gave me a revelation.

This blog has an unpublished sister, started over a year ago. I don't often look back through those entries, but I did this afternoon, struck by how marked my life has been by God. I wrote this entry, entitled "Give me a Revelation," last July, a couple of weeks before moving to southern Missouri. At the time, I was passionate about the example and spirit of Christ, as I had been for some time, but didn't believe in the necessity, or the power, of a savior. I didn't see a life dedicated to God in any real sense, and I was worried about falling back into the more negative activities of my college existence. But He knew me. I read this, and I think, clearly--He knew me.


I like to imagine what my life will be like. Both in a big sense (will I become a chic-ish city-dweller with my writer husband and throw wicked pretentious parties? or, more likely, buy a one-hundred year old house and fill it with eclectic objects and people?), and in a smaller sense (next year, will I hang out with the Christian group, or the scientists?).

Right now, as I face the reality of moving on from my home, and my past, towards the next phase of my life, I have plenty to ponder.

What will my life be like? Will I be the same bouncy, outgoing me? How do I be a 24-year-old who has lived so much amidst a sea of 25,000 undergraduates? Will I party? Will I make friends? How will I live my faith? Will I find someone I'd like to date? Some day, will I live my faith through my marriage? Will we pray together? Will I ever start quilting? How will I spend my Friday nights? In which direction do I want to go?

I feel so solidly me. My greatest wish is to find others who have similarly found themselves. The truth is that I know what I want. Those questions aren't so big. I want to work hard, to do well in my research. To have fun with a group of friends who share at least some of my values. To meet someone with whom a bond can be made that ripples out into this crazy world. To find a church that we can give to. To get my Ph.D. and always learn. To teach. To find my favorite Thai restaurant. To buy an old house, and spend Saturday afternoons with my husband, jointly flubbing its repairs. To have and adopt some kids to chase around this house, filled with books, and handmade quilts, and hardwood, and bold colors. To fill the house with knowledge, music, and people. To spend many a night around the kitchen table with those we love, talking about life, and God, and how both are good, in the end. To love so much that loss is overwhelmingly painful, and in that pain to find our love all over again. To live fully in the Lord, not as an individual because I don't believe that's possible in marriage, but as two become one, in His spirit.

I'm not sure that any of that is God's will. I pray often that it is. I feel sometimes as though He doesn't really understand how important all of that is to me. I beg him not to choose for me a solitary life, or anything that involves moving to where there are lots of spiders and snakes. Silly requests, I guess, in the big picture. Sillier still if you don't believe that God has plans for us.