Letting Go

A good friend of mine emailed this quote to me, and told me it made her think of me. It is quite fitting, especially if you knew me before college. I had a lot of plans. Of course those plans changed with time, as plans and dreams tend to do. In kindergarten, I simultaneously wanted to attend Harvard and be a waitress. At that time, I did not understand the notion that people had to actually pay for the food they ordered. I just thought it would be great to be able to give hungry people food. I had my phase of wanting to be a teacher, and then an author. By about junior high, I was pretty convinced that I wanted to be a nurse. Of course, I did not just want to be any nurse. I wanted to be a pediatric oncology nurse that worked at St. Jude's Children's Hospital in Memphis, TN. Even writing that just now makes me laugh, because I was so set on that plan. I was convinced that it was exactly what I was suppose to do, and I wanted to do everything within my means to make it happen. There was the first red flag: trying to do it on my own terms with my own means.

When people ask me now what I am going to do after I graduate in June, for once in my life, I tell them "I don't know." It's not that I haven't thought about it or that there aren't things that I desire to do. It's just that I have finally come to the place where I am surrendering my plans to God. The only place I really want to be is the place where God leads me to. And at this point, God keeps telling me to be patient and focus on the current task at hand. Growing up, there was so much emphasis on what you are going to do later on...the goal setting, the career counselors, the college visits & planning & applications. I am guilty of continuing this tradition as I sometimes find myself asking the little ones I nanny for what they might want to be when they grow up. But how often do we reinforce to children, to our friends, even to ourselves, that it is important to live into exactly where we are right now. Yes, I want to go to Kenya and there is not a day that goes by that I do not think about it. I recently found out there have been some evictions in the slum that have negatively affected one of the schools I visited this past summer. When I look at the canvas pictures on my wall, my heart breaks to think that those tender faces are now being faced without a school and possibly without a home. When I received the birthday card in the mail from the clinic, I cannot adequately describe the overwhelming joy and hope that I experienced. But as of now, I am called to be here, in Seattle, finishing school. And that isn't always easy for me to accept. I sometimes joke about making a weekend trip to Kenya (which literally would not be possible), but my heart just longs so much to see the people and the country that I love so much.

As Matthew 6:34 says, "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." If I hadn't been here finishing school, I would not have had the privilege of raising money for the clinic...which thanks be to God currently totals around $1,400. For everyone who has given so sacrificially, I am so thankful and pray that God continues to bless you.

So today...I will camp at Starbucks, catch up on homework, and embrace the opportunity to learn.