Hey everyone! It's been a long time, things have been crazy, blah blah blah. If you don't mind, I'll just dive right in to what I want to say:
Life is never stable. The things that are stable happen to be the most important things: family, friends, spouses, and above all, God. Essentially, people who we love. Nothing else is ever stable.
As you all know, I'm a planner. If I could, I would plan every moment of my life right up until my death because I'm weird like that. I even color code my planner. Now that's pretty nuts. So naturally it drives me rather crazy when the future ahead is unknown. I think that applies to a lot of us. But as we all know, even when we make plans, more often than not, they change. Hence why we all constantly affirm this truth with the saying "The best way to make God laugh is to tell him your plans".
Nothing is really set for me right now. I don't know where I will be after I graduate college; could be here, may very likely be back in SD. I don't know where I'll go to grad school, what degree I'll pursue first (still wildly hoping to study both theology and literature), what I'll even end up doing. I don't even know how I will earn my primary source of income for the time being. This has all been driving me insane for several months. But not anymore.
In my few years living on my own, experience has confirmed that God always provides, often especially when the days ahead of us seem like a looming black hole. In fact, that's often when God provides in ways beyond what we had imagined or desired for ourselves. So, I'm not worried anymore. I desperately wanted to hold on to my apartment, this city, heck, even UCR. But the only things in life we really should hold on to are the people we love. All of this may sound cliche, but as I always say, certain sayings became cliche for a reason: there's truth to them. So now, while I'm certainly not complacent in matters such as job searches, living arrangements, grad schools, and Joe's and my marriage plans, I'm not worried about it. I'd be lying if I said I'm not still getting more stress pimples by the hour because of all this uncertainty, but it's all rather exciting (the uncertainty, I mean. The pimples are annoying).
So, my whole point is, we're never comfortable in life. I can't tell you how many times I've heard members of our parents' generation that are approaching retirement age say, "I thought my life would be set right now, but it's not. When does my life begin?" (in a recent phone discussion with my mom, I responded to her that hers actually began approximately 58 years ago). We will never be totally financially, logistically, or practically stable, but we're not supposed to be. That's a huge part of our spiritual journey: learning how to rely on God in all matters as our primary source of stable support, protection, and love. It's only when we learn to do that consistently that we will feel comfortable within the discomfort, and peace within the anxiety-inducing unknown. Personally, I believe that it is times like these when everything is up in the air and we're not certain of anything in life anymore that God does some of his most amazing and transformative work. So, let's all be excited in this journey of uncertainty, because our time wandering in the desert will lead us to a place beyond our wildest dreams.
