I just turned eighteen this month.
And while a little piece of my would like to vomit, the rest of me is incredibly excited. I bought a one-way plane ticket the other day for California.
I am really going!
Praise God. The last last place I thought I would be going was APU. Quite honestly, I applied to it thinking "Eh, it's a good school, but let's be real." It was a free application, and hey, LA is pretty exciting. But when I started to get serious about my college decisions, I had written off APU (along with Biola, Gordon, and Wheaton (ahem, if they had accepted me)) as being too expensive. Things were starting to be okay on the home front, and I couldn't imagine leaving my baby sister until she started Kindergarten.
Then Azusa called me.
With the prospect of money to make it all happen.
Lots of money.
Then I asked God to do whatever He needed to in order to prepare me for wherever He wanted me to go.
Suddenly, the next day, my world was flipped upside down.
Suddenly, I didn't want to stay around this town anymore.
Then they flew me out there.
And I fell in love.
It wasn't that "step off the plane and love at first site" kind of feeling. No, it was more of a "Dani, please don't get too attached. Please don't get too excited. None of this is guaranteed. Please, be careful." I spent four days out there, and I just couldn't contain myself. A large part of me could have stayed there with the clothes I had with me and have been a happy girl. Either way, I came home sleepy, excited, and slightly annoyed by the screaming toddlers around me and my lost luggage.
Flying across the country was one of the most beautiful and breath-taking things I have ever seen. I'm not sure how people can fly in a plane and deny a creator of the universe. In a matter of hours I got to see the east coast oceans, the endless Great Plains with their quilted farmlands, the dry red clay of the Arizona desert, and the snowy caps of both the Appalachian and Rocky Mountains. So many lives were happening below me. So many lives were happening around me. On one flight, a couple of girls in front of me were flying home to Ohio after spending Spring Break in Daytona Beach. On another flight, a thirty-something year old man was visiting his long-distance girlfriend (and checking his Playboy emails on his iPhone). A young couple with infants was traveling to show off their new blessings to friends. A soldier that I rode on two planes with was coming home from Afghanistan for two days to attend a funeral of a dear friend. There was so much going on besides my interview, my excitement, my lack of cellular communication (which was actually very relaxing).
I left Florida begging God to not let me get excited again, and then snatch it away from me. I know, that is pessimistic and not very trusting; but it's where I sat. Yet at the same time, I wasn't full of anxiety. Rather, I thought "He already knows who is getting the scholarship. He won't send me out here without a purpose." I wanted the scholarship - I still do. I knew He would reveal Himself to me, but I had expectations that I didn't want to be let down.
I didn't get the full ride scholarship. I won't be one of those "making money going to college" kids. I don't have a free ride. I won't be cashing in on the thousands of dollars the state is willing to give me. I won't be coming home every weekend. It's not about the money, and really, it's not about the comfort. That's a hard pill to swallow when I realize that my current calculations put me at graduating with $36,000 in debt or that it will take a whole day and several hundred dollars to come visit the people I love.
It's where God wants me. That's what I begged for, full of anxiety, for months. Quite honestly, I was a bit irritated with God. It seemed like everybody else around me knew exactly where they were going. I, on the other hand, had no clue. He waited until only a couple of months before the decision deadlines to tell me His plans - that's something I have to be okay and comfortable with. It's frightening to say "Well, I have no idea where I am living next year, how I am paying for it, or what I am doing with myself." Yet it is incredibly fulfilling to say "God told me to pack my bags, move to the other coast, and trust that He will provide the will, the way, and the finances."
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