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| I was young then. I was different; my dreams were different. |
Somewhere deep down inside of me there is a pit—no, a shell.
A shell so thin that the landmine inside is close to an overwhelming explosion.
Maybe it’s already happened. I can't tell.
This is what reading The Hunger Games has done to me. Ridiculous, I know, as I read my own words. But God uses the smallest of things to ignite a wildfire.
The words of a fictional girl in the middle of a revolution detonated something.
Something strong, something unnerving, and something I didn't understand maybe until now.
Nine months of this challenge is complete. Nine months for the first time in fourteen years I've been without a significant other. And though the challenge is coming to end, I feel both hopelessly and recklessly like this is only the beginning of something else. Another chapter in a book that I never necessarily wanted a part in.
But now there are two sides of me. There is Jamie, the girl unsuccessfully holding on to the American dream that she never really quite wanted, and the girl who desperately wants to sacrifice everything to follow God.
Revolutions of the heart.
I fear to say that this is what this is. A reconcilement of sorts, where I need to listen to God very carefully.
There is a reason I'm unsatisfied with the American dream, I think.
There's a reason for no college degree.
No career.
No family.
No husband.
You’re a Reason, not a Season, Jamie.
A reason I've been too afraid to admit to myself, until now. Maybe I'm not meant for the American dream. The white fence, the happy family, the stay at home mother with two children, the marriage to a man who loves me deeply.
It scares me to admit that the greater plan God may have for me includes nothing of that. And that all of that, if I chose that path, would mean turning my back on God's ultimate dream for me.
But what is the ultimate dream, God? The ultimate path You've chosen for my life?
There is an unanswered gnawing at my soul, but I don't know what to feast upon to ease it. To subdue it, to satisfy it. I feel as if I'm supposed to be somewhere, but where? I feel a calling from the states, seeing as how it has never suited me much anyway, but where from here? And doing what?
The unease in my soul is realizing that the ideals I grew up with—I have an almost too permanent feeling—are dreams and desires not meant to come to fruition.
And as I sit here tonight, another night alone in my apartment, this realization sits even heavier.
In the corners of my mind, I don't see myself being married. I can't see a man who can partner with me—and not because there aren't great guys, but because it's not meant to be. I don't see a man sacrificing his life for mine, his health for mine, his dream for mine. I don't see a man who shares mine at all. And I don't want that—I wouldn't marry anyone who does not share ideals with me, no, because our lives would be constant turmoil. No, I want to follow God.
I admit to this now, because in the months to come I feel as if this gnawing is the only thing I will be holding onto. As more couples form, as the loneliness grows, as I watch my friends marry, bear children, and be happy, what I expect for my life hits me more as a promise than a realization.
Maybe this challenge was God's way of easing me into this. Maybe the next three months, the last quarter of the challenge, are not a challenge at all now, but an opportunity to meditate on these feelings and focus wholeheartedly on a different path.
God, you know me. You know Your plans for me. I can't say whether or not I'm going to be married. Only You know that. But what You've placed on my heart right now is both the greatest burden and excitement and fear and intrigue that I've ever felt. Where the wheels on this train will take me, I have no clue. You say follow You. And to an unknown destination where everything I thought I knew, everything I thought I could predict or plan, that doesn't exist anymore. Light in me a fire not doused by fear, but grown by it. A soul set ablaze to follow You no matter what that means. Change is so utterly exhausting. I thought that my biggest change would come December of 2010. And if that were the case, I'd be no better off than I was in that moment. But You keep me, You shape me, You're reforming me. Please just give me the heart, patience, and fortitude to grow with You, even if I don't know what that means or what it looks like. I'm reminded of Follow You Into the Dark, with the lyrics vowing self-sacrifice, but there is no dark where there is light, and of all this, that is the only thing of which I am sure.
