Lost

As I get back on my blogging feet, I asked a few friends to come share their thoughts, hearts and goals on the blog. If you haven’t met Annie yet, you must. She is a beautiful soul and is talking about a sensitive, yet so relatable, subject today. You can follow her blog here, her twitter feed here and check out her ebook here.

Lost.

It’s how I feel on a regular basis. Untethered, free-floating, lost.

There’s a myth, I think, that imprints itself upon us when we’re in high school. It unfolds a tale of lively college years and a seamless transition into a well-paying job in a thriving city right after graduation. But the myth did not come true for me, and maybe it hasn’t for you either. Or maybe it did, and you’re finding it isn’t all you thought it would be.

***

Would life be fuller if it unleashed as we expected? Would we know the thrill of life as well if we never knew the whiplash?

What’s the price of loving well? Sometimes I wonder if it’s hurting deeply, and then I wonder if it’s worth it.

Love is always worth the fight, dear one. The words whisper from deep inside my soul, a tiny white flag of surrender raising and unfurling into His banner of love over me.

***

I earned myself a B.A. in English, so naturally, I work in finance.

Saving is not a process I ever thought I would be excited about. I never anticipated I might peek at my bank account more than my Twitter timeline. Retirement is not a word with which I anticipated any kind of familiarity until my 60s, if even then. And yet, and yet.

It’s an unexpected twist of life, but I can’t imagine life any differently, for which I’m thankful.

*** Even in this, He has been faithful.

Even when I thought He might not be paying attention.

Part of my job involves reorganizing words and debating capitalization. It’s always a joy for me to wake up the work day with grammar. It’s a small thing, but I’m grateful, because it spins my perspective off the elements of my job that aren’t my favorite.

Even in this, He has seen my heart.

I’m at a comfortable but challenging place professionally, and it took just over two years from graduation to get there. That was surely not my timeline.

So now, I’m looking to, praying about, and terrified of the next step: growing and pushing myself personally. I’m still lost; while I live in the city I grew up in, my community scattered across the nation. Most of my friends are time zones and text messages away, instead of nearby. I appreciate how technology turns miles into millimeters, but until FaceTime can brew Starbucks, I won’t quite be satisfied it’s even close to being the same as a face-to-face coffee sesh.

Rebuilding a community where you used to have one is rough. Memories dance around you, but the people you made them with being so far away stirs melancholy in your soul.

*** It won’t be this way, always. That’s what I keep telling myself, because that’s what I know to say. The myth told me everything I would hold in my hands in my twenties was because I had built in my high school and college years. It didn’t tell me the twenties were their own decade of building and rebuilding and restoring, grasping for something firm onto which to hold. Jesus, build in me what will last. Build in me a courage and faithfulness I could never cultivate on my own. The twenties are for building. And although life is not what I anticipated, not even in some respects what I wanted, I pray He’s using it all to build in me what lasts.

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