Through the Trees . . .

Yesterday I was walking along Lake Bob on my way to my car, looking around at my lovely college and beautiful campus, thinking about my life here. Actually, mostly thinking about how I was accepted neither as an RA nor as a teen camp leader. Why? I couldn’t understand it. I loved this college so much – I had dedicated years to preparing for it, and when I came, I had every intention of helping the college with everything I could, getting involved everywhere possible – and maybe even settling down within the college. So why didn’t God open any doors for me to do . . . anything with the college. I wasn’t a student amabassador, an RA, a teen camp leader – I wasn’t involved in the plays, in the clubs, in the senate – really, all of my activities thus far had been directed more toward classes and after-college type activity. And those opportunities I hadn’t even been looking for. Why wasn’t God letting me get involved with a place I loved? I couldn’t understand it. And then a sudden thought pierced through my denseness. Exactly what I had been thinking really clarified in my head for the first time. I thought about settling down here. I viewed this college as an end. Not a means to an end. In my mind, God wanted me here, and I didn’t care what happened beyond that. This is where He had led me, and this is where my vision stopped. For all my talk of changing the world, I couldn’t see past the college years. People ask me what I want to do after college and I basically shrug. I didn’t really care. God would open that door when it came. And that is true – He will open the door – but that doesn’t mean I should keep my eyes shut. Maybe God wasn’t letting me get involved simply to open my eyes to the realization that He had plans for me beyond college life. That I had settled down on my own moon and no longer could see the stars beyond the moon. God promises that He has plans for us beyond our comprehension. He had to remind me that those plans stretch beyond college. And I need to move on past my present life and go on toward the true goal. Maybe now light will shine down on my path just enough so that I can finally, once again, see the forest through the trees.

And I think I’ll spend this summer in Colorado with the Gibson Girls – away from both college and home. A new place for a new perspective.