When I was a kid I wanted to be a scientist. In fourth grade I wanted to be a marine biologist (I blame The Little Mermaid for that one). In seventh grade I wanted to be an ecologist and save endangered species-- all of them. In high school I had a chemistry teacher who was so infectiously excited about his work that for a while, clear into my early years of college, I wanted to be a chemist. Then, somewhere in those early years of college, I was introduced to medical illustration and thought that was the coolest idea, yet! Mostly, I wanted to study Important Things and make Important Contributions to the world. I wanted to look good on paper because I believed that education was "the way out", that if I was smart enough I could escape the crab bucket that was my childhood. Growing up at my house was pretty rough business. I saw being an adult, a smart, well paid adult, as my golden ticket out-- out of obscurity, out of abuse, out of poverty, out of everything sad, discouraging, or fearful.
But that's not quite what has happened since.
I've talked with God a lot as I've tried to figure out what to do with my life. As one course of study has moved into another I have felt Him nudge me first this way, and then that way, like being led by a hand on my elbow. I have felt Him carefully step ahead of me to deliberately block sections of the trail, forcing me to carve a new route into the mountainside. To say the direction has been puzzling would be a superlative understatement. I have been absolutely baffled. Why bushwhack and chisel when there's a perfectly good trail ahead?
Recently I went to a church service at a university Institute building. Many of the men and women in the congregation are associated in some way with the university (grad students, and whatnot), though many of them are just people who live and work in the area. All of them, except the bishop and his counselors, are single and between the ages of 31 and 45. Pretty specific demographic, right? I thought to myself, "Surely, of all people, these are my kind of folk!" They're a bunch of smartypants, after all. A bunch of smartypants who love Jesus! Aaaw, YA!!
As it turns out, they're as much a bunch of self-conscious chickens as the rest of us. Don't get me wrong, these are kind, smart, pleasant people. But they're also a bunch of chickens. I'll be fair-- they've hit their mid-thirties still single (like another darling person you know), and that doesn't happen without a fair share of social and personal disappointment. I totally get that. But the conversation (or absence of conversation) happening around me was so... so... full of fear. It was THICK, in some cases it seemed to be dripping off my brothers and sisters, puddling around their feet. There were some who stood awkwardly behind their degrees and professions as though they would shield them from potential blows. Others stood behind carefully constructed walls of "I have everything I need, so I don't really need you." What a shock! I had thought that because they are, more or less, a bunch of smart, well paid adults they should have their golden tickets! ...But they didn't... As that news broke over me I realized what God had been up to all these years. Knowing what I was, which weaknesses I carried, AND the true desires of my heart He'd put together a Divine Education, just for me. An education which precluded being "papered". I understand now that if I had gotten the degrees I originally sought, if I had spent the last decade doing My Important Things I would not have sought Him out as I have done. I would have been one to rely on my education to shield and protect me instead of letting Him gather me "as a hen gathers her chicks". I would still be afraid.
On the way home from church I puzzled over my new understanding, my personal revelations. Later, as I was talking to my sister about them I started to cry. Gratitude as thick as spring cream bubbled from my chest and out and over my arms and hands. I have felt gratitude this deep only a few times before, each time it has been as I've recognized God's carefulness and watchfulness over me. I am an expert at nothing, my life doesn't look very good on paper, but because of my Divine Curriculum I know a lot of pretty amazing things, one of which is that I know I have no need of fear.
