As I sit here buried in study guides and to do lists of things that were supposed to be done roughly around the first week of August..sorry Mom & Dad..I can’t help but think about how underserving I am to have the opportunity to share how perfect my Heavenly Father is not only in this blog, but also all over the world.
For those of you who know me pretty well, you could probably back me up when I say that sitting around or being still just isn’t my thing. For a chick that has been told that ADHD is a real life thing, sitting still has always and will always be associated with timeout.
What you might not know is that sitting around became my Christian faith. I became still. It wasn’t like, “Be still, and know I am God”… it was more like, “Hey God, It’s me! Thanks for all you’ve done. Jesus was awesome on the cross. Btw, will you let him know he’s the GOAT for taking away the sins of the world? But I got my life from here. TTYL. Oh, thanks again!”
Another thing you might not know is that I attempted to create a blog a little over a year ago. Shocking, I know. It was one of those in the moment decisions. I planned to blog about my spiritual journey. I refused to tell anyone I had created it. I went to the extent to set all the settings to private. If there is one thing I learned, writing definitely weighs in more under my weakness category than it does my strength. Today, I stumbled across a blog I had written a year ago during finals about Finding Reason in my life. At the time, I remember struggling with having the faith that God has a plan for me greater than anything I could fathom, and it was definitely worth pursuing. However, my curiosity for God’s will in my life stopped about five minutes after I wrote that post.
I became comfortable with being identified as a Christian, but denying myself and taking up his cross daily was not my identity. I became more concerned with what I had planned for my life rather than offering myself completely to His plan. I claimed to desire to know, but didn’t pursue.
When I think about this now, I can’t help but to compare myself to a child drawing all over paper with her crayons. Being the storyteller I am, I imagined myself coloring away dreaming about what I wanted my life to be. Then, in walks God. I imagined him sitting down and just asking, “Whatcha coloring?” to which I would eagerly respond, “Oh ya know, my future life.” I imagined me pointing at all the different doodles on my paper explaining, “this is me as a nurse taking care of all these people and this one is my family. My daughter’s name is Carter. Isn’t she so cute?” He would respond, “This is all so beautiful!” just like any father tells their child about their abstract drawings. But in reality, the truth hit, “the future you are planning isn’t what I have planned for you.”
Oh…cool. So all the things I planned aren’t THE plan?! Yeah, that was a hard pill to swallow. For those that are concerned, telling my parents I needed to drop out of nursing school went a lot smoother than expected. So, what is THE plan?
I’m actually still waiting for God to get back to me about that.
But I am here to tell you, he speaks. He speaks into my life at just the right times with just enough to keep me moving forward. We’ve talked and we are working on this thing we like to call “day-by-day trust.” It wasn’t until I fully understood that sitting around in my faith was significantly worse than sitting in timeout as a kid. Being able to stand and run freely in forgiveness was like a breath of fresh air. Getting up and chasing after the Lord wholeheartedly was a much needed recess for a complacent college student.
In my pursuit of God’s will for my life, I have found my heart lies within people. I have found my heart aches for those who would give anything for finals week to be their biggest worry. Most importantly, I have found my heart longs for a life of ministry.
So, here I am making a rather terrible attempt to share what God has done in my heart, and what life before the World Race has looked like for me. The Holy Spirit has provided me with incredible joy and peace about my journey to come. Giving of myself to the mission of Christ is immeasurably more satisfying than anything I could have drawn out on paper. So, God wins. Happily, I forfeit my attempt to brighten my own future. Take all the crayons in my box.
Chandler
