Unmapped Territory

I feel like I'm in a bit of a very strange place right now in life.  But with that, a very exciting place with God.

I guess I should explain a little.  I'm at a strange place in life because I will be graduating in just over a year (21 years of school should be plenty, right?) and I have no clue what I will be doing at that time.  No clue where I will get a job or what type of job I might even try for.  No clue where I will be living or if I'll even know anyone there.  And it's strange for me because all my life I've basically known what was coming next on my plate.  What comes after elementary school?  Middle school.  Then high school.  Then college.  What comes after my bachelor's degree?  My professional degree.  But what comes after that?  Real life.

Which really isn't the strangest part.  I'm totally excited for having a real job and not having to do the school-thing anymore.  I think what is strange is that I will finally be able to separate my life from my occupation.  As a student, I haven't been able to really do that.  I always have homework or projects or studying weighing on the back of my mind.  But with a job, I'll be able to go to work, work hard, then come home and leave my occupational tasks at work.  This is completely foreign to me!

Another thing that adds to the strangeness of it all is that with graduation on the horizon, marriage is suddenly something that seems much more...imminent?  Likely?  Reasonable.  Now obviously I would need a boyfriend before that process even came close to being set in motion, but the timeline is definitely not unreasonable.  I've always expected to not get married until after I finished my education.  Well...June 2013 is just around the corner.  And it is within a timeline which allows for meeting people and making life-changing decisions.  I'm not saying that it's going to happen, but just the fact that the possibility is not absurd to me is...strange.

So how exactly does all of this tie into being in an exciting place with God?  Because it's different for me.  Don't get me wrong, God has sent me plenty of lessons in learning to trust Him.  But there's always been somewhat of an overriding, crudely drawn map of hints for me to glance at.  I didn't have the details and I knew the map could always be crumpled up for a new one, but now I'm getting to unmapped territory.  And not only that, I get to wear a blindfold for this chunk of the journey.

At church on Sunday, the two big points that we were encouraged to walk away with were:

1. To remember who you are:  a slave of Jesus Christ
2. To remember who is leading you:  Jesus Christ, through open doors and through closed doors

And as the closing worship songs were being played, I just started thinking about this new journey that is coming up.  I started to ask God about what I'm going to do when I graduate and before I even finished the thought, He stopped me.  I will lead you.  And I immediately went into the next thought of asking about relationship stuff, and again He stopped me.  I will lead you.  And as my mind started forming the next "what about" question, I stopped myself.  I trust you, God.  And I smiled.

That's when I realized that this next portion of the journey isn't supposed to make me nervous or anxious.  I'm supposed to be excited.  Excited for the new twists and turns that I get to take with God.  Excited for lessons that He's going to teach me through the hard times that bring me closer to Him.  Excited for learning to trust Him in a completely new and fascinating way.  Excited because change provides space to grow.  How boring would life be if I could predict the whole thing?  The best surprise parties stay secret until just the right moment.  And I have a feeling that God is a pretty amazing party-planner...