Movement

Christine asked me on Friday why I'm not blogging anymore. Was I over that phase? Had I forgotten how to do it? Was I seriously that busy? I had to think about how to answer that question, and I don't think it's any of those things -- it's just that I feel kind of serious most of the time right now. It's odd, because my schedule is pretty packed (the only people I actually hang out with are the individuals who come over to my apartment, so...Jess.) and I guess I've just been looking more inward and upward and forward than scrutinizing my daily life to find funny things to write about. And maybe the things that God is showing me felt too personal or maybe I was scared or just unwilling to share them or maybe I haven't even put the pieces together in a coherent enough order to make them matter, but I guess that whatever the reason, this needs to be said: God is moving. And it is good.

Over the past few months, He has been slowly and gently pulling me around to see myself more like He sees me. I've been learning how to redefine my dreams and goals by His standards and trying to let go of my preoccupation with comfort and material things and status. It is a hard lesson, a humbling season, and it all feels too raw and fresh and new to be able to say much right now, other than it is happening as we speak.

It's a hard process, but it's a beautiful process too. For all the weirdness and betweenness and worry, it has been so, so good. I don't know where I'll be in the fall, but that's okay. I don't now how I'm going to finish my classes this semester, but I know that I can. Jesus has been changing my heart and closing this season of college in the kind of perfect and final way that only He can accomplish. If you would have brought up the topic of graduation with me at the start of the school year or even the start of the semester, I honestly would have refused to talk about it. It seemed too heart-breaking and scary and permanent -- these have been the best four years of my life and you want to talk about the ending?? No thank you.

Recently, though, it is not only a less scary fate, but it is welcome and exciting. I'm so ready for the promise of change right now. It is bittersweet, to be sure; the shifts in community and lifestyle and work dynamics are already difficult, and I know that it is only going to get harder. But the promise of the rest of my life is too exciting for me to cling to the past. I'm ready to go where Jesus leads me, whether that means Europe or Africa or Kalamazoo. I'm ready to jump into friendships and relationships that might have scared me in the past. I'm ready to move forward.

In a lot of ways, this entire blog has been about my thwarted attempts to go on cool adventures and how I've occupied my time while waiting to embark on some sort of epic journey that I always hoped was on its way. I finally realized that I will be forced to take some concrete steps toward that journey in the very near future, and it is time to test my integrity. Do I really want an adventure, or do I just want to talk about it from the safety of my known existence? Am I really spontaneous and willing to follow wherever Jesus calls me, or do I just say those things because they sound cool and that is how I want to be?

I think that in order to change and grow and really actually become that woman, I need to get ready to do something. Part of getting ready means to accept the end of good chapters of life so that I can truly embrace the beginnings of even better ones. So that is what I am choosing to do. It's a weird, incomplete picture, but I know that my next step needs to be acceptance. And I think I'm ready.