I will not be an RA next year.
I am devastated.
I have been praying, wishing, and hoping over this past year for the Lord to bless me in this specific way, at this specific time.
And what do you do when it feels like the blessings have run dry?
Despite all that you have and all that you are, what do you say to the God who lived and died for you, but isn't enough to settle your woes?
And while I am surrounded by beautiful people who mean the best, somehow insults to my school's judgment calls, "You'll get 'em next year" and "Got has bigger plans for you" doesn't fit the bill. This is what I have always wanted. I stand there silent and stoic, but oh, am I wailing; beating my chest like a three year old who feels entirely out of control.
I am racked with anxiety, fear, and defeat.
Where will I work?
Where will I live?
Who will I live with?
How will I pay for all of this nonsense?
How will I arrange all of this while I am backpacking through Europe?
What about all of my hopes and dreams and plans?
What about my resume?
What about my pride?
What have I done wrong?
I make some immediate attempts to rectify the situation to no avail. It's still dark in England.
I've still cried about it more than I've praised about it.
Living abroad magnifies the problem. Makes it harder to solve, harder to mourn and to recover with my usual vices. Being displaced makes it easier to turn to Yahweh when my comforts are 7000 miles and 8 time zones apart; but I don't realize this, not at first, and maybe not still. I begin to question my ability to live abroad at all. I begin to question my entire life call as perhaps not a call at all, but the off-key sound of an un-tuned trumpet.
And suddenly an opportunity that was about to define my entire year is shattered.
And maybe that's the problem.
Maybe I'm like the little three year old more than I'd care to admit.
A child who made the little into the huge.
A child who simply hasn't gotten her way.
Who thinks she has better plans than The Way.
A disgruntled daughter who thinks that if she shakes her first at the Almighty, things will go well.
A daughter who forgot who is her Father.
We sat around the dinner table tonight. Four of us, all from the same school, but never having met until England. We shared stories about the rather-forget times in middle school and laughed at how ridiculous we were, how things that were so silly mattered so much. In all his wisdom, 21 year-old Peter exclaimed, "If I could go back, I'd slap middle school Peter in the face and tell him to buck up and stop throwing a fit. These things I got so upset and worried about don't matter. Bigger things are coming."
Maybe not all is lost.
Do I really want an opportunity, no matter how grand, that isn't what God wanted for me?
The God who knows the residents I would have gotten, the stress I would have been under, the other opportunities I would have.
That doesn't mean I won't meet difficult people, have times of difficulty and despair, or come across something I will enjoy even more - but it does mean that there is a God who understands infinitely more than I could fathom.
I am not so sure that God has a specific road map for my life. Maybe He does. Maybe He doesn't. Maybe it's not my job to figure His job out.
Maybe my theology prof was right when he said, "We would pray for whatever God gives us if we knew everything He knows."
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