The new kid, Matt, walks into the cafeteria for the first time,freshman year, he does not look like anybody else here. All the other students watch without empathy for his dilemma. Their eyes fixed on the decision that Matt will make. Matt knows this next decision will brand him. His heart races, he gets that old familiar uneasy feeling he always gets when he doesn't know what to do. He tries to fake something that looks like confidence, but he is certain they see through him. Everybody has their familiar tables. Not one set of eyes says, "sit here." The world ceases to spin, and the moment is an eternity from which nothing escapes. An empty table. Thats where he finds the most comfort. Its what he can find, and its what he can handle.
When I walked across that stage and they said, "Congratulations Class of 2008" and we all yelled something or another, nobody stood up there and said, "these next few years are going to suck." That is not a speech that the Valedictorian likes to make. Nope, they say things like, "Before me today, I see doctors, and lawyers, and presidents, and people who will shape the very fabric of our society. I see people with great potential"…and stuff like that. So you can imagine when you are waiting tables two years out of college, you feel more like the exception to success, then the rule. You feel like there is something wrong with you. There has to be. Right?
The world is a cafeteria. When you graduate college you go from being the "most elite" to the bottom again. Welcome to the cafeteria of the real world. Maybe you disagree that there is such a thing as the real world, maybe there's just a lot we have to rise above? Who knows.
But for that insecure, nervous freshman, what seemed like a landmark decision in that cafeteria was actually just a lunch. And for that college grad working totally outside the field that they want to, it probably feels like the trajectory of their entire life is off. But in reality its just a very small season.
The people you sit with on the first day, are not usually the people you are hanging out with 2 years later. The job you have in your early to mid 20's is not the lasting career you've always wanted. So take heart all you who are frustrated. Survive the first few weeks in the cafeteria, or the first few years in the cafeteria of life. Its getting better all the time!
I was in a Chinese restaurant and got a fortune cookie. I prayed, "Jesus let this apply to my life, like for real."
"The Call that has sounded will not be the lasting Call."
1 year later i was on the WR….Don't lose heart, our Father knows our Dreams!
