Home for Christmas

I’m finally home for the holidays. I’ve been gone a year, but it feels like nothing has changed in this place. Good ol’ Greenville. But of course, a lot really has changed. Businesses have moved locations. Road names have been altered. My home church got a new senior pastor. My brother has a girlfriend. My mom got a new hair style. And I’ve changed, too. Maybe not so much in appearance, but in mindset I’ve become a different person than the girl who graduated college with no idea what would come next.

Well, I’m still the girl who has no idea what will come next, now that I think about it. I’ve hardly had a moment to myself to take a deep breath and begin to discern what shape my life will take in the coming months. I have at least two quarters left in California, and another one (or one-and-a-half) at home. But after that…what? I’m still thinking about massage therapy, especially since there’s a great school a literal two minutes from my house. But then there’s that dream I’ve always had about creative writing, and that would take more school, too. And just yesterday my friend was mentioning that hospital staff jobs have really good medical care, which I will need in less than a year when I have to take on my life fully by myself. But do I want to be stuck in a nothing-nowhere job? Even just long enough to pay off my debt and send myself back to school again?

I’ve always been that girl with so much potential, so many possibilities for the future. And no clear, attainable goals (because we all know starving artists have rotten health insurance). It doesn’t help that everyone I see asks me what my plans are. I can barely figure out next week, much less next year. Much as I love my mother, I really don’t want to live at home forever. Something happened, and all of the sudden I’m grown up. It’s exciting and fatiguing all at once. I just want someone to tell me what I should do next. I keep waiting for God to part the clouds and boom down from heaven the authoritative dictation of my life, step by step.

Of course, my faith is more mature than that. I know often God is waiting on me to walk in my own maturity and make wise choices with the guidance he places all around me. So then, it’s just a matter of recognizing that guidance for what it is, and using the wisdom I have to discern the best direction (or maybe just any direction) for this next year of my life. Well, I’m always up for a new adventure. Good thing I like mysteries!