Honesty Pants

I've learned a lot about my heart, life, and survival the past six months - Everything from my love for Duck Dynasty, to the life-changing tab of Google Reader, to "I'm too young for this" stress management skills.

I've learned that sometimes, allowing a friendship to walk away is a gut-wrenching, yet necessary, expression of love. I've watched, with a nauseated spirit, Bible-belt churches try to sell Jesus in an effort to make the gospel "more relevant to today's youth" through smoke-machines and free salvation t-shirts. I've had awkward conversations with students who thought I was born yesterday and wouldn't call them out on inappropriate behavior.  I've perfected the art of an undercover meltdown and have become a thorough fan of the word resolve.

My favorite part, however, is the boomerang irony - on May 19, (the day before I moved to Houston for the summer) my highlighter pink Vans stood before a football stadium of faces, many whom I dearly love, and listened as I ended my graduation speech with a quirky rendition of "I Will Survive."

I laugh when I think about the irony of it all. I didn't know it that day, but the next six months would be more about survival than anything else - more about not quitting, more about finding confidence in Christ and Christ's calling than the day's unfolding challenges and circumstance.

Today I find myself on the other side of the tunnel - grateful, happily typing away on a cold, yet paradoxically sunny Tuesday. I finally have time to sit before a blank screen - which feels like coming home after exhausting season of travel. Comfortable, warm, welcoming, quiet - familiar.

I finished student-teaching precisely 12 days ago. I eloquently dubbed my last day as the "Emancipation Proclamation, Part II" - as I busted out of that joint like an African American on the heels of the Civil Rights Movement. Free at last, Free at last, Thank God Almighty, I am Free at Last!

Teaching for the first time feels like being thrown into the deep end on first day of swimming lessons - no floaties, no boogie boards, no blue noodles. It didn't take me long to realize teaching is not for me. I'm more of a dry land kind of gal. 

There has been an incessant, glaring temptation to compare myself with my friends who seem to effortlessly stumble upon their "calling" and/or "passion in life" - Pieces seem to fall effortlessly into place. My teacher-friends receive endless applause for their life-long choice of selfless nobility and I'm the black sheep of the bunch who bleats, "Baaaa! Baaa! Not for me! Not for me!"

A requirement for all graduating seniors at Tabor College is a class called "Christian Faith in Modern Culture" or RS-400. The reputation of this class isn't always accompanied by enthusiastic applause, but I'll stick my nerd neck out and proudly proclaim I liked it - with the exception of the early morning meet time. I liked it because it made me think about important aspects of life I never took time to consider before. I liked it because my prof used class time for debate and I'm always up for crushing people with my ninja-like wit and sarcasm. I continue to appreciate this class because I'm still thinking about it.

In class we discussed the relationship between job and vocation. Job being your place of employment - how you pay the bills. Vocation being God's calling on your life - i.e., what you feel like you were made to do, the area of ministry in your life.

There were six different models, ranging anywhere from complete separation of the two, to a slight mix (like a Venn diagram), to the other side of the spectrum where the belief claims job and vocation are the same thing.

After much angst, wrestling thought, and fist-raising at the seemingly impossibility of it all, I have settled on the belief that these relationship models are helpful but not universal. What might be true for my friend may not be true for me. Simply because everyone is wired differently. I am fully capable of living a life that separates job and vocation - a girl's gotta eat, after all. Yet, because of my emotional and mental wiring, I've got to go to a job each morning (speaking long term, here) that feeds my soul.

I know how this sounds, especially in the face of pragmatism. It sounds silly - it feels selfish. Ignorant in its idealism. Entitled. I hear the voices - You can't always do what you like. Beggars can't be choosers and we are one fiscal cliff away from being beggars.

Because, really - Why go in the direction of your dreams when sensible reality is parked right outside with leather seats and a 401-K in the console?

I have spent a great amount of time thinking and reflecting on this subject. Should I sell my dreams to sensibility? How much would they go for? Why don't we give people permission to dream sensibly? Why the extremes?

I have entertained a pendulum of ideas - everything from packing up a small carry-on bag and moving to a foreign country for a couple years to teach English for the sake of adventure to pulling a Donald Miller and taking a cross-country road trip. I've thought about selling my soul to the corporate devil (the cubical killer of Otters everywhere). I've thought about just staying in Israel when I go there in January.

As the transition from college to real-world happens, the blue-print disappears and the questions pop up like prairie dogs. "So what's next?" - "What are you planning to do?" - "Any idea where you want to end up?" 

Well, ideally I'd like to end up on Tim Tebow's front porch, with one of those obnoxious headband bows and a printed t-shirt that says "Answered Prayer," I want to say, but like you said, beggars can't be choosers.

My only plan at this point is to get on my face and stay on my face. And by "on my face" I mean pray. And pray. And pray.

God knows me better than anyone else - He made me. He knows that I my heart's desire is to work in the social justice realm, helping raise awareness for trafficking victims in America. That is the space to my jam and I could talk about it for hours.

But at the end of the day, my prayer should be that not my will, but His will be done. Even if that means cleaning toilets at Taco Bell. I saw this ecard on Pinterest a while back and it spurred thought, but more surprisingly, it spurred surrender.