Current Emotion: Overwhelmed About the Future

This is it, guys.  I’m heading into senior year as soon as summer ends. Why am I already thinking about the end of the summer when summer just started? Because it’s making me cry. It’s that time in life where everyone wants to know what I’m going to do; everyone wants an answer to my future, and half of them want something like “get an awesome job,” “go to grad school,” or “get married,” and frankly, I don’t know the answer to anything right now.

I’ve definitely thought about all three of those heavily, but that’s not good enough.

I’m sitting on my bed, bawling my eyes out because it’s not enough. All of this isn’t worth the pressure. I don’t want to simply walk the stage next May and get a piece of paper. I don’t want to simply find a nice job in a good city and be there. I don’t want to only enroll in post-undergraduate studies. I don’t want to simply walk down an isle in a pretty dress. I want more than all of that.

The tears are flowing freely as I’m trying to process through everything crazy that’s coming my way. Quite literally, the next year of my life is going to be a complete marathon, and I’ve just finished a race through junior year that was more exhausting than anything I’ve ever known. How I’m going to make it to the end, I’m not sure.  Life decisions are already bombarding me, and I don’t have answers yet, other than “I need Jesus more.”

That’s the deep ache in my heart – needing more Jesus. That’s why it’s not enough for me – because only he is enough.

My only purpose to being here is Jesus. Above even doing the work He calls me to, which I love and find so beautiful, I’m here to know Him. If I’m going to graduate, I need him walking the stage with me. If I’m going to find a job, I desire to have only what he would call me to. If I do choose one day to get further education, it’s on his leading, not mine. And if I ever have the privilege of committing my life to a man, I want everyone to see not just a union of two people, but also and especially the love of Jesus.

I’m alive for more than a few possibilities. If he’s been clear about anything this semester, it’s that he’s the God of infinite possibilities. As I’m facing my last summer in this weird, intermediate stage between dependent and independent, it’s never been clearer to me that no matter what choices I make in the future and what the world thinks of them, I’m not going to be happy unless they’re made because I’m chasing after him.