BEEN TALKIN' ABOUT THE WAY THINGS CHANGE

This morning, when the clock struck midnight, I held two of my dearest friends hands in the most cliché (yet totally necessary way) in a restaurant that we ran into right before it hit the New Year. We didn't want to be driving aimlessly on the freeway when one of the biggest years of our lives began, duh.

So here we were, making friends with our fun waitress, counting down the seconds until 2014.

If our lives were a movie, Rivers and Roads by the Head and the Heart would start playing silently in the background and our seventeen years of formal education would flash before our eyes. But our lives are clearly not some cheesy chick-flick with hunky male counterparts. So here we were ringing in the New Year in an average restaurant with far more than average friends, accepting that New Years is always a weird anticlimactic-sort-of new day.

We also accepted the strange reality that in a year from now, we could, quite literally, be anywhere in the world. Doing anything in the world, alongside anyone. We could spend New Years Eve with friends we know now, with each other, or with people we have yet to even introduce ourselves to. We could be in California, we could be in another country or another continent. We could have our dream job and be in love with our new post-grad adultish life, or we could be struggling, realizing that post-grad life is hard and strange and new all at once.

Our lives are so up in the air, it's weird.

As I sat with my girls ringing in the New Year, we talked about something I never really fully processed yet: we have always known the next step. And this year, that next "obvious" step, well, it vanishes. And it'll never really come back.

There are no obvious steps anymore. Traveling or Grad school or a job, no obvious step. A firm job, a non-profit job, a retail job, no obvious step. Move away, stay local, nothing set in stone, nothing clear.

These are our lives now. With the knowledge that we have to go make a living for ourselves, we can do whatever we choose. Other than the fact that money is stressful (ha), it's liberating to have that weird next step disappear once and for all.

I used to find comfort in being able to say what my plan for the next semester was, or the next school year. It was always revolved around school, a safe ground to fall upon, a step that had to be taken to finish my education. I knew what commitments I had in store for me, I knew who my roommates would be, where I might travel, what ways I felt on my heart to serve. There was little room for anything to really shock me when it came to where my life was headed personally and academically, I had it all mapped out.

In that moment, 12:10AM or whatever time it was, it really hit me: the map ends here.
Like this weird make-believe map we've relied on for so long... it no longer exists.

As much as we hope that wherever we end up after graduation turns into a home so that we no longer long for the bedroom we grew up in and the hometown we've always known, we can't really make any guarentees.

That seems to be the state of my life right now: no guarantees. I have nothing set in stone, other then the fact that I want to follow Jesus and end up right where He wants me to live and serve and love. I mean I have puny plans, plans that could translate into a lot of different jobs (all of which I cannot predict right now.) But for the most part, my future is as unsure as it ever could be, and as it ever has been.

While I may have no idea where I'll be... I know, I JUST KNOW, it's going to be good.

And it's going to be fun, daingett.

THIS DAY, TODAY

I guess I should start off by saying that I hate the word busy. And the past few years I have been weirdly adamant about trying to delete that word out of my vocabulary altogether.

I hate that we get into a habit of using that word to justify not having time for people. We use it as justification of not putting our all into something we committed to, we use it to cover up being sleepy and not being present, we use it as an excuse, and a miserable one at that. We sometimes say it to get people's pity. We say it when it's valid, we say it when it's not valid at all, we throw it around because we are college students and if we aren't 'busy' enough to use it as a frequent adjective in our life, then we somehow aren't committed enough.

But the current state of my life, to be quite frank, is the closest thing to 'busy' as it gets. I have time for people, but not always for myself. I have enough gusto and determination to put my all into the things I commit to, but I don't always feel like my all is good enough (for my own standards at least). I am sleepy, but I cover it up with caffeine and nap once a day minimum (real talk: today I had two naps).

I mention that my life is crazy once in a while, probably just because it's quite obvious to anyone that knows me that I have a lot on my plate this year. But at the end of the day, I lay in my bed and realize that while I may have this season of my life organized obsessively on my MacBook, the season after May 6th, 2014 is empty. Empty. As in, since the first time in... well, ever, I don't have a plan.

Yeah, so the queen of post-it notes, handwriting that looks like a typeface, multiple planners and a color-coded computer calendar, the girl that has every organizational app to exist, that girl finally doesn't have a plan mapped out to lean back on.

All I have is Jesus. And all I know is I need to be here.

I need to open my hands during worship with a new perception of what it means to have hands open to what He gives and takes away. I need His plan more than I need mine. I need to learn trust even though I don't know if I will ever achieve it fully. I need to wait on the Lord. I want the kind of heart and mindset that only comes with not having answers and trusting God to have them instead. I need to be present here more then I need to be pumped up for the next thing to come. I need this new prayer life I've found, prayers of the rawest honesty and vulnerability, I need more 2AM prayers with tears more frequent than words, I need reliance on Him. Because to be honest, the times I get this kind of reliance and dependence on Jesus are usually when life is overwhelmed by sickness or death or pain, but here's the thing... I want reliance on Him when life is good too.

I read in a book today that 'sometimes we look so hard for clarity that we completely miss out on the fact that a great deal of the wilderness and beauty of life is in the unknown.'

Today the future looks pretty unknown for the girl that's attempted to figure out a lot of answers in advanced. But the present is more tangible and full and life-giving and beautifully close to busy than I have ever known. And it's good. I am rejoicing in not having answers of what's to come because I know I have plenty of answers in where God has me right now.

And frankly, I am one happy chick to be exactly where I am at.

This season means living among the coolest residents that make me love life more and cherish laughter on the daily, this season means reading every free chance I get, drenching myself in worship music between classes, celebrating the last year of college with spontaneous adventures as much as humanly possible, this season means lots of weddings and lots of reminding myself of the joys of singleness, this season means lunch dates with people daily and weekend dinner dates with myself and Hulu, this season means catching up with the eleven juniors that have my heart and mentoring the coolest freshman I know. This season means red lipstick because I can, a nose hoop because I want to feel edgy sometimes, it means hair in a big bun most of the time because I'd rather sleep then do anything with it. This season means craft projects on weekends, singing at the top of my lungs to Ben Rector when no ones home, and hour long phone conversations with my friends in different places and very different seasons of life. This season means slurpees because I feel like it, naps because I love them, and chai tea lattes and homemade meals all the time. This season means late nights, early mornings, and afternoons smothered in design projects and running into people that a year from now, I won't ever 'run into' at all. This season means cherishing every 'last' I experience and reminiscing over all the good firsts.

This season is good, seeking to be present amidst it is beautiful, and I'm rebelling against my mindset of planning by having no plan of where to go from here at all. Call me crazy, or frankly just irresponsible, but I love it.

Even if for this day, or this week, or for this month, I don't care about what happens after May 7th. 

I choose today.

I CAN NEVER BE READY

I braced myself for the waiting period.
I braced myself for my fears overriding my end goal, my pursuit, my dream.
I braced myself for the period of time in which I prepare for 'bigger things.'
I braced myself for settling, for the mundane, for the ordinary.

Because for a little bit, all my overanalyzing pointed toward that.
I was thinking about settling for a future of comfort and cubicles because I was fearful that I needed to wait and be equipped. I needed to wait and have everyones approval. I needed to wait until it was comfortable, until I would no longer let anyone down. I needed to wait until the weddings stopped so I never had to tell a friend I couldn't be in theirs. I needed to wait until all the opportunities stopped so I never had to say no. I needed to wait until I got the go ahead.

But what if that day never came.

The past month(ish), I would read the Gospel and instead of focusing on what Jesus did with the years of his life it mentioned, I thought about the thirty years it didn't mention.

I wrote a blog post about it. I even bought a book about it. A book that was literally about the years in Jesus' life that they didn't talk about. I thought as I read this thing I was being shown how maybe I need to wait a while to be used by God in huge, massive ways. I felt unworthy to be used right away, so I thought this was a fair concept. I didn't even stop to think about how much that makes absolutely zero sense. None. None at all.

I was decieved to think that the point was not mentioned in the book. Although, funny thing is, I've never read a novel where the climax wasn't mentioned, the plot was left out, and the important event was never in there.

The point of the Gospel is what's in there. If Jesus cared about me knowing about those thirty years of His life He woulda told me about them. But He didn't.

The point of the Gospel is Jesus. What He did and How He did it. How He loved people, why He loved people, what happened when He loved people. The point is to do the same. Maybe not in the same manner, but with the same end goal.

I had the same end goal, and I pushed it away because I felt I wasn't good enough to be used. I had to be ready. I had to be good enough. Familiar story right? If only Moses, Paul, Peter, and every single person in the Bible could be here so we could sit and share our common bond.

I don't need a waiting period.
You don't either.
We don't need to sit on out butts and stare at a TV screen every night after our 9-5 job waiting for the moment we are equipped enough to be used.
We don't need to wait until we are 'ready...' (what does that even look like?)
We will never be equipped.
It doesn't take being equipped, it takes being willing.

If we stopped thinking it was about being ready and equipped and prepared and adequate then we would never get anything done at all. The point is that we are not ready, but we are willing. We are not equipped, but the Holy Spirit in us is. We are not prepared but Jesus had our destiny in the palm of His hands and being prepared would ruin all the fun of it. We are never going to be adequate, but God never uses those that see themselves as adequate anyways.

I'm sick of making the Gospel so complicated. It's really a lot more simple then I make things sometimes. Love God. Know God. And just do the thing your heart tells you to do and don't let the world hold you back. Who wants to be at the end of their life wishing they did the thing they wanted to do most all those years. Not me. I also don't want to be in Heaven for eternity wishing I did that thing either. I don't want fears to define me. I don't want misconceptions to rule my life. I want Jesus to define me, and His Word to lead my life.

I just never want to have to ask "what if."
I want to live that "what if."