I realized today that I'm a junior in college. Weird epiphany, I know. You'd think I would have figured this one out earlier. I mean, yes, I knew that I was a junior. But today, I realized I'm a JUNIOR. This would be ten times easier to explain if you could hear my tone of voice.
Think with me for a second. Do you remember being a high school junior, seventh grader, or maybe even a second or third grader? Try to think back to some college kids you may have known when you were that age. Didn't they seem SO old and SO mature and SO smart? Well, I guess I am older, probably more mature, and definitely smarter than I was in second grade, but this is still a crazy concept I'm having a difficult time grasping.
I have learned so much, laughed so much, cried so much, met so many new people, forgotten about so many people, and simply changed so immensely much since those days when I thought being a college student was so far away. And now, here I am: a couple weeks of my junior year left, one more summer break, one semester left on campus, one semester of student teaching, and then I'm done. I'll graduate, and I'm pretty sure I'm not going to graduate school anytime in the near future, so my learning in a school environment will be done. My college communal living will be over. I'll job search, interview, and Lord-willing jump into a teaching job sometime soon. Sometime down the road, I'll hopefully get married, have some kids, and begin raising a family. This stuff is so close I can smell it!
I'm just so freaking old, I don't really know how to handle all of these previously known but recently illuminated realizations.
Some people say growing up and entering the "real world" is scary. Some say it's exciting. I think I'm going to agree with both of those opinions. Moving away from my family is going to be a change, and probably a scary one at that. Beginning a new life in a new community is going to be crazy scary. Agreeing to spend the rest of my life with someone I haven't known for all of my life is deathly scary to me right now, especially since I'm single. And giving birth someday, well, let's not even go there yet.
Yet, at the same time, I think there's an exciting, invigorating beauty to all of that. In the past few days, I've been able to engage in some pretty serious conversations with a couple close friends and have been both reminded and able to remind them that God's got some pretty seriously rockin' plans for our lives. The most beautiful part of that truth is that as God's daughter, those plans He has for my life are more magnificent than anything I could ever imagine.
By that, I don't mean that God's going to give me an easy life where everything goes perfectly. But I do mean that no combination of a career path, relationship with my family, future new church family, or children bearing His image that I can dream up will be as perfect as what God has planned for me. I might do nothing with my Dordt degree and become a scuba instructor. Maybe I'll end up overseas starting a church with my husband whom I won't meet for another five years. Or maybe, but I pray not, I won't be able to have children and will end up adopting four Chinese babies as my own instead. Who knows?
What I do know is that someday I'll be able to serve God through some job that I'll most likely love, but it will definitely have its bad days. I can already see that through my parents' jobs.
What I do know is that someday I'll meet, fall in love with, and marry a man with whom I can serve God with even better than I can serve by myself, but we'll have some rough days. Through the relationship experience I have and my parents' marriage, I know that is definitely the truth.
What I do know is that someday I'll hopefully be able to raise some beautiful children up in the Lord's love and grace and see them flourish into the servants He's already intended them to be, but we'll have some rough days. My relationship with my mother can definitely attest to that reality.
Most importantly, what I do know is that whatever happens in my future, I rest in the confidence that God has beautiful plans to use me in service in His Kingdom as I seek to glorify Him through a life of service to Him. And this, to me, means that I have the most beautiful, magnificent future to look forward to every single day for the rest of my life.
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