There’s a song titled “Time is on My Side” which is self-explanatory and yet, over the past couple of weeks, that phrase has felt so far from the truth. A few moments ago, I was a freshman in college with the luxury of time to figure out what I wanted to do. And now, as a junior with one and a half semesters standing between me and senior year, I wonder where the time has gone. And naturally, my mind wonders – where I am going, how I’m going to get there, and how soon can I get there? The freshman me could only dream of doing the things that I am doing now. But what about the future me? What will she be doing? Where will she be – is she going to go corporate? Go to grad school? What is she going to do? Well, seeing as I couldn’t even predict where I’d be now, I don’t think I should be asking myself these questions because it’s clear that I don’t know. That someone else has to. In fact, this is all part of someone’s plan.
The first thing I have to comfort you is something a friend of mine always reminds me of. We don’t need to know where the path is leading in order to follow it. What does that mean? Well, it means right now, I’m a writer for un-associated as well as its editor-in-chief and I’m majoring in Creative Non-Fiction at school. I don’t know where this path is taking me, but I can discern it is the path I’m on. I could question what’s next or I could embrace the unique opportunity that is in front of me to live and breathe writing and editing – my two favorite things to do.
With that being said, the uncertainty might still be killing you, I imagine. It was killing me until I realized that these questions that I don’t have an answer to, God does. There’s a song that says “I don’t know what the future holds but I know who holds my future.”
If I say I trust Him and am following the plan He has for me, then I don’t need to know all the details. I just need to trust that I am exactly where I ought to be – that I have been led in the way I need to go. I know that my purpose, among other things, is to write – that my voice is the pen and that is my method of communication and activism. Now, do I know how far this path stretches and what lies at the end? Of course not because I haven’t gotten there yet. Life’s greatest and scariest attribute is its uncertainty – our inability to predict what is next. What thrill would we get out of life if we knew what was next? I may not know the next technical step of my journey but I no longer have anxiety or a need to know everything. In fact, I am enthusiastic as I anticipate what is next for me and I would encourage you to perceive the unpaved portion of your path the same. Your path is being paved as you read this. Continue to follow the path on which you have already embarked and let God do the rest.
