Overawed

I am overawed, and how incredible a God God is. In the past year, I've gone through some pretty intense changes, ones that I really didn't want to accept at first. The process of making them was messy and unpleasant, but necessary. I can be one of those people who dislikes change. Sometimes it takes me a while to adjust, and these changes took me a really long time. As crazy as it may sound, the biggest change for me was giving up on my dream of becoming a pediatric oncologist. No one seemed to understand how big a deal that was for me, but honestly, I still get a little teary when I think about it today.

As early as fifth grade, I found all of my value and purpose in the pursuit of that dream. I managed to turn peoples encouragement into confinement, and believe that becoming a life saving, pediatric oncologist was the only fulfilling thing in my life. Every thing else was just a step in that direction I isolated myself from options, and gave up on studying things I loved. I feed off of peoples praise for my efforts, and I defined myself by succeeding at that. And it was hard. I love chemistry, but let's be honest, I don't really have a knack for the higher level stuff. When I started to realize that, I panicked. So after a lot of teary nights, and failing a class because I was too stubborn to get the help I needed, I decided I could deal with myself if I just went ahead a did nursing. That would be okay.

So then, I transferred to UW. Not only was I having to try to pretend to be okay with this little shift, I also had to move completely out of my comfort zone, and I hated it. I don't know how many people I told how many times that I hated UW, it was horrible, and I was getting out of there as soon as I could. Those were all the cries of poor adjustment, my parents knew that, but my friends didn't. Some of them pushed me to stay, other pushed me to go. I was an absolute wreck, and had no idea how to relinquish that control. All I had was school. Looking back, it's so completely ridiculous how much I thrived off of school. And then, my classes were difficult. I worked early, went to school late, and had little fun. With each slide about nutrition or biology, I found myself loathing me because I wasn't getting it. And still, I was too proud to ask for help. And I wonder now, when was it that I forgot about God?

Because I can tell you, that I rarely prayed. When I did, it was usually because I was so overly emotional that I couldn't help but pray for some kind of relief, or because I was with other people. I played a christian pretty well, but I didn't really trust God with anything. I was so, insanely, unhappy and closed off from options of any sort. And I kept thinking back to abuelo, and how he died. Cancer, this thing I so badly wanted to fix, is what took his life. I didn't realize how much this affected me. It's almost as if I blamed myself because I didn't have the capacity to help him. I know that is utterly ridiculous, but I just kept wanting to fix things. And then to go to school and fail at all of these things, it was like disappointing his memory. Which is just even stupider, because of all people, my abuelo encouraged me to live and love my life. He told me time and time again, that it didn't matter what I did, he was proud of me, and that would be amazing. But somehow, that didn't click. Somehow, that meant I will be proud of you when you do something. And all I could possibly fathom being amazing was being a doctor. Which is so annoying a thought to me know, because that is so incredibly narrow-minded.

And then I start to take out my anger at myself on people close to me. Which is very uncool. I made necessary changes that I don't regret in and of themselves, but I do greatly regret the people that I hurt in my poor taste in making them (if that makes any amount of sense). I was so concerned with myself, that I lost my care for other people, which is what supposedly stemmed these great academic aspirations. And then, I broke down. Not in the emotional wreck sense of the phrase, clearly I'd been there and done that, but I broke down in the sense of control. I finally let go, and gave God the reigns. It wasn't a one step process, but I did. I applied to spring in London because I felt a random inspiration to do something fun (God). And I prayed, and prayed, and prayed. Because, oh Lord, what was I going to do if I wasn't going to do nursing? And I felt God calling me to study english, and writing. And I though, no, that's something I do for fun. And God said

"..."

In less words then that really. So I decided to apply this concept Natalie and Candy had talked about, and "laid out a fleece" with God. So, if I was accepted to the study abroad program, I would major in English, and go for creative writing. And I wasn't really okay with that, but what other option did I have? So I decided to start writing again - I hadn't written a poem in 2 years - and the words just spilled out onto the paper. I was personally shocked, and even more shocked when people other then my mother expressed an interest in reading them. And then I began to get a little more courageous, and remember that God does know what he's talking about. And though I still get nervous, and have no idea how this is going to work, and am coming to the end of school within a year or so, I am so much happier. For probably the first time in my life, I'm okay with not knowing everything. And I still worry that I've disappointed people some time, but I remember that God's got me where I am for a reason, and though I'm still a little nervous about thing, I should probably make what I can out of it.

I don't want to miss out on anymore of my living because I am stuck in a rut, or because I am afraid of disappointing others. I want to live to be consistently overawed with my life, and how awesome or awful it may be at the moment, because I want to rely on God to take me where I am going. I want to be okay with breaking down, and not having to hide it from everyone because it makes me appear out of control. I am gladly out of control, and following God. I have big dreams for my future still, and whether or not they come to fruition is not entirely the point. The point is that by having less defined direction in my life, God has given me better directions, and though they may not carry my mind all the way into the future, they are enough, and I am content to be overawed.

If you're one of the people I hurt along the way - I'm sorry. If you're along with me for the rest of the journey, I hope you know how much that means to me, and how happy I am with God and where he is leading all aspects of my life.


The End
Sarrah

Seconds From the City

Just
seconds from the city

a place
quiet
grassy, flowered bliss
to one side a bell rings
time passes
and life is hurried
to the other side
traffic
busy sidewalks with busy people
still rushing
but here

just
seconds from the city

is quiet
one man leans against a tree
sun shedding light on his newspaper
couples on benches
loving together
more people sitting on the grass
students with lunch in hand
who knew there could be such bliss

just
seconds from the city

blossoms bloom on trees
indicating the spring
flowers spreading across the green

just
seconds from the city

this park,
this beautiful wondrous place
seconds from the city
is peace
it escapes the bustle
the noise
and keeps you

just
seconds from the city.