Miss Guthrie

Janelle asked me if I would take some pictures for her on Sunday. So we went out to the pond and this is the result. She's a beautiful girl and I love the way that red hair just pops! Hope you enjoy the photos.

Why I Don't Need to Get a Life

When I was in high school, I had this innocent, girlish picture of how my life was going to pan out. Here was the glorious blueprint: since I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life, I would take a year off and then attend a Bible college. By the time I'd completed these tasks, I would know what I wanted to do with my life in terms of a career. Then college would be next on the agenda; I would work hard through school and earn a degree. Also, somewhere around this time, I would find a boyfriend. Eventually, I'd finish college, get a job, my boyfriend and I would get married, and we'd settle down to life. We'd find a house or an apartment somewhere. Get involved with the church. Work. Enjoy our friends. Have kids sometime. This would be my life. Voila.

Now I sit at my desk, three years removed from the day I walked down the aisle to Pomp and Circumstance to receive my diploma. However, reality and my naive blueprint haven't exactly been lining up. In some ways this has been a good thing. For example, instead of staying at home for a year, I worked as a tutor in Southeast Asia for ten months, which was a very rich experience. After I returned to the US, I had the privilege of attending ARISE in the fall of 2012, which was a blast. When ARISE ended, I took a job at my old high school to work as an assistant dean. This job was/has been a blessing to me in many ways. I've learned to appreciate authority and respect leaders in a new way now that I've had to be one myself. I've been able to save money, enjoy fellowship with the people on campus, and encourage and reach out to fifty high school girls. When last school year was coming to a close, I still didn't know what I wanted to do in college so I decided to stay on for another year of deaning.

So that brings us up to this year. As a dean, it's been a good year. However, for me personally, I've floundered. It's been rough. There's been this painful aching and grinding inside me as I've watched reality and my life blueprint drift further apart. My ideas as far as longterm goals and careers still feel unclear and unstable, like castles of sand on the beach. Sure, there are things floating around in my head as to what I could do with my life, but am I ready to take out thousands of dollars in student loans in order to get a degree in one of those areas of interest? I don't know about that. Maybe I should. I'm just not sure. (And as far as boyfriends go, I feel about as ready to handle a relationship as I am to take on a sumo wrestler.) This year I've felt so purposeless and lost, as if I'm floating on a lifeboat in the endless Pacific Ocean, desperately hoping for a smudge of land to show up where I can finally and firmly plant my feet. 

But I just seem to keep floating. And my frustration grows. Strangers ask me what my plans are and I think, Here we go again. It's like a carousel: predictable and mentally nauseating. 

Well-meaning stranger: "So, what are your plans for next year?"

Me: "I don't know." (Why beat around the bush with flimsy fancies such as, "I'm waiting to see where God leads"?)

"Well, what are your interests?"

*Inward sigh of agony for these poor souls who think they can actually help me figure out my life's calling in the three and a half minutes I'll spend speaking with them.*

So I proceed to humor them by unpacking my mental toy chest of hobbies and interests to satisfy their curiosity and desire to be a hit-and-run career counselor. 

"Well, since you asked, I love underwater basket weaving and baton twirling. I also feel a real burden from the Lord to reach out to the penguins of Antarctica. I'm just stuck as to how God can use all the talents together. I don't want to bury them in the ground. Any advice?"

Just kidding. At least about the penguins. I'm actually a pro underwater basket-weaver.

I know these people mean well and they aren't trying to come off they way I've just portrayed them, but these repetitious interrogations sometimes feel more painful than productive. After so many rounds, I feel dizzy when I look into the future. You know how your stomach lurches when you've been on one too many rides at the fair? Yeah, kind of like that. 

I've tried to take time to pray and ask God what He wants me to do. I've been frustrated at Him and wondered and worried and stressed myself out. I've cried too and then felt guilty for worrying. I've also asked forgiveness for not trusting Him to make things clear, trying to sedate my fears and calm myself down by claiming good ol' Proverbs 3:5, 6. 

But I still have yet to see a straight path. I don't see my island in the Pacific. I don't see a road that will lead me to finally get the life I so naively thought would fall into place soon after I left high school behind.

There are people who hint or just plainly tell me that continuing to work at FA isn't really the best idea ever. One friend told me, "Allie, I just think you need to get a life." I laughed at her blunt statement and she, realizing what she'd said, immediately tried to smooth it over and dull its sharp edges. She continued to explain in a caring voice, "I just don't want to come back here in ten years and find you still here and still single." I know she means well and really does care about me and love me. But it's hard to move forward when my vision feels hazy and decisions are difficult, confusing, and scary. 

I've almost wished that God would have written a step-by-step manual for my life. I wish someone could just make it obvious what I'm supposed to do, what path I should take so I could finally have some peace and get my life back to my blueprint. Why couldn't my life be easy? College + Job + Spouse + Kids = A good life. What's not to love? Why does it seem like happiness is so far in the future? 

But through this mentally nauseating, depressing, pull-your-hair-out-frustrating, dizzying lifeboat-carousel ride in the Pacific, I think I'm beginning to see things just a little more clearly and here's what I'm beginning to see: 

I can't project my contentment into the future. I can't keep putting happiness on hold until I finally make my teenage dreams a reality. If I keep waiting for them to finally materialize, there will always be something more on the horizon. Once I figure out a career, there will be marriage. Once I've got marriage under my belt, there will be children. And once I have that...well, I'm sure something will come up, and that something will always be just beyond my grasping fingertips. 

I can't wait to live my life anymore. I don't need to get a life. I already have one and I'm going to live it. This is my life. Serving God right here, right now is just as much a part of His calling for me as any other time of my life. Following His purpose for me is a life, and the best one I could have I might add. And as long as I'm following His leading as well as I can, I don't need another one.  

Besides, it seems to me that when well-meaning people tell you that you need to get a life, it just means that you should stop whatever you're doing, leave wherever you're living, and do whatever they think you should do. Go to university. Get a degree. Get a boyfriend. Get a job. That's their version of life. 

Sounds very similar to my longed-for blueprint. But as I said, I think through all this God has been bringing truth into focus. Maybe He is trying to get through to me that my plans aren't necessarily always the best. Maybe He has better ideas. Maybe I'd be depriving myself of enriching opportunities if I simply followed the conventional step-by-step life most of my SDA peers strive for today. Maybe there are life lessons I wouldn't learn if I were granted my formulaic dream for happiness. Maybe there's something special to be gained through an unconventional life.

I think I'm learning that this is all part of the journey. I still don't know where I'm going next year. (I was supposed to inform my employer of my decision by February 15. Ha.) I'm still trying to formulate ideas and good plans for the future without getting dizzy. But I'm realizing that maybe this is just all part of the process. Maybe, instead of thinking I had one grand life calling and that I had better be sure it was my passion cause I'll be stuck with it till I croak and I'm put six feet under, maybe I should take things step by step. 

Huh. There's an idea. 

I recently read in Genesis 12 that the good Lord uprooted Abraham when he was seventy-five years old to go to a land that He left TBA. He moved Moses around quite a bit too and didn't finally fulfill his blueprint until he was eighty years old. Joseph went from favored son to slave to right-hand man to prisoner to second-in-command. Talk about switching majors. I don't think these guys were waiting to finally "get a life." If their minds were set on getting a life, I don't think they would have trusted God as they did, for their would be a huge chasm between God's plans and their expectations. No, at the core, they were committed to following the Lord step-by-step as He lead. It was all part of the journey. Maybe I should quit foaming at the mouth and freaking out so much because I don't know what I'm doing next year.

I'm not very good at that though as you can see. I'm still very much in the process of internalizing the truths I've just written on. But I'm learning through this odyssey. Jesus states in John 14:6 that He is life. So I guess as long as I'm seeking Him first--whether that means staying here, going to college, going to school online, or something else--as long as I'm following Him, I'm having the best life possible and there's no reason to put happiness on hold. I don't need to get a life. I have one. And, as frustrating, scary, and annoying as the unknown future is right now, it's kind of cool too. Who knows what amazing places God will take me or what incredible things I'll be able to do?  Not me, that's for sure. 

Note: Please don't misunderstand any of what I've just said. I'm not against college. In fact, I actually applied to a couple of them on Christmas break. I just don't think people should box in what it means to have a life to just university and relationships. There's more. Having a life means you are following God's purpose for you. Period. I also don't mean to offend anyone who told me I should go to school or even my dear friend who told me to get a life. So please don't be hurt. I've just been trying to understand and share what God is teaching me. And I'm also not against people giving me advice either, even though I do sometimes get tired of the same round of questions.