for which I was destined, but I chose to live in the season I was
given and thought very little about them.
Many of my dearest friends, about to embark on the new
journeys of post graduate life themselves, have asked me if I was prepared for “real
life” after graduating.
To which I respond, resoundingly and without hesitation,
with a “No.” But I was right not to be.
If I learned one thing when I lived in South Asia last year,
it is that one can never be truly ready for diving headfirst into an entirely
unknown place, a new stage of life. It was in those precious days that I
Iearned to lean on the Father, for all our preparations usually came to
nothing, or had to be changed in the light of constant cultural
misunderstanding, language barrier, travel difficulties and political
uprisings.
Our obsession with preparedness as Westerners has led us to
believe that we may not proceed unless we are ‘ready.’ And yet, my soul rests
assured that the readiness that the Lord has called us to is simply to trust
and obey him, wherever He leads. I want
to be, as those simple fisherman were when they followed Christ without
abandon, leaving all certainty forever behind (though I, like they did, will
most certainly drag my feet and often disobey). I am certainly not prepared to
walk the dizzyingly crowded halls of angst filled teens. I am not prepared with
the great deal of responsibility associated with loving and leading them well.
I am not even prepared to teach, which is something that the Lord has so
designed me for and bent me toward. I am
not even equipped to push back the darkness in the lives of dozens of children
who are constantly abused or from homes where there is little to eat and
sufficient money to sustain life is impossible to come by, or where addictions
and struggles have dominated family life to the point that normalcy is a far
off dream. Yet I am determined to trust
the Lord. I will fix my eyes upon Jesus ‘til “the things of earth will grow strangely
dim, in the light of His glory and grace.”
And I confess, most brutally, that I have no idea how to do
this. Pray with me as I learn continually to surrender and give away control.
I am thrilled to begin this season of life. As a working
woman, diligently earning my bread, budgeting and living a bare bones, simple,
community filled life. Daring to dream great,
impossible dreams and live as the Lord
leads. Daring to believe that I might one day find my home among a people far
away, among children who have great physical and spiritual need, among a
community who has not yet heard the Truth.
May
I never lose sight of the precious goal—to know Him and make Him known. Amen.
