Making Sense of Purpose

We often have goals for where we want to be in the next five years (lately, I've heard a lot about the "5-yr plan" wondering, "where's mine?"), but we can never really know where we will be in the next five years. I know that you know this, so stick with me here.

Lately, I have struggled to understand exactly what I am supposed to be doing with my life. I don't mean in five years, I mean right now. Anyone with me on this? I feel like an alien in the world I'm currently living, just waiting to feel acclimated to this life. I have so many questions like, am I where I am supposed to be in life right now? What's next? Where will I be in the next five years (or two, even)?

I know I'm not the only one who feels this way, but here on campus it seems everyone is just on their one-track paths booking it toward the finish line, and here I am wandering aimlessly without a distinctive path. It's just dried-up desert land. If I scream, will I be heard?

I take comfort, I have to take comfort, in knowing that even my thoughts are heard, and that when I cry out, it doesn't fall on deaf ears, or even merely soil. I am heard, and even though I don't know where I'm going right now, there is a  plan set just for me, and I can't make the wrong decision.

I have this theory that even when we make the "wrong" decision, it's the right one. Sometimes taking the wrong path at first helps us see what we are really supposed to be doing in the long-run. When we experience failure, we learn what doesn't work, and in turn, what does. When we live in uncertainty, we learn to depend on God, and more deeply understand that we as humans know nothing and have no control over the long-term plans.

All we can do is continue to put one foot in front of the other, even if we are teetering like toddlers. If we fall, we'll get back up. If we go the wrong way, we'll find arms reaching out, waving us in another direction.

Here's a parallel for life from that example: Toddlers have very little, often no sense of danger. Parents are often seen running behind them, bent over with their arms out to guard them. When the little one comes to the top of a stairway, they have no clue that one misstep could send them toppling down the stairs, so they don't understand when their parents turn them in another direction. Like learning toddlers, we have no idea what danger the next step could bring. When we are turned in a different direction it's frustrating. But we have to recognize that we don't know what dangers the next step could have brought, and have faith that we're better off going whichever way we have been pointed, until the next re-direction.

This is how we can know our purpose. To continue taking everything in stride, working faithfully toward what we believe we are supposed to work for. If we are wrong, it will be made known in time, because our Father will always turn us back in the direction He wants us.

Keep working at what you're doing, and do it faithfully. It may seem insignificant now, it may be testing your patience, but stick with it and you will see the purpose of it all. It may take years, but if you're doing it, you have purpose.

Keep going. I will, too.

2000 Page Views!

Well hello there. After weeks of learning how to juggle life (and dropping things many times), I have some (at least to me) exciting news. My blog has had 2000 page views... as of today! It's also been somewhere around a year now since I started this blog. How lucky was I to log on and see this perfect number.

In celebration, I will go out to dinner this weekend.

Actually, I was already going to do that. This weekend is in fact Mr. Wonderful's birthday. Really, I'm so excited I could poo. (Name that quote in the comments below! Feel awesome for a day.)

I am finally getting into a rhythm being back in school, and thank the good Lord above, because I really felt like I was sinking. Drowning, actually, in paperback textbooks and guided reading assignments. Oh, and the poetry, Lord help me with the poetry!

I used to love writing poems. Really, I did. Until I found out that I suck at it. Does it matter how the "conventions" are if people legitimately like it already? Seriously... my self confidence has really taken a hit in my poetry class. And to be honest, I don't even like some of the "professional writer" poems that we read in class. They're dry. They're boring. They don't mean anything more to me than the stuff I write matters to my professor.

There are some really good poets, with poems so cleverly designed I can probably only dream of ever writing like them. When I try, oh boy... let's just say when a wanna-be poet sees a "C" on her first poem for poetry class, the emotion that gushes forth isn't pretty. I mean, come on, think poet here. Emotion... yeah. You'd think a good poem would come of that, but no, just goober and snot, and angry words on a page. Nobody wants to read your anger. Frustration, maybe, injustice, for sure. Angry words written to a college professor, nope!

Not to make you think poetry class is my life or anything. Poetry doesn't even take up a corner of my life, it's like 10%. Probably less, even. It's just the one that has broken me the most, maybe. The other classes are much more time-consuming and technical, and I won't burden you with the load of information I cram into my poor brain's throat every day. (Brains don't eat, I know this, but I'm a writing major, not biology, and just take in that visual, okay? Now you're getting it.)


I'm hoping sometime soon, I'll be able to clean my apartment and invite some friends over. Seriously, I haven't cleaned at all since we moved in (not that we've been home to make a mess), and I also haven't spent time with any of my dear ladies in over a month!

Oh, except for my dear German who was visiting last month! I'm so glad I could have her stay with me the last week. It was so much fun comparing how the school systems here and in Germany are so different. I so wish I would have had less work to do while she was staying with me.

Something must change about that. Soon. Very soon, things will be different. My apartment will be clean and the laughter of beautiful women and the smell of cheesy garlic bread and spaghetti will fill it.

So, as I have a battle of wills with God and my husband, who both tell me to do things contrary to what I would like to be doing (i.e. not suffering through schoolwork), I wish you all the best in your many endeavors. May you feel perfectly and pleasantly whelmed, nothing more, nothing less.

Here's to the next year of blogging.