I know, it's been awhile.
I'm probably going to go on a million different tangents in this post, but I promise, just like my crazy, hectic life, it will all somehow come together. Maybe not immediately, but I beg you to bear with me and see the meaning in the mess.
I write this post as I sit on my bedroom floor putting together Ikea furniture for my new apartment. This is the apartment I've looked forward to for years; the one I've spent all summer decorating and crafting for; the one I'll be living in with three of my best friends. Yes, I am excited. But now that the time has come to move in and start a new year of school, I'm being flooded with the nerves and fears that have accompanied nearly every new experience in my life thus far. These are the anxieties that come with the future.
The future has loomed in front of me for my entire life. Usually, it looks bright and inviting. And then, every now and then, it hangs heavily in my face and taunts my every move. It reminds me just how daunting and unclear it can be. And that's when the fear kicks in.
Whenever someone asks about my college major nowadays, my standard reply is, "I'm in business administration, but I really don't know what I want to do with that." That's pretty pitiful for someone who's halfway through their college career, wouldn't you say? I see how happy and at peace my friends are in their majors, and I want that. I want to be excited, rather than anxious, about what I'm doing and where my future is headed, but it's hard to be when I can't see it.
I've always dreamed of stepping out of my comfort zone, but I've been too afraid to try it. Sometimes I wonder if that's what it would take. I wonder if N.C. State University - if North Carolina, if the southeast - just isn't the end all and be all of my mission field. I want to be brave enough to step out of the safe bubble I've slowly established for myself and try something entirely different, and still have peace about it.
I'm reminded of this whenever I meet people like Joseph, our server during the cruise my family took last week. Joseph is someone I can't get out of my head for some reason or another. (To be honest, I don't think anyone else in my family can either. As I write this, my mom is on the phone telling the story I'm about to share for the umpteenth time!) He's a young man, probably not much older than me, from India. As my family got to know him each night of our cruise, we came to enjoy his presence. He would laugh along with whatever wisecrack my dad came up with, grin with anticipation whenever my picky-eater of a sister ordered her meal each night, and most importantly, he would treat us with a kindness that wasn't just in the I'm-your-server-and-I-have-to-because-I-really-want-a-big-tip kind of way (and no, I will not be convinced that he acted this way just because he worked for Disney!). After seeing the movie Million Dollar Arm (a true story about two kids from India who get a shot at playing baseball in the U.S.) while onboard our ship, we talked to Joseph about it and more about his country. We assumed Joseph was Hindu, like the characters in the movie and most Indians, yet at the same time, we all agreed that there was something different about him. The last night of our cruise, we found out that Joseph was a Christian, the nephew of an evangelical pastor in India. He was raised in a Christian family and church, where he played the guitar for worship (they played Hillsong songs, believe it or not!). After rejoicing over meeting a fellow Christian and telling Joseph that my dad was a pastor, we asked him if it was difficult to be a Christian working in the cruise industry, where he works long days in close quarters to others with very little time off. He said yes, but the Lord gives him strength in his huge mission field.
Long story short, I love Joseph's faith. I don't know how he ended up where he is or what circumstances brought him there, but deep down in my gut, I want what he has. I want to get out of my bubble and be a light in an extremely dark place.
When we left Joseph his tip at the end of the week, we also left a note with Acts 26:17-18 written at the end of it. This is a verse my dad considers to be his own personal "life verse," and I couldn't think of a better verse to describe Joseph's mission-field.
"…I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me."
Whenever I think about Joseph, and I think about my own future, I wonder if maybe my career and my mission-field could mix. For several years now I've been wanting to go on a short-term international mission trip…but why should it stop there? Maybe, just maybe, leaving my bubble behind is the answer, at least while I'm young and have the chance.
This quote isn't really relevant to this post (yet another of my endless tangents!), but I found it ironic that it was on the page of my prayer journal that I wrote out Joseph's story on. The irony is in the author, who just happens to be a late-nineteenth/early-eighteenth century Christian missionary from India (whom I had never heard of before until I saw this quote).
"In comparison with this big world, the human heart is only a small thing. Though the world is so large, it is utterly unable to satisfy this tiny heart. Our ever-growing soul and its capacities can be satisfied only in the infinite God. As water is restless until it reaches its level, so the soul has no peace until it rests in God."
- Sadhu Sundar Singh
This quote reminds me that I can only find peace (about my future, in particular) in God. Constantly asking His guidance is one way to find that peace. Accepting His guidance and doing His will is something much more difficult, but far more rewarding. That is where I feel God stretching my faith and pulling me out of my bubble, away from my safety net. And, oddly enough, I'm at peace with it.
