So on September 8-9 we (my squad and I) will be shipping out to Swaziland. And on the 7th of September I will be turning twenty years old and officially looking for grey hair. Now I know that most people see twenty as very young and just the beginning of my life, which I agree with too. But what most people can’t see is that twenty years of my life just flew by! Don’t get me wrong it wasn’t all sunshine and good times, in my own ways I experienced struggle and many personal growth moments. But yet somehow twenty years of my life is just gone, well nineteen at the moment, but still! Before I know it another twenty will have flown by and then I will be forty!
I keep asking myself what do I have to show for my life, that if I were to die tomorrow what kind of impact would I leave on this Earth. And the reality is, that I don’t think I’ll be curing cancer or making any life altering discoveries in my lifetime. (But fingers crossed.) So essentially if I were to die tomorrow, a hundred years from now no one would know or care because what I didn’t do anything worth remembering. Now I’m not purposing that my life is meaningless unless I find life on Mars or cure some radical disease. But more of a “God hand crafted this ever-expanding universe, each blade of grass, and somehow He thought I would be a good addition to all of that. So how can I better invest, HIS investment into this life He has created for me.”
I’m not going to lie to you folks this question keeps me up at night, wondering how I can better serve Jesus, my community, my family, my university, some guy sitting on the corner, or how could I make a difference in someone’s life and honor Jesus while doing it. I understand there isn’t one answer that can solve this perplexing situation I’ve put myself into, and I know I can best serve the Lord by listening to Him. Listening for what He asks of me to do and to lean into Him when I’m feeling lost.
Earlier in the spring I had been asking God for peace. As finals season makes me want to pull a 2007 Britney Spears, I had yet to start fundraising, and was desperately trying to find a sublease all on top of it. My life seemed to be a never-ending cycle of stress, which most of the time made me feel like I was set up to fail. But looking back on it, it felt a lot like in the book of Matthew; when Jesus called Peter onto the water:
(my crude paraphrasing of Matthew 14: 22-23)
You know it’s just raining and raining , and I imagine it was thundering very loudly. And any educated man would have turned back to sail to shore for safety. But Jesus told the disciples to sail this way, so they were going to do as they were told. And then Jesus appears to them at dawn and calls out to Peter to walk on the water, and to come to Him. At first Peter walked with solidarity but once the wind picked up – he began to sink and Peter was afraid. He cried out to the Lord to save him and the Lord replied, “You of little faith, why do you doubt me?” And I was like Peter in this scenario. I called out to the Lord, He told me it was all good to walk onto the water, I got afraid and began to sink once I took a step onto the water, and He reached out for me and asked why I doubt him.
The Lord heard my pleas, He was sitting by my side as I wept, and He was there when I was filled with joy. He is also here with me now, calling out to me to take a step of faith, to go out into the world for nine months and serve Him and His people. Y’all want to know why I’m not afraid to do it?
BECAUSE HE IS GOOD!!! HIS LOVE IS UNWAVERING, UNCHANGING AND I AM NEVER WITHOUT GOD!!!
Through this last season in my life, He has wrecked my world and turned it upside down twice. But I’ve also began to learn the power of prayer, and most importantly for me I’ve recognized where my identity lies. He’s also made it very clear that I have no idea what I want to do with the rest of my life. But He continually reminds me, “You of little faith, why do you doubt me?” It is all in His perfect plan and no matter where He calls me, I won’t sink into the water He calls me into.
And with this, I am able to start a new season of my life. And to kick it off I leave for the world race in three months and eighteen days, but before than my first internship starts this Wednesday!
Thank you Lord for peace.
