O how this question PLAGUES me. I know it is usually asked with purely innocent and kindly intentions, but to someone who really has no idea what she should be doing with life, it’s one of the most unpleasant questions ever.
But let me just tell you a story.
When I was a little girl, animals were my favorite. My earliest memory is of my 3rd birthday when I received Rosy, my male black and white Dutch Dwarf rabbit. Later in life, we had dogs and cats. As a child I witnessed one litter of kittens and two litters of puppies born in our house. I taught our dog Molly to run and jump through a home-made agility course in our backyard. And when I was a bit older, I discovered horses, and my girlish crush turned into riding lessons and a sweet relationship with a big lazy quarter horse gelding named Champ.
“What do you want to be when you grow up, Amy?” Hmmm…well I like animals…I’ll be a vet!
About age 10 was when I discovered James Herriot, and his books about his house-call veterinary profession in England in the last century. I was enthralled by his narratives of cats and dogs and the medical and relational aspects of being a vet. But the story that gripped my fascination and really never let it go was when he saved a near-disastrous birthing of a calf by sticking his entire arm up the mother cow, taking hold of the baby’s hoof, and tugging him about in order to correct his exit position. He saved the day. And I knew I wanted to do just that one day: stick my arm up a mother cow.
Though that was a vivid experience that excites me to this day, I later found out that livestock veterinarians must go through nearly 8 years of school to have their degree. So much school did not appeal to my 11-year-old mind, and I soon decided I wasn’t THAT passionate about helping baby cows get birthed. So I went through a time of being content to just be a kid, while also planning my future ranch with my 37 brood mares and my red stallion named Flame.
About the time that I was finishing junior high, I realized my drawings of Flame and his mares were quite good. I had the makings of an artist. So what does an artist do for a living? That’s when I learned of something called interior design. And thought THAT was surely my calling in life, because it had more of a ring to it than “horse artist.”
Soon horses and indoor décor turned into entire homes, and I started drawing and designing my own floor plans. I checked out books from the library on log cabins and architecture. And I realized I didn’t just want to decorate rooms…I wanted to design the houses around them! ARCHITECTURE was now the thought in my head as I began my Associate Degree education at the community college.
I was a smart kid. I got a 4.0 in Calculus. I was a favorite in art class. I was on my way to a higher than 3.5 GPA, and thought for SURE I’d get into college for the competitive field of architecture. But all of a sudden…I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to continue in math, though I was good at it…I didn’t want to sit in an office and always be clean and wearing business suits…and I just didn’t want a career. So then, what was I going to college for? I had always been one of those girls who WOULD go to college. My sister did, my parents did, so I would. And I told my friends that I thought everyone should go to college, because…this was my primary argument…what if you DON’T get married??? Well, they all did. But that’s beside the point…
This is when God taught me that my plan for my life would RARELY work out the way I wanted it to. He took away all my interests. He turned my life upside down, and started leading me down a long path of “not knowing”. So I didn’t move on to a university after I graduated…I stayed home and continued making coffee for a living. I was the professional barista with a 4.0 in calculus math.
In the fall of 2007, I went to Japan to be an English teaching intern. Just like that. First time overseas, not because I really wanted to, but because it was an opportunity to see a different country. And my friends were going. But I DID learn some things about myself: I love to travel. Different cultures don’t scare me like I thought…they fascinate me. And I have the ability to play with little children. Something I had never ever done before. (Truly.) AND…I can teach. But did I think I wanted to be a teacher? Psh. No.
Spring 2008, I went to Bible school in Sweden…because I could. While there for two months, I learned more about European culture, different beliefs, travel, and about trusting my God. I learned about Jesus. I learned about walking by faith, not by sight. But I also felt pressured by well-meaning professors who encouraged us students to know what our “passion” in life was.
I had no idea.
I still did not know what God had made me to do. And it brought tears to my eyes as I tried to pull different talents out of my hat and make them be what I loved, but nothing stuck. I had many wonderful talks with good friends about the Lord’s purpose for us on earth and about what makes me feel “alive.” But all I came away with from Bible school was simply, “Trust Him. And wait and see.”
After my second trip overseas, I came home with the incurable travel bug. I also knew I had a desire to serve in a far-away place. So when my sister invited me on a trip with her and a friend to North Africa to help build houses, I jumped right in and learned how to raise money. Little did I know that the trip would spark the first major “desire” in my heart since before I had finished high school. I went back to North Africa the following year, for 4 months. And again I went back the year after that, this year, for 5 ½ months. I worked on houses, I learned Arabic, I made beloved friends, I drank tea, I babysat, I drove trucks, I led small tours, I learned to lead and to follow, and I taught English.
What has God revealed to me since that time He took away all my interests in my senior year? I am a traveler. I can live, and thrive with His help, in foreign cultures. I love learning and speaking different languages. I love helping people, especially people who have never been helped before. I have the ability to teach, and enjoy it. I love children. And so what do I want to be?
I want to be a woman who fears the Lord, one adventure to the next. And someday? All I really want to BE is a wife and mother. Yes, all those years when I told my friends they really should prepare themselves to be single by getting a degree, I was just like them…deep down simply wanting to be a wife and mother. One who travels, speaks languages, makes coffee, knows math, draws, paints, writes, teaches, rides horses, drives big trucks…
I’m home now, in the states. I am still making the transition from knowing exactly what I was doing living in N. Africa, to now living in my parents’ home again without a job and without a clue as to what comes next. I checked out college again, to start in January in a TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) bachelor’s degree, but while visiting the city of this university, God made it clear to me in His mysterious way that I should not to go to college in January. I should be home. Applying for a job that I really hope to get, and serving as a leader in the youth group at my church fellowship. These two things “fell in my lap” soon after I arrived home, and I mean to put my heart into both of them (assuming I get a job…) for as long as the Lord keeps me here. The rest…will fall into place in His perfect timing.
