Tonight, I think I really grasped over a bowl full of fettacini alfredo and a plate of nachos that God works in unexpected ways. I knew this. I've heard this a thousand times. And I'm still not sure how I feel about it. All I know is that God usually does His best work while we're planning something else. In high school, I walked in wanting to be a super star athlete. I planned to play volleyball and basketball for my first two years, see how they went, then pick one and devote all my time to it. I was going to be a starter on varsity. I was going to get the letterman jacket. I was going to help out with the freshman teams. I was going to be it all.
The Lord absolutely wrecked that plan and it completely shattered who I was. I really wish I could describe how much I found myself in basketball. I ended up devoting my time my last two years of high school to various things: work, school, church, and my high school newspaper.
I really wanted in high school to leave a legacy. I wanted to make an impression on those younger than me and really care for them. I wanted to be a strong leader and someone those younger than me could look up to. I was so angry when the Lord took sports out of my life. How in the world was I supposed to do something worthwhile at my high school anymore? And yes, I was on newspaper staff but we all know that's nothing really of that much importance. Not that many people read it anyway.
But as I sat down to dinner to catch up with one of my old reporters from the paper, I got to see just how much of a legacy I left with the good old Anvil Newspaper. She began to tell me of everything that has happened with the paper this year. She told me of how she was doing things and the lessons she was learning through it all. I felt like It was like talking to my senior self. But I got to show her the other perspective. I told her about what I did wrong when I was editor, what I wish I could have done, and things that I found worked really well. And she listened. She really thought about what I had to say and told me her fears about certain situations. We chatted about almost everything and it was good. We fell back into the old rhythm like when I was back in high school but we had both changed so much since then that there was a newness to our relationship. I felt like we were getting somewhere. I felt useful. And I really needed that.
So as I look out at now the next 3 and a half years of my college life, I'm asking the question: what am I really doing? It's really scaring me because I feel like I've almost repeated my story. I walked into college thinking the Lord was going to use me in one situation, but I'm not totally sure that's where the Lord wants me to focus my time. I realize that I need to be open to the Lord. It's not about me. I need to find myself completely in Him and not what I am involved in. I feel like college is the time where you find yourself and that's what I've spent a lot of this semester trying to do: figure out who I am and what in the world I'm doing with my life. But I want to find myself in the Lord. I don't want to just throw that out there. I want to peruse it.
I'm learning how to expect nothing but Jesus. I'm begging the Lord to give me the strength and endurance to throw all my plans away because I have a good hunch that I'm going to find myself in four years saying the same thing I did tonight about basketball and newspaper just with different circumstances.
