You might hate me after reading this, just a fair warning.
I feel like I've kind of been hiding parts of myself from some of you for a while now. Or rather, I feel that I have perhaps been miscommunicating my true intentions. What I'm doing with my life right now is probably not quite what you thought I was doing, and I wanted to let you know.
It's not that I've purposely been lying to anyone about my current state of being. It's more like...I've been avoiding giving everyone the full details.
It seems I've been unnervingly terrified of your judgement
and perhaps of your mother's judgement
and her friend so-and-so's.
And I didn't want you to think I was wasting my life.
And I feared you might tell your children not to grow up like me.
And I wasn't completely sure of myself anyway
So I didn't want proclaim something that I wasn't sure I had my heart in 100%
Because what if I reneged?
Then what would you tell your children?
But since I've been doing this for a year now, I figured it was quite time you understood my intentions.
“We're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it, that's all.”
― John Hughes, The Breakfast Club
I'm not going to college to get a degree.
And I don't believe that is what God has me there for, either.
If my sole motivation for being in college was to receive a piece of paper that may help me land a job that pays two dollars an hour higher than the job I had when I was sixteen, I wouldn't have made it through semester number one.
I needed another reason to be there.
You see, I'm not really sure what I was thinking, signing up for four more years of school in the first place. I suppose I didn't really know what else to do. It seemed like a better option than pulling cans of green beans to the font of a shelf at the local grocery store for the rest of my life. Maybe I was just looking for somewhere to go and something to do until I found this husband character who was going to sweep me off my feet and insist I drop out of college, volunteer at a Christian coffee shop, raise our three beautiful children from home, and make yearly trips to third-world countries to love on impoverished orphans.
I've never really been much of a career-minded individual. I've thought about jobs I might like to have in the future -- even tried three times to select my major accordingly. It turns out, I just don't really want to be a career woman. I know that's not what I'm supposed to say. I'm supposed to stand up and claim my power as an independent woman who can climb to the top without any man supporting her along the way! But, as it turns out, I kind of just want to be a wife and a mom and a home-maker. I want to fold laundry and cook dinner and braid little girls' hair.
Or maybe I want to move to Africa and adopt twelve children and live in a shack on a dirt road, eating stale bread and green oranges for dinner.
Either way, my desires in this life do not require a college degree or a well-paying job or a big house with apple trees and a swingset in the backyard.
This "American Dream" that I've been hearing about kind of sounds like a load of crap to me.
And, there is simply nothing in me that cares if I walk away from a university in three years with a Bachelor's of Such and Such to my name.
Yet here I am, packing up my mini-fridge and emergency first aid kit to move into my 10 by 7 foot dorm for the second year in a row. Here I am, registering for classes like "Introduction to New Media" and "Exploring Eastern Religions."
I spend my evenings at coffee shops writing papers about the emergence of King Arthur in nineteenth century literature. I eat three meals a day in a cafeteria that caused me to gain fifteen pounds my first year. I buy four months worth of deodorant at a time so I don't have to leave campus to get more. I am a college student every day of my life.
For what?
I spent a while trying to figure it out in the begining -- why God would have me here at this mediocre, far-from-conservative, gettin-wasted-every-night, non-Christian school that teaches me about how homosexuality is possibly even more of a natural way of connecting than heterosexuality, and it seems that we were perhaps even made to be with someone of the same sex.
But if you read that sentence again...
and try to figure out why God would have me at WIU...
it all seems very clear.
Where did I think God wanted me?
In some sort of cookie-cutter Christian bubble, floating around with a warm-hearted smile while we all supported each other in our missions trips to various unpronouncable nations and secretly were completely envious of our roomate's boyfriends and our non-Christian friend's ability to stay out past ten on weeknights...11 on weekends?
"I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me." -- Acts 26:17-18
He sends us into the darkest places to proclaim His light.
"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." --John 1:5
So I went to college at a mediocre, secular, party school. And, I didn't want to. But God made it clear to me in many ways that He had a place for me there.
And I prayed that He would send me anywhere else instead.
And in response, He provided me with a four-year scholarship to my mediocre, party school.
And I laughed.
And I sighed.
And I went.
And, It's all kind of been a whirlwind since then.
For a while, classes were my priority,
but I got over that pretty fast.
Soon, God began moving in ways that I couldn't even comprehend.
And people started giving their lives to Jesus,
and sixteen baptisms, and the most incredible Christian community I've ever experienced, and walking up to strangers in a cafeteria to tell them about Jesus, and spending my weekends in prayer and worship and my week nights at Bible study. And it was incredibly bazaar. I've never heard of anything like it...going to college for Jesus, not for an education.
But, that kind of seems to be what I'm doing.
Don't worry, I'm still regularly attending my classes and working hard to do well in them. I'm still learning as much as I can and staying on track to graduate in four years. I'm still trying to work at what I do as if working for the Lord and not for man.
But really, what I'm doing is being a missionary in one of the darkest places I've ever been.
It's been one of the most fulfilling experiences of my life,
and it's only just begun.
I must be honest, though. While I am enthused about what God is doing on my campus and what He has given me the opportunity to participate in, I don't have any incredible attachment to this place.
I certainly don't have an attachment to graduating with a degree.
And, I'd be pretty okay if God called me someplace else when my time at WIU was up.
I'd be fine with leaving early to go to Africa or get married or go wherever the heck He told me to go.
I know this is weird.
It's isn't normal.
It's certainly quite controversial.
But I'm pretty much ready to say,
Screw normalcy.
I just want to love my life and figure out who I am and follow God wherever He leads me.
And, maybe I'm totally off in all of these theories I've got about life and love and God.
If I am, I suppose I will learn that lesson in the days to come.
And, maybe you don't approve of what I'm doing with my life,
thinking I'm "wasting my scholarship and valuable taxpayer dollars" on this little phase I'm going through.
Maybe I have this all wrong.
But at least I've got something.
So, there you have it.
There is my life as of late.
When you think of me at college during your afternoon ponderings, don't think of me as a full-time student, think of me as a full-time missionary, paying my way to be there by attending classes.
And, I suppose I will just continue on in this dark world, attempting to shine with every ounce of light I have in me.
And the darkness against me won't prevail.
“Look at the nations and watch—
and be utterly amazed.
For I am going to do something in your days
that you would not believe,
even if you were told." --Hab 1:5
My prayer is that I would willingly serve God with reckless abandonment throughout the entire duration of this trip. It is my desire that His will be done through my life and the lives of those I will come in contact with in Ethiopia. Would you please consider joining me in prayer for my adventure that is to come? Pray for my heart to be prepared for all that God has for me in Ethiopia. Also, keep Blessing the Children and all of those whom they are ministering to in your prayers. Pray that I may be used as an instrument to share God's love in a foreign land.
I thank you immensely for your support and encouragement as I embark upon this journey. With great joy and anticipation, I look forward to sharing this experience with you. May we all come together to see the will of the Lord be done.