Day Twenty-Two: How I've Changed in the Past Two Years

Day 22 of the 30 Day Writing Challenge

Day Twenty-Two: How I've Changed in the Past Two Years

Let's see.. two years ago was October 2009. What was I doing in 2009? I was still in the Masters Theological Studies program at Concordia University. I was putting the finishing touches on my thesis, getting ready for my defense in January. I wasn't nervous yet but I was trying not to think about it too much. I was sending and resending job applications to all of the English CEGEPs on the island of Montreal (with no success). I was visiting an old professor of mine who is now Dean at John Abbott College, asking him about getting a job teaching. He told me that most teaching positions at this level go to PhD graduates even though a Masters is all that is required. I remember being quite heartbroken and confused.
I think that sums up much of the past two years: heartbroken and confused. I had made plans for myself and maybe that was the problem right there. I made plans for myself rather than praying on my future and asking God what His plans were for me. After all, God's plans will always surpass your wildest dreams. Anyhow, I was making plans and not ONE of them was turning out. I wanted to get a job after graduation. Didn't happen. I wanted to get pregnant. Didn't happen (when I thought it would). I wanted to get my PhD. Didn't happen (after a lengthy conversion with my adviser who explained the great difficulty of getting a job after a 5-plus year degree). I was bewildered. What the heck was going on?? I'm STILL not sure what's going on.
I've always had a plan. I've always known the next step (or at least had some idea). I think that in the past two years I've been taught to expect the unexpected. I've learned that life doesn't always go in the direction you planned but that doesn't mean things are going badly or that I've messed up somehow.
I'm a stay-at-home mom right now, working in my dad's real estate company in research and marketing. I'm writing on a blog and looking everyday for freelance writing work. I don't know where this is going. I don't know what the next five years will hold. But I think that's how I've changed. I don't know and I'm okay with that. Not knowing does not equate not caring or doing nothing. It means waiting on God and trusting that He has something awesome in store for me.


"When a man turns to Christ and seems to be getting on pretty well (in the sense that some of his bad habits are now corrected), he often feels that it would now be natural if things went fairly smoothly. When trouble comes along...he is disappointed. These things, he feels, might have been necessary to rouse him and make him repent in his bad old days; but why now? Because God is forcing him on, or up, to a higher level: putting him into situations where he will have to be very much braver, or more patient, or more loving, than he ever dreamed of being before. It seems to us all unnecessary: but that is because we have not yet had the slightest notion of the tremendous thing He means to make of us.

I find I must borrow a parable from George MacDonald. Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of--throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself."

~ C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, Book IV, Chapter 9