How do I pack for a week in a foreign country where I won't know what work I'll be doing or what I will need?
I'm not sure.
How do I prepare for the rest of my life where I don't know what work I'll be doing or what I will need?
I'm not sure I can.
Cause I'm trying to do both.
I'm packing nice clothes for church and being tourists, work clothes I can get paint on, work clothes I don't want paint on, t-shirts and sweaters, shorts and pants, flip-flops and sneakers. I hope it's enough.
I got a bachelor's degree so I can have a well paying job and an internship to gain experience for a well paying job. Since the age of fifteen I've been babysitting to practice taking care of children, cooking to learn how to feed my family, blogging to practice writing and building an audience, writing short stories to prepare for a novel. I know it wasn't enough since I now wrap chocolate for a living.
The leaders of the Colombia trip have all been saying one thing: be flexible.
Flexibility, both in my body and in life have never been my strong points. But I can be flexible for one week. I can be flexible serving my Colombian brothers and sisters. Just call me Elastigirl, because I will do whatever is needed and be wherever they want me.
But what about in life? Can I be flexible and just go with whatever God plans for me?
Confession: Saturday mornings when my mom asks me to go to the store with her, I freak out. I don't mind going to the store with her. I want to go to the store with her. But I had planned to shower, clean the bathroom, do other cleaning stuff, and then write. Or do something else that needed to be done. But going to the grocery store was not part of the plan. It messes up the plan.
That is how inflexible I am. Going to the grocery store can ruin my day.
Confession: Today I turn 23, and by now I had planned to be married and to have written and published a novel.
Confession: I am not Elastigirl, as much as I want to be perceived as a girl with a free spirit. The free spirit part of me is internal, not external and certainly not ready to go to the grocery store or be single for only God knows how many years.
I mentioned in a previous post that in 2017 I want God's agenda to be my agenda. I need to be flexible. I need to let Him take me to places I did not plan.
Colombia itself has already been a lesson in flexibility. There were rumors in my church of a trip to India, and that is where I wanted to go. But it's not India. It's Colombia. And I'm already falling in love with this place I've never seen.
So can I fall in love with all the other unexpected things in my life? A job wrapping chocolate? 23 years of singleness? A future that seems very foggy and dark to me? Being unclear about what state to live in and what job to pursue?
It won't be as easy as falling in love with Colombia, but it will be my birthday wish, my birthday prayer, today, to fully believe that the life I wanted, the 23 I imagined, is not, could not have been as good as the 23 I have now, simply because it is what God wanted for me.
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