Life is often described as this big interconnected story, one where years or seasons are chapters and each day is a page. The biggest chapter in my life so far has been the World Race and a little shy of one year ago I was getting ready for that chapter to end and preparing for the next one to begin.
About this time last year I can imagine I was in my hotel room in El Salvador, trying to piece together some sort of plan for where I was headed in life after the Race and after school and I wasn’t really getting very far. I was stuck because just the month before I had stood in a living room and very clearly had felt the Lord saying that my plans were not going to work out, and that was really hard to hear and come to terms with, because I love making plans. Those of you who know me even a little bit can probably attest to this fact.
My idea for my next chapter had been turned on its head and as we were heading on our way to Central America I stood on a beach in Los Angeles and wondered what God was doing. It was there that the Lord planted this idea of an opportunity that I had completely forgotten about as what could possibly be my next chapter after school.
Fast forward to September of 2016. I have been back on American soil for about a month, been to quite a few weddings and parties celebrating friends and loved ones and now have moved into a new apartment in my college town, getting ready to start my next chapter: my final year of my undergraduate degree. I’m not going to lie this year was tough. And maybe some of the things I struggled with are a bit crazy-sounding when I look back on them; like not being able to sit straight through a 2-hour class because I felt like I had to pay attention to every conversation in English happening around me (that one does seem pretty funny now). I struggled with getting back into the groove of school, while also learning how to keep a house up and running through cleaning and meal planning, and in the second semester learning how to balance a job as well. For a while I felt lonely because I had lost touch with so many friends I had loved hanging out with before the Race. But through all of that, even when He was silent, I knew God was right there with me.
And a little less than two weeks ago the page was turned on this chapter in my life as I walked in my university’s graduation ceremony and received a Bachelors of Arts in Psychology with the Latin honors of Magna Cum Laude. I don’t write this to toot my own horn, so to speak, but rather to point out the list of struggles I had throughout the year and how the only reason I was able to accomplish getting that degree was through walking one step at a time, trusting that God had a plan in it all.
So now a chapter has ended and I am preparing to go into what I would call an interlude of sorts. For about 5 weeks this summer I will be working as a director of a counselor training program at a summer camp that holds a piece of my heart and is a huge part (I believe) of how I was able to go on the World Race. I am so incredibly excited for this opportunity, but also a little terrified and I’ll tell you why. I’m a little scared because this is probably the biggest leadership role I’ve ever had in my life and honestly I don’t know if I’m up for the task. I trust that I have the ability to do this job well, but I also know that in those times when I don’t have the answers or am not doing it right God will fill in the gaps.
This opportunity will last from the end of June until the middle of August. After that I have no clue what is on the next page of my story, and that is quite frightening for me. Now let’s go back to that scene on the beach so many months ago. After the Lord planted the idea to go back and pursue this opportunity I couldn’t get it out of my head and so I prayed and contemplated my options and then started the application process in October of last year. Over the course of this school year I have come to call this opportunity “the door that just won’t close”, because so many times I have thought that it wasn’t going to happen, that I should just move on and each time those thoughts crossed my mind God brought it back to the forefront of my future plans. I laugh when I think about how it has all worked out because only God could orchestrate something like this. I laugh because the way that all of this has happened reminds me so much of what the process looked like for me moving forward and choosing to go on the Race. There is a reason this door of opportunity won’t close and I intend to keep going until my way is blocked.
Now I know that there is a reason that this door hasn’t closed and there is a peace in that, but that certainly does not mean that I’m not scared. If this position were offered to me I would need to move to an entirely new part of the country, on my own. I would need to find a way over the summer to gather up at least $3,500 to support myself while there, since this is an unpaid opportunity. I would need a place to live, a way to move around the town I’d be living in, and a way to get food. When I tell people about all these things that are not provided sometimes they look at me like I’m a little crazy. After all this is a little counterintuitive to the way life is supposed to go after you get a degree. I’m supposed to be using my education to get a good, stable job that will provide me with a steady income to live off of and also pay back my student loans. I just got back from a whirlwind trip around the world where I spent a year not making any money. These two things make me wonder if perhaps pursuing this isn’t the best idea. But then I think about that night in Malaysia when I felt God telling me my plans were not His plans and we were doing things His way. I think of that moment on Venice Beach when I had a fleeting thought about a long forgotten dream. I think about how God has been patiently and lovingly pushing me towards a life that trusts Him with everything and risks it all in pursuit of what He has for my life. And then I know that if I get it, this opportunity is worth chasing after.
I don’t know if I’ll get the job. I have one more interview to go (which is why I haven’t called this opportunity by name), but even if I don’t get it I know that God has been doing some extraordinary work in my life through this process. This blog is titled: And The Next Chapter Is…?, there’s a question mark at the end because I still don’t know. I still am unsure of what my life is going to look like come the end of 2017, but I do know one thing: whether or not I get the job, or have a plan if I don’t, the next chapter in my life is going to be great because it’s going to be written by the Master Storyteller Himself and not by me.
