Honestly, I have always found the Rolling Stones kind of overrated. Mick Jagger is a little too eccentric for me, Keith Richards... what's up with the pirate look? However, they have this one song that my mom always used to sing to me when I was being a little brat when I was younger. "You can't always get what you want But if you try sometime you just might find You get what you need" This now makes a lot more sense than it did back then, and I'll probably be singing it to my kids someday. As a twenty year old girl, I have some questions. Who decided that we always have to get what we want? Who decided that at twenty years old I am supposed to know exactly what job I want someday, where I want to live, how many kids I should have, what color scheme I want for my wedding, the list goes on and on. At eighteen, we have to decide what college to go to or what career to jump into. We are fresh out of high school, and pressured to make these huge life decisions with basically no experience to go off of. And honestly, most "young adults" or even "non-young" adults are never told that its okay to change their mind. There is so much pressure to say I am going to this school for four years, majoring in this field, so I can graduate in precisely four years, so I can get a job, make a nice living, get a huge house, and marry at 26 so I can have three kids and a golden retriever, and retire to the south at 65. Woah, that's a lot to have "figured out" at eighteen... or twenty... or thirty... What if we didn't try to have it figured out? What if it was just okay to transfer schools, or to change your major, or to graduate and go into a different field than what you got your degree in? If we knew, at eighteen, exactly how our entire life would shake out all the way to age 100, that would be pretty boring. Don't you think? Yet, that is what all of us seem to be striving for. We are scared, we want security, so we try to plan and stay safe in our comfort zone. There is a verse in the Bible, James 4:13-16, that reads "Come now, you who say, 'today or tomorrow we will travel to such and such a city and spend a year there and do business and make a profit.' Yet, you do not know what tomorrow will bring--what your life will be! For you are like vapor that appears for a little while, then vanishes. Instead you should say, 'If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that. But as it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil." Wow, we are all arrogant boasters, aren't we? I don't mean that in a condemning sense, but isn't it interesting to see how mainstream society puts us in boxes and teaches us to think and act in exact defiance of this Bible verse? When I decided to transfer from UMD to UW Eau Claire I thought I had failed. What were all those hours of research for the perfect college if I just transfer anyway? What will people think? When I didn't get any of the internships that I originally wanted, I thought I had failed. What did I do wrong? Did I wear the wrong jacket? Did I say something? These are all thoughts that come from thinking I need to have my life all figured out. And the truth is, God's plan for you is not a straight line with all these perfect little milestones along the way. It is a twisted, curly cued, mess and that's the way he likes it. He has so many people he wants us each to touch, so many experiences he wants us each to have, and if it were up to us we would never begin to look in the directions that he wants us to look. So, whether you're fifteen, or twenty, or forty, or sixty, or one hundred, I challenge you to stop making a five year plan. Stop trying to control your life all by yourself. Start trusting God, even when it is scary. He may lead you to a wide abyss that you don't know how to get over and you never thought you would come to, but there is certainly a reason for all of it. Take it day by day, God won't let you down.
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AuthorJaci Pederson Archives
January 2019
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