The Beginning of the End

I'm making myself laugh because there is something ironic about giving my first blog post a title like, "The Beginning of the End." No, I'm not having a mid-life crisis, and I'm not a goofy doomsday prophet. But when I was trying to capture my feelings about starting my last semester of college, it just seemed to fit. This was the first week of the last semester, and I'll never have a first week like that again. I'll have other firsts, but not a first day of school first, and it's nostalgic and bittersweet to think about it.

I have only three classes: Political Communication, American Lit Post-WWII, and Spanish 202.  Even though one of them is writing-intensive, so far, none of them threaten to eat my life. In fact, I was telling Jordan just yesterday that it feels...a little too easy?  Wow, I'm almost afraid to write that, as if I'm tempting them to become the hardest classes of my life! But really, I feel something like a baby bird who is almost too big for its shell. I'm 24 and married, but the students sitting around me in class have barely left their teen years. College has grown me and challenged me, but the assignments that would have felt like a two-ton weight when I was 21 no longer seem weighty at all. Maybe God wants to stretch me in other areas than academics this semester.  :) 

He's been doing that a lot lately, and to tell the truth, school is easier than this type of inner confrontation!  I entered the Christmas break with a big wad of anxiety in my gut about my future. To grad school or not to grad school? To do ministry or not? To strike out and get a job in my field or not? With graduation looming and profs nudging me toward a master's degree, it felt like an internal mandate to get my life figured out.

A month later, however, my heart is content to rest in Jesus and just wait for him to lead. And this is NOT my own doing; it's Jesus, showing me my crud-ugly pride in my own accomplishments and ability to do things on my own, showing me his power to direct and guide me, and gently but firmly bringing me to my knees.
 Here is the bald truth that I now recognize: I can't make myself a "success".  If I try, I will constantly be looking sideways, measuring myself by the women of God around me. I'll be my own harshest critic--and believe me, I'm brutal when it comes to me.

But our God is so gentle with me. He is so gentle with us.  He loves us too much to leave us to ourselves, and He knows that the things I cling to--pride, people's approval, achievements--are really poisonous to the beautiful things He wants to do in me.

Please be praying for my heart to be soft.