hi, junior year, it's me

To my dearest friends, 

You may take this post to be somewhat of a sequel to the five-lettered word. This post has been sitting in my drafts box for almost 3 months now because I struggled about whether or not to talk about what I went through. Due to the nature of my circumstance, please understand that I chose to describe certain following events vaguely with all intent. This post is not about the others involved, or about what they said or did. This post is not even about me or the things I've said or done. Rather, if there is anything I want you to take away from this post, it's about what my God has done, all the goodness He's lavished upon me + all the things I've learned only through continual surrender and dependency on Daily Bread. Digging around for answers means you will have missed the point of this post + that would sadden me greatly. But for those who are walking through this same season of life with me + have helped me walk through the past five, six months, this one is for you. To Him be all the glory for what He has done and will do. 

x, 
A


We are always waiting for something these days. For a text, for a bus that never seems to come (REXB, I'm looking at you), for a significant other, for a Starbucks latte, for answers, for a class to end, for a new job, for a second chance, what have you.

Things have been no different with me. The clock keeps moving and I feel time slipping away as I seem to twiddle my thumbs and sit idly. Inaction triggers the control freak inside of me and I found myself lamenting this season to my mentor recently.

She replied that waiting was a lost art but that this period was also a refinement. It reaps the reward of faith in practice. What's important is what are we choosing to do in this time.

I mulled over her words. A refinement? Of what? My heart? My character?

Summer is long over now, but it wasn't until recently I finally found the closure I sought to it. Following the wave of emotions and unanswered questions that ushered into my life without warning the past four months, I was beginning to believe that I was not in a place to know + question what God had in store. He wanted to me wait. Still does.

But, wait on what, Lord?

Rewind a little. The week before school had picked up, I reread the book "Passion and Purity" by Elisabeth Elliot. If you are unfamiliar with who Elisabeth Elliot was, she was the wife of Jim Elliot, one of the five missionaries martyred for his faith for taking the gospel to the Auca Indians. During my junior year in high school, my Daddy gave me a copy of this book in an effort to get me to read more thought-provoking books and I had enjoyed it immensely. But things were drastically different this time around because suddenly, it seemed as if Elliot and I were the same person.

Hold on. Back up, you say, what does the wife of a missionary have to do with you? Well, simply put, "Passion and Purity" has a subtitle. Ahem.

"Learning to Bring Your Love Life Under Christ's Control"

Yeah. Loaded. You know, this topic about dating has long been coming. But let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet. Shortly after Elliot had met Jim at college, he'd confessed his love to her but then told her that God was calling him to be single. For how long, he had absolutely naught a clue, but he was bowing to the Father's will. She respected that + so began the waiting period.

I soaked up every single word on each page like I'd never read it before. Bottomline was: The attraction was there. The timing was "wrong." But the faith they both lived out as they laid each other down at the foot of the cross and the surrendering of their emotions + feelings back to the Father blew me away. There is one particular section that stands out in my mind because I had been battling with a flurry of insecurities and fears about myself and the future. Elliot writes:

“…what was God going to do about all this? Was he interested in the plight of two college kids? Had our cause perhaps escaped His notice? Would He bother with us when He was busy with who knew how many worlds?"

I'd wondered the same myself. Could something so seemingly trite really matter to God? There were, after all, a million things that took priority over us. God caring about two kids + their feelings for one another sounded trivial, maybe even silly, in the grand scheme of things.

But then Elliot proceeds to blow all doubts out the water, taking her stance straight from the passage in Isaiah. 

"[from Isaiah 40:12-27] 'Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand, or with the breadth of his hand marked off the heavens? Who has held the dust of the earth in a basket, or weighed the mountains on the scales and the hills in a balance? Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was found? He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth... Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. because of his great power and mighty strength, NOT ONE of them is missing. Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel, 'My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God’? Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom."

"[her own words] Not a star, not a planet, not a meteorite or a quasar, no, not even a black hole or a black dwarf is missing. God made them. He knows their names, knows exactly where they belong. Can He keep track of us?"

I was rendered speechless. He knows. God knows. 

As far as my own story goes, there was no drama, no anger, no resentment in either party. After a string of ambiguities within a friendship, I received a text from him to meet up to talk one morning. Essentially, it was we either considered being in a relationship or stepped away. I remember reading the devotional, Streams in the Desert,  a few minutes before he arrived and the title of the chapter that day read "When The Spirit Shuts the Door" and just like that I knew before he'd even started talking exactly what he would say. Looking back now, I find it funny because it was like God had beat him to the punch. (Sorry, that was really cheesy. Moving on...)

In Chinese, there is a phrase we use called "she bu de" which loosely translated to English means "reluctance". But it holds the connotation of a reluctance to leave something or someone because of a degree of (heart) attachment. It was all that kept running through my mind as we talked.

After we'd parted ways, I wandered back to the reading room and collapsed into the nearest cubicle. My phone was bursting from a plethora of texts from close friends I'd quickly messaged prior to our talk to say a quick prayer for me asking how it went. I couldn't bring myself to reply to any of them. Didn't have the words or the strength. Suddenly, I felt weary and craved solace with the Lord.

What now? I pleaded to Him. In the deafening silence, my phone suddenly buzzed in reply, indicating the new email sitting in my inbox. Weary, I unlocked my phone to clear the notification and my eyes caught the subject line:

"Waiting...waiting...waiting."

It was a newsletter from dear friends serving overseas + I felt my eyes tearing up as I scanned it. Near the end of it, they asked, "What is it that you are waiting upon Him to do for you? May it be something that pleases Him to grant you because it glorifies Him."

Well, that was my answer. I was to wait on Him, not him. I put my head down on the desk + wept. Wept because God was good + He'd taught me so much and because I knew God was Sovereign over my situation. Wept because I knew our situation did not escape His knowledge. Not in the least bit. Wept because I realized how much He loved me and it overwhelmed. Wept because God's presence shadowed whatever present grief lay in the days to follow. But last, cried because I was human after all + the feelings were still there + somehow it felt like I had suddenly lost a friend. A good friend. How strange the words "I think we should just stay friends" seems to cut all ties because it feels like you are anything but after that. How strange and a mystery how emotions can bring two together + pull them apart all within the same heartbeat.

But if I've learned anything these past few months, it's that not a single thing escapes His cause--nothing too small or too trivial. And beyond that, He is good + faithful and He uses all life circumstances to draw us closer to Him if we should so willingly oblige. That following morning, as I stood in the kitchen fixing my breakfast + reflecting on the events of the past day, the song "How Deep the Father's Love" came to mind. How great a God we serve that stooped down low to look mankind in the eyes and redeem us in our wretched, wretched state. If He has brought me so far, who was I to question + stand in the way?

So as the story goes, Jacob wrestled with God as He pressed out the old him (Genesis 32:22-32). And though he emerged, broken and weak, he emerged new. I, myself, was learning that ever so slowly. Flipping through my planner recently, I'd found this note I'd scribbled and tucked in it whilst in a moment of grasping clarity and confidence:

"God is writing my story. Would I be foolish enough to get in His way? There is literally nothing in this world that would give me sound reason to step in between what God is doing. To do so would be foolishness. No, I can't. I must allow Him to do the work He requires in me."

The one image that kept coming to mind was that if Christ was not in the picture, it was all meaningless and honestly, terrifying. Reminded strongly of the passage in Philippians 3:8. Every aspect of life boiled down to whether I was to choose Christ over my own desires and yearnings. If I was to choose between anything and Christ, I was to choose Christ because everything else in life was counted as loss if He were not to be in it.

It would be foolish for me to say that this is where my story ends because, aha, that is far beyond the truth. You would get the picture of me contently basking in the Lord's goodness day in and day out, which is true somedays, but surrender is, as you know I'm sure, a daily experience. It is moment-by-moment. You may think you've given up something to the Lord only to have it come again... and again... and again. And each time, you give it back, lay it down at His feet, again... and again... and again.

I need to hang a sign up around my neck that reads "THIS HUMAN BEING IS A WORK UNDER CONSTRUCTION. HAVE PATIENCE. PLEASE." because that's exactly what's going on. I would be lying if I didn't say I didn't struggle with questioning why the door was closed in the weeks that followed. Honestly, even more than a month after it'd all been said and done, there were still the occasional mornings I'd tumble out of bed and drag my feet out the door to class, work, lab, and see and interact with people. The weeks started to get better and I'd feel fine. But then mutual friends would unintentionally bring up his name in completely irrelevant conversation and it hurt all over again. I especially didn't want to meet up with close friends who were aware of my situation because they'd ask how I was doing and I was ashamed to admit my heart had trouble seeking closure.

Let's revisit the idea of waiting. What is waiting? Waiting on God does not mean sitting idly on your bottom and twiddling your thumbs. On the contrary, waiting on God (at least for me) has involved putting 110% into everything He's called me to do and boy, there is a lot to be done. Not to mention, God in His ever-funny ways has been pushing this season of my life to start addressing many insecurities and fears I've been running from. Terrified at what I'll find here, but that's for another day, I suppose.

Somehow, my inability to see around every bend up ahead has also pushed my faith into practice. This is where head looked at heart and said, "Hey you get it now? Do you understand what it means to wait?" Heart looked at head and whispered, "Not yet, but I'm beginning to."

A few days ago, I received an unexpected visit from a dear friend for my birthday who was vaguely aware of what had been going on in my life up to this point. Before we parted ways, he pressed a little leather box into my hand. There was a note on top scribbled in blue pen ink that read:

"...to help you to remember His time."

I opened the box and the clean and wide face of a beautiful watch gleamed back at me. The smell of new leather filled the car. I blinked back tears. Speechless.

God was still reminding me in His still, small ways:

Wait On Me.

It's junior year. My time at college is already passing by faster than I can even fully comprehend, but I'm embracing this new season of waiting on the Lord. Prepping for whatever lies ahead in the meantime and know that when He calls, I'll come running.