More

What is possible in a single human life utterly amazes me. I sit, staring off into the dark windows outside to the wings of the airplane, imagining, pondering, wondering, What will my life lead?

I feel the tension building. I find comfort in stories, especially those who had deep preparation. I find comfort in Jesus who didn’t start his ministry until after 30 years and only needed 3 years to see his purposes completed. I find comfort in stories of people who left everything at age 50 to live overseas, or those that changed jobs endless times.

I feel that I’m at a juncture. Part of it could be recognizing that my school years are quickly accelerating to an end. Another part of it is recognizing journeys in my heart that are now completed and traits that I have become.

I think back to a few weeks ago, God whispering in my head, “I have all your heart now.”
I hold back tears at this thought. Not that I have arrived, not that I have reached an end, but that I’ve just begun a life completely and utterly held in God’s arms with my heart fully his.

It’s been a journey that has been going on since I was 16. I remember sitting in my bed, thinking of the idea of what it looked like to have a heart completely fulfilled and in love with God. I recognized my deep desire to be known.

It was the hardest semester. It was so hard. Just so hard. I try to find words to explain, but they often only mirror pieces of stories and experiences that would take to long to write here.

I think about how in just a few minutes I will walk off this plane back to home, Minnesota. How will I just lay back in my bed, so utterly different than the sixteen year old girl that first slept there? How do I sit with my friends when I now feel like my life will be so utterly different? Dreams have shifted, perceptions peeled off, and life now has such a different taste.

It is the taste of joy. I think about my Sunday mornings, slipping away to Hollywood to step into my church that meets in a nightclub, walking down Hollywood boulevard, gathering friendships with those on the streets around me. Every Sunday I’d get my vegetables for the week, and my pluots from Miguel.

I think back to Wednesday mornings, watching the sunrise with my professor, Uncle Lloyd, whittling while praying or snacking on quesadillas. These rich times just can’t be explained.

I think to late nights with my roommates, processing prayers, listening to lives, growing in our hearts for God.
I always wondered why I was at Biola. I’ve never quite liked it.

It always seems that at the end we begin to see.

We see how every little detail is molding us into something. We see how it all works out, and how nothing was wasted.

I now see. I couldn’t live the life I was always meant for until I knew the love he always had for me.

I couldn’t begin to go to the places I was meant to until I knew who I was in places I didn’t want to be. Here I am, with now a heart that is so utterly different than the insecure girl that longed for a different story when she flew into California. I’m still learning each day how to let this heart go free. I’m still learning what radical forgiveness looks like in a world that loves revenge. I’m still learning the line of letting people go, but also never letting the love end. 

Above all, I know that I’m being led.  I see it when I look back, and I now see it in the future.
I am so convinced that I cannot plan this life, and equally excited to where it can go. I can really go anywhere, do anything.

I can do all things. It is so very different to actually see that as a possibility in the course of your life though. It is so different to see this as the very methodology to your entire substance. It is so different to see that in come true in the 3 AM nights, pulling enough words out of me to fill two 10-page papers before 83 hours of reading the Bible. It is so different to see it in the way I have left home and learned to love it when I didn't want to. It is so utterly different to believe my humble little suburb Minnesota life could possible lead to big things.

I was humbled, hurt, and extremely tried in my heart this semester. I was exhausted, close to failing a class, and fully aware that I am limited. I was tired, confused, conflicted, but I’ve come out of it believing I can do all things with grace. 

I’ve never felt like life could be hard. I never faced real problems in my day to day life in America. Yet this semester was impossibly hard. So much I never knew I held onto was suddenly taken, turned around, and thrown. For so long I chased it, trying to hold tightly to life as it seemed it should be in my head, but I always knew there had to be more.

I thought “more” would look like moving overseas, living among the poor, or doing something radical. It just seemed what my life was meant for.

Now I see that the “more” I was searching for is knowing the love of God.

It is everything and more, and sometimes God may lead us to things not because they are strategic in our life goals, but because they are strategic in giving him more of our heart. That is the life worth living. And now, here I go, with that love as my everything.

What is possible with a heart that is in love with God?
I guess I will soon find out.  

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