I'll let you in on a little secret. I'm an incredibly anal person. I also believe I have OCD to a very small extent - you know, not where it gets in the way of living life 'normally,' but where you will hear me say 'I'm so OCD!' often enough that it makes you wonder. I like organization. I like to plan.
At one point, I had a plan. I had a plan and nothing was going to stop me from following through with it. I knew exactly how I wanted my life to pan out. I worked on this plan all last summer, and I thought it was brilliant. Just brilliant. Here's what would happen.
I'd move out of Iowa, go to the University of Utah. I would major in Middle Eastern Studies, continuing with the Arabic from high school. The summer after freshman year, I'd most likely study in the Middle East through the State Department Critical Language Scholarship Program. If I wasn't accepted, I'd go on my own to Cairo to CASA, or the Center for Arabic Study Abroad. I'd come back to Utah. The summers after sophomore and junior years, I'd intern for the FSO or CIA through their two-year programs, so that I could establish some connections and start to make a name for myself - and so that they would pay for my last two years of school. After I graduated, I would work for the FSO or CIA, because of loyalty commitments for when they paid for my schooling. After I was no longer required to work for them, I would work for an NGO, making approximately $200,000 a year, right off the bat, to translate for the NGO somewhere in the Middle East; sure, it'd be dangerous, but I'd work for the NGO just long enough to be able to pay off any loans, give some money to my parents as a 'thank you' for all they had done, and have enough in the bank to not have to worry for awhile. I'd then attend the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and go back to the State Department as a Foreign Service Officer, working my way up to be Deputy Chief of Missions in an embassy in the Middle East - preferably in Damascus, Syria. I'd live the good life. I was going to buy my parents a villa in Damascus (yes, there are Damascan villas), buy my brother the best trumpet money can buy, and give my sister and her husband money to go on the biggest shopping spree of their lives. Somewhere in there I'd marry and have one child; if I had a boy, I would then adopt a girl - and if I had a girl, I would then adopt a boy. I'd also sponsor at least three children from a third world country. I'd live in the Middle East for the rest of my life, and my children would be raised to speak both Arabic and English. I would also have a home in a southeastern state in America, because I've missed the South ever since my family moved to Iowa.
That was the plan, and I was going to stick with it until I had checked off every single item on the to-do list.
But God has something else in mind for me... even though I had concocted that plan, I've come to believe it's not His plan for me.
It took a few months here in Utah to happen, but God turned my life upside-down. He wrapped His arms around me and He's not letting go. In a very short amount of time, I experienced the good, the bad, and the ugly - only to have it return to not just the good, but the great. I had weeks on end of those infamous 'God highs'... I experienced absolute confusion and mystery (and still do, but that's another chapter for another day)... and I faced serious problems in regards to spiritual discernment. But in the end, I grew closer to God, matured in my faith, and learned a lot about myself because of the people I've met and the things I've experienced here.
So right now I don't have a real plan. I don't know what's going to happen, because I've given everything over to God and I'm putting my full trust in Him. I do know God has changed my heart. I know He's called me to serve Him. I know I won't be at the University of Utah next year. I know I'll either be on a summer project through Campus Crusade for Christ, or back in Cedar Rapids, Iowa this summer. But that's where it ends. And for the first time since I can remember, I'm ok with not having a plan.
' "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." '
[Jeremiah 29:11-13]
No comments:
Post a Comment