Confessions From a Twenty Year Old

I've discovered over the years that my gut instinct is generally to not look too far ahead in life. The future just kind of sits there, half forgotten, something to head towards but not examine too closely.

Somehow, though, I've always had a next step, always known where I was going.

Recently, the fact that I will be leaving Kenya in just a few short months has finally begun to sink in, and I've realized that I'm not sure what my next step is.

God has been clear that I am supposed to stay Stateside for awhile, but I have been wrestling with Him quite stubbornly -- and ridiculously. Who am I to tell an all knowing God that He doesn't know what He is talking about? -- when it comes down to the details.

Obviously, I am still learning the lesson that Mary seemed to have understood.

“Just imagine what Mary was actually saying in the words, ‘I am the handmaid of the Lord … let what you have said be done to me’ (Luke 1:38). She was saying, ‘I don’t know what this all means, but I trust that good things will happen.’ She trusted so deeply that her waiting was open to all possibilities. And she did not want to control them. She believed that when she listened carefully she could trust what was going to happen.

“To wait open-endedly is an enormously radical attitude toward life. So is to trust that something will happen to us that is far beyond our own imaginings. So, too, is giving up control over our future and letting God define our life, trusting that God molds us according
to God’s love and not according to our fear. The spiritual life is a life in which we wait, actively present to the moment, trusting that new things will happen to us, new things that are far beyond our own imagination, fantasy, or prediction. That, indeed, is a very radical stance toward life in a world preoccupied with control.”
—Henri Nouwen