fulfilled

My summer is wrapping up, and it doesn’t feel like that should be real.

I’m not ready to have to go to classes again or have that stupid homework responsibility, but yet I’m ready to be back at school, back to a routine and to knowing that I’m furthering my studies.  It feels weird to be moving out and leaving home (or what now feels like my parents’ home WEIRDDD), but I could not be more excited to move out at the same time and to start learning how apartment life and living on my own for good actually look.  Like, dude, now I have to buy my own food.  Yikes.

Anyways…this is all leading somewhere; I promise I’m not just ranting.

Okay, so, it’s been hard this summer, being at home.  I love my family, but I haven’t been at home for this long in two years, and it’s weird to go from living in the dorm (and Nicaragua) without them to now being home and with them all the time.  It’s been hard to mesh the two schedules and lives back into what they used to be, when really, we’ve all changed.  And it’s not a bad thing – it’s just how life goes.

This summer has been hard.  It’s been really hard to not be living on campus and doing life on and around campus.  It’s been extra hard not being near the people that I’ve met these last two years that have grown to be my family.  Sure, I get to visit one or two of them here and there, but it’s like my heart has been aching to be back where I’m surrounded by those people that I’ve been doing life with the past two years.  They’ve seen me at my best and at my worst, and they’ve seen me avoid growing up and encouraged me to keep going.  So it’s been hard to be away from them, from the people my mom has started calling “my tribe” because they’ve been such an influence on my life.  And I’ve got to be honest…I have not been happy about not being on campus this summer.

Paul talks in Philippians about being content in any situation.  And if Paul can be content in all that he went through, I can take off my pouty pants and stop complaining about not getting to live where I want for three months.  But contentment is so much more than just being okay with where I’m physically located and what’s going on around me.  It’s resting in Jesus, knowing and believing that He is in control and His plans are perfect, even if it may not be how I pictured my life going (news flash, Alli: your plans are poo compared to what God has planned for you).  It’s about trusting His plans even when they don’t match my timeline.

It’s not just that I haven’t been content living at home.  This summer, the impatience of being “just a college kid” has really started to set in.  I’m halfway done with school, but sometimes it feels like I have a lifetime left to go in these classes before I’ll actually be a teacher.  I have these big dreams, but I’m impatient and want to see them happen right now, not years in the future.  But at the same time, I’m asked a lot what or where I’m planning to teach after graduation, since I am now halfway done with school, and I can’t answer them.  Because I don’t actually know what I want to do after I graduate, despite having these big dreams and goals for my life.  I know that I love the Spanish language and Latin American culture, and I know that I love the language learning process and want to be a part of helping young children learn a new language one day.  But how that’s going to look, I have no idea.  And I would like to know, but I’m getting a big, fat “WAIT!” from God.  Which makes a whole lot of sense for this phase of life, but, once again, I am not the most patient.  Probably because I’ve spent a lot of the past two years defining myself in earthly ways – a Spanish major, a future teacher, a college student, a this/that/the other – when none of those things define me or will ever truly fulfill me.  And how will I be truly content and resting in Christ if I’m trying to fill myself and my heart with things other than Him?

So, basically, this started with me talking about how I love my family but I’m not all that happy being at home (sorry, fam – it’s because I’m not on campus, not because of you LOVE YOU), and it ended with me ranting about how I’m not patient enough to wait on God’s plans, but you get the point.  Here’s the thing: God’s been doing amazing, mind-blowing works in my heart the past few months and challenging me in ways I haven’t ever felt challenged before.  He’s let me place my trust in humans and look to friends for affirmation so that I would see how unfulfilling it was and how perfectly fulfilling He is.  He’s used stress and relaxation (or, if you’re me and can’t remember that word, “relaxament”), anger and kindness, hurt and joy, and so much more…all to show me that He is complete sustenance, power, peace, strength, joy, everything I could ever need.  And it’s still a fight.  It’s not like I remember this every minute, let alone every day.  But He’s all-forgiving and all-loving, and He doesn’t give up on me.  Because He Himself is love, grace, mercy, and so much more.

So it’s a fight, sure.  But it’s a fight worth fighting because my God is so much more than I could ever imagine, and He is all I need.