For Such a Time as This

As I graduated from high school, packed my stuff and headed to California to start my freshman year at Pepperdine I had no idea how naive and unaware I was and how much change I was about to encounter. All I knew was that I was ready for something new and California was where I wanted to go. Little did I know that I was in for the ride of my life. Looking back over the past 4 years. I know I am ready for a new change and challenge in my life as college comes to a close, even though it is a little scary. Donald Miller so beautifully says it like this:

"No, life cannot be understood flat on a page. It has to be lived; a person has to get out of his head, has to fall in love, has to memorize poems, has to jump off bridges, etc. It's a living book, this life; it folds out in a million settings, cast with a billion beautiful characters, and it is almost over for you. It doesn't matter how old you are; it is coming to a close quickly, and soon the credits will roll and all your friends will fold out of your funeral and drive back to their homes in cold and still and silence. And they will make a fire and pour some wine and think about how you once were... and feel a kind of sickness at the idea you never again will be. So soon you will be in that part of the book where you are holding the bulk of the pages in your left hand, and only a thin wisp of the story in your right. You will know by the page count, not by the narrative, that the Author is wrapping things up. You begin to mourn its ending, and want to pace yourself slowly toward its closure, knowing the last lines will speak of something beautiful, of the end of something long and earned, and you hope the thing closes out like last breaths, like whispers and how much and who the characters have come to love, and how authentic the sentiments feel when they have earned a hundred pages of qualification. And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you, about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it? It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out. I want to repeat one word for you: Leave.
Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn't it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don't worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed." (Sorry this quote is so long- I just didn't know how to cut anything out.)

These past 4 years are moments I will never forget or take for granted. I have been to two schools, loved, lost, encouraged, renewed, shaped, transformed, lonely, carried, happy, pushed, sad, moved, inspired, uneasy, confident, depressed, angry, tired, cared for, blessed beyond belief, and joyful. I have cried, traveled the world, celebrated, laughed, worshipped, loved, seen loss, read, learned, seen God's wonderful creation, made incredibly genuine friends, had great conversations, and lived in one of the most beautiful places in the United States. I know that the past 4 years were more difficult then I anticipated and was hit pretty hard by the world, but I wouldn't trade these experiences for anything because they have made me who I am today. Just like in Esther when Mordecai speaks to Esther telling her that she has been called maybe for such a time as this. I feel like God has led me here and through every circumstance I have gone through whether good or bad for a purpose. I have been called for such a time as this, into something that I cannot yet see.

Elisabeth Elliot, in her book Path of Loneliness, talks about that after the death of her second husband she felt like God was calling her into a life of loneliness in order for her to draw closer to God her Father. After reading this book I think that if God called me as well, while I was in college, to a path of loneliness so that my life would be drawn closer to Him, than that has made all the difference.

I don't know where I am going, but as I reflect on these past 4 years I know now that life must be lived like there is no tomorrow and that the journey is half the fun. And maybe it should be just as easy as Donald Miller says, "It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out." He says, "Leave." And that is what I am going to do.

Go make a difference.