Growing Daisies

Moving is in full swing. I took two car loads today to the house compared with the roommate’s, five loads? Clearly Im the slacker in this relationship. Im also the financial dependent one as well. She has…a career, and a sweet paycheck. I have $20 of gas in my car to last me until Friday, and that was made possible by a random donation to a friend who then gave it to me. (I mean Ill get tips tomorrow from work, but that will go to a little something called groceries.) God is awesome in His, but He sure does stress me out sometimes.
So, I forgot how totally stoked I am about our cute house. We have a good size yard with trees perfect for sitting underneath on cool fall evenings and for hanging a hammock in. We have a beautiful view of the mountains, and I cant wait to look out one of the two windows in my bedroom to see fall’s colorful desplay of change. Our living room and kitchen are just one big, open room and it feels so great. We have close neighbors that include goats, and cats roaming around. Rent is so affordable for a house and I have the best roommate. I really don’t know how I got so lucky.
Work is going well except for the occasional lack of hours. But tonight was one of those shifts where I left feeling engergized. A borrowed partner was my closing shift, and she totally knew Jesus. Her, her husband, myself, and a customer got into a frenzy of a conversation towards the end of the shift. The customer happened to be a professor at a colleg in VA and he was Christian as well. He talked about presenting at Oxford, and hearing Tony Campolo speak there as well. Lots of great energy, conversation and seeing how God beautiful orchestrates the many details of our lives. I got so excited just hearing all the connections and stories of school, places and areas of study. People and their stories energize me anyways, but this particular set of stories and people was especially refreshing tonight.
At one point of the conversation the Professor Customer said, in response to my apparent admiration of his Oxford experience, “You could present at Oxford!” Im thinking…Me? Yeah right. Let me just tell you all about my insecurities as a student and how I barely have a 2.89 GPA. Blah blah blah.
What excited me though was this: God’s plans for me and my life are bigger and better than I can ever dream up. I never wanted to go back to college, and here I am eleven weeks away from getting my B.A. (Sometime I will blog about how much college has radically changed me, and proved me wrong in so many ways about what I thougth it really couldnt do.) I have all sorts of dreams for my life after graduation. Dreams that fill me with so much excitement. I think that energy is what is going to get me through this last semester. But the reality is that the best dreams and plans I can have for myself pale in comparison to God’s plans for me. A lot of times it’s hard to obediently submit my dreams to Him and genuienly, loving say “Whatever, Lord. Whatever Your will.” But I look back at just the last four years only to see how great His plan has been so far for me, so why wouldnt my future be great. A future of uncertainty circumstantially, but a future full of opportunities to know God even better and to look more like Christ. Because while I can be a bratty, fussy child of God in the end I know all that is is for my good. Maybe I will go on to get my Master’s and even PhD (What?) and present at some prestigious school ike OXford. Maybe I will be a missionary in Romania or Spain. Maybe I will be a worship leader at some church. Maybe I will get married and have a bunch of kids. Maybe I will do all of it. Maybe I will do none of it and I will do something I havent even thought of. Which is totally possible. Because I never even thought about asking the girl I am living with now if she needed a roommate a couple months ago. That was some one else’s idea. And I never thought I about moving into a cute little house with her. That was her idea. And I never thought about going back to college, or moving to TN, etcetera, etcetera.