Following that little speck of light. . .

So all year I've been trying to figure out what exactly I'm going to do after I graduate. Graduation is now exactly two weeks away and I still have no clue. Scratch that. I have clues of what I'm not going to do. For example, I am not going to be part of Teach for America. I applied for it, was totally set on going, had an interview with them, felt that this was definitely the way God was leading me, and then was rejected from the program.

Have you ever heard the idea that God doesn't tell us what to do next, He just gives us a little stepping stone of light (I've always thought of them as spotlights, but I guess that's rather vain now that I think about it) and we have to just keep stepping onto the next little stepping stone of light that pops up? Well, I kind of feel like all year I've been waiting for that next little stepping stone to appear so that I can step into it, but it never showed up. It's as if the stage manager forgot that cue.

I know that that's not exactly the way it works and I have been proactive about things (heck, I applied to Teach for America, have an application in with the Church of the Nazarene to join Mission Corps, and will probably apply for a Discipleship Training School with Youth With A Mission within the next few weeks), but how exactly DOES it work.

And I'm not even sure I completely buy this whole "God has a detailed plan for your life"/Jeremiah 29:11 thing anyway. I mean, what about women and children who are raped and murdered? Was that part of God's plan for them? I don't think so.

Sometimes I wonder where God seems to be leading people just before they die. I know that's pretty morbid, but I'm sure they had plans for their life and probably felt that God had plans for them too. A girl from my high school died of meningitis right before I started my freshman year there. She had just gone to Mexico on a community service trip for a few weeks and was planning how to organize a group of girls from my high school to go down again to really get involved in the Chiapas community. And within one day she was gone.

I'm not wondering if my cluelessness on this issue means I'm going to die soon. I mean, I could, but that kind of wondering is rather pointless and probably counterproductive. What I am wondering is, I guess, the age old question of what I'm going to do with my life. I'm not content to just get a job, eventually meet someone, settle down and have a family. Not that there's anything necessarily wrong with that route, it's just not for me. I want my life to have adventure and significance (though I guess my saying that implies that the previous description doesn't have those and devalues it). But most of all, I want God to be in total control. I feel this call to ministry, but I have no idea what that will look like because I don't really feel called to preaching or pastoring, and certainly not seminary. I've always felt called to missions, but again, that's such a broad area that it could be anything.

I guess I've always had an idea of where I'd be for the next few years. Even when I didn't know where I was going to college, I at least knew that I was going to college. Now there are so many possibilities stretching before me, I can only define where I'll be three months from now by where I'm not going to be. Is it asking too much to have a little bit of definite-ness for the next three months?

But this I am grateful for: I can stay in San Diego for the summer with people from my church if I have no job or place to live. That almost calls for a post on what it means to be the Church, except that that would have to be a series. A very long series. . .