You know, sometimes you get things from places you don't expect. Blessings in particular. And those are the ones that make you stop and chuckle and shake your head and say, "I know that was you, God."
It's been a long time since I've posted, and that's because I haven't had anything really that I wanted to talk about. I don't like posting about little things really; I'm more of a big revelations kind of person I guess. But I really should post more often if for no other reason than that I think it would help me to see His influence more clearly if I had a record of all the little changes over a span of time.
For instance:
Ta's out of school. He's graduated from college. I'm super proud of him in a way that I've never really felt for somebody before. Saturday was a really great day that marked the beginning of a new and exciting stage, I think. He's coming to Fayetteville in the fall to start in the physics program (which makes me even more proud, I'm practically beaming) and that'll be the closest we've been in four years. We're hoping to get to see each other every day, which is something that hasn't happened since before he graduated high school. It's strange but terribly exciting. I think back to right after he graduated and how much I dreaded him moving away and it's funny. For a long time I've only seen him on most weekends and texted him most days. I told him this summer that us being together is just too much wonderful to absorb. And it occurred to me that from this point on we are together, pretty much for any and all earthly future. It's wonderfully comforting. I thought back to before we were together, and I loved him a long time before he appreciated it, to when I can remember wanting not just for him to like me, but also for me to be able to be there for him and be his friend. There are so many instances when I look back of God in our relationship and it makes me happy. I thank God very frequently for the wonderful boy.
But that's not really what I wanted to talk about. It's just really easy to get me distracted when it comes to Ta. I could talk about him for hours (insert fluttery hearts and mushy nonsense).
I hate not knowing what I'm going to do. Not in an immediate sense, or even a relatively close at hand sense. I have no idea what I'm going to do in five minutes. I may decide to quit typing and go to bed. I may eat a cheese stick. I don't know what I'll be doing at 3 pm next Tuesday, and I'm okay with that. But in the overall scheme of the next few decades, I want to know what the general plan is. I know part of it, and he gives me great comfort. But I don't know what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. And that really really bothers me. As a naturally anxious person - seriously, as an unlicensed and completely unauthorized authority, I would definitely diagnose myself with Generalized Anxiety Disorder (I may also be a tiny bit of a hypochondriac) - I tend to find things to worry about. Being in college, it tends to focus on that. Also being in college, people tend to talk a lot about the future and what are you majoring in and what do you plan to do with that and oh I didn't realize there was any money in that but I'm sure you'll do fine. It's kind of terrifying.
Sometimes when complete strangers ask me what I'm going to be doing with the next several decades of my life I consider making up some rubbish because I don't want to say I really have no clue. I'm actually in the astronomy program and I'm studying to be an astronaut when they finally get that program working again. I just passed the entrance exams to Harvard Law. I've been traveling around rural France trying to find myself and learning French.
I am a psychology major. I enjoy psychology. I think it fascinates me because it's a little taboo. It's intangible but still scientific in a way that doesn't really deal with equations or formulas. It's a frontier that is ripe with potential and it affects everyone in one way or another whether you realize it or not. Past that though, I don't know what specifically I want to do in psychology. I could go into therapy. As the one giving it I mean, although the other role might be nice too. I could teach, but I don't think that's ever really appealed to me. I could be surprised though I guess. I could do experimental work, but there again is the problem with I don't know what specific area interests me most. At the UofA campus there are several labs, most of which deal with drug addiction, anxiety, and mood disorders. There's a school in Missouri and a couple in Texas I think that have forensic psychology programs. Which is super cool, but I'm not sure about the practicality of it.
There's a lot of really huge decisions that loom over me in the dark hours of the night, weighing on me, smothering me with the wet blanket of uncertainty while I'm frozen, sleep dancing away from the dark thoughts and leaving me alone and defenseless.
I don't know how may times I've prayed for guidance. Lord, I'll do whatever you want me to do, whatever you think is best. Just please guide me in the right direction. Take my hand and pull me down a path. Maybe a billboard. With neon. Something. Anything.
And so many times nothing.
I'm a true, blue-faced idiot.
Really I am. It almost makes me laugh, my own stupidity.
I try to read two chapters of my bible every night. It gives me a little while to just focus on something good and feel a little closer to Him. It helps me clear my mind and stop anything I was working on so that I can go to sleep in peace with thoughts of heavenly things. In theory. One night I was reading in my dorm room after Luke and I had been watching TV, and Caroline had come home so we had all been sitting there chatting for a while, and Luke just up and asked me what I was reading about. Most of the time I kind of just did it quietly while everybody else went on about their business, but this time he asked where I was. And he asked me to read it out loud. So I did. And it was I Kings 19.
11. And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake:
12. And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice.
13. And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave. And, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah?
Then Luke asked what that part meant, about the still, small voice. And as I was explaining it I nearly punched myself. There you go. Billboard. Might as well have slapped me in the face with it. Idiot.
The next day during our theatre class, the artistic director from TheatreSquared was there to talk to us about professions in theatre, but instead he grilled us about our passions. He spend an hour and fifteen minutes making me feel like I was sitting in a metal chair on hot asphalt in mid-July on the Sun. I realized I don't know what I'm passionate about. There are things I enjoy, like baking and reading and picking pretty flowers for Momma, but nothing I would feel so strongly about as to use the word passionate. He told us to write down what other people said we were good at, then what we thought we were good at, then what we wished we were good at, and then what we were passionate about. My list was disturbingly blank in areas, and it unsettled me. If I can't even think of things that I can feel confident in my ability to do, how can I possibly find any sort of drive that will fill my future career with this undying and wonderful passion he spoke of??? And then he finished me off with a quick jab to the heart of it. He said that you can't let other people tell you what you're good at and let that control what you attempt to do. You have to do what you feel. And he actually said something along the lines of "it's funny, I don't know why I'm mentioning it, but isn't there something in the Bible about a 'still small voice' or something?" I died. Then and there. Let it be written on my stone. So I stopped, took a breath, and said, "OK Lord, I get it, I hear you, I'm listening."
I'm not going to say that that's where all my problems were solved. I didn't hear a voice telling me to go up into the mountains or that I was the chosen one, but I did start listening a little closer. It's kind of depressing how the little things that you know you should do and don't or shouldn't do and do anyway start slipping away and creeping up respectively. It's even more depressing when you realize that it's been happening and now you have a big mess waiting on you to get busy sweeping. It's hard to figure out where to start.
I still don't know what I'm going to do.
Today I was listening to the conversation of some people discussing the future and God's hand in it, and I heard a tiny voice.
Interesting tidbit thrown in: they've done studies on people with auditory hallucinations, and it's been found that during a hallucination, Brocca's area, which is typically active during speech, lights up. So they think that instead of thinking of a hallucination as other people talking to you, it's really you hearing your own voice and not being able to recognize it as your own. And that's kind of what this voice reminds me of, in a completely not weird or psychotic sort of way. It's like it's my own voice giving me mostly unsolicited good advice. Like my own little Jiminy Cricket chirping away up there beneath the mounds of garbage collecting dust.
Anyway, it told me to join the conversation. So I interjected my own comments about things I had experienced, and I was rewarded with this - Saul was a mighty man, very prominent and powerful, but Paul had more.
Philippians 4:11 Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.
And I was slapped in the face again. And accepted it with humble awe and appreciation.
It doesn't matter. Find something and stick with it because going back and forth and being all wishy washy about it will get you less than nowhere. Whatever I choose to do, the Lord will bless me if I do it uprightly and seek the narrow path. I heard someone say one time (I believe they were ordained but it might have just been a snippet I picked up along the way somewhere) that the Lord has blessed me thus far, why should I doubt that He will continue?
It's all going to be okay you little fool. Why would you ever doubt it? I feel like this is the cliche ending to a sappy movie where the hero skips off into the sunset while birds chirp and a choir sings. But I'm okay with that because I've always loved cheesy.
I know I'll always have a magnificent and awesome God who will guide me even if I am completely obtuse and need to be pulled by the hair of the head sometimes. I'm not going to starve, and I won't be completely miserable. And He's given me a pretty swell boy to help me through it too, and that doesn't hurt anything. To quote the little aliens from Toy Story, "We are eternally grateful."
