My Active Realization

It appears that I am a senior. Yes, I've known this for quite some time now. I know that I am a "can leave campus when I'm not taking on of my five classes / sits in the front row for chapel / doesn't want to do homework because of senioritis / yells proudly "07" to anyone who will listen" senior.

But now, I've become a "will graduate in 3 months / has to decide on the far away future today / will leave my school / will leave my friends / will leave my teachers / will leave my church / will leave my life" senior.

And, honestly, it has undone me.

I'm so tired of contemplating the future. My plans rarely hold up under scrutiny: I want to reject admission to one of the best schools in the state, I want to go to a "buy a small house with the money you spent on tuition" expensive, 5 hours away college, my scholarships are falling through, my second choice might not work out. It's all so tangled and messy. I hate tangled and messy.

My Father knows His plans. I do not. But I know Him. That's enough.

What's really been heavy on my mind lately, though, is the future of my current relationships. I've gotten close to people this year: my mom, my friends, my youth group, my teachers. The hardest thing I see myself facing is letting them go. I must. I'm beginning to acknowledge the changes that will come to these relationships. For now, I can't bear the thought; I usually end up crying when left alone to think about it.

And so, I am once again confronted with a choice: if I am going to enventually let go of these people, should I loosen my grasp or tighten my fist? Should I begin withdrawing from their lives and pushing them out of mine or should I savor what time I have left with them? I want to run, with the desire of making it easier on myself in May, and to finally rid their lives of the burden I am for them, no longer victimized by my selfishness.

But I have found that what I want is usually not what God wants. And I am seeing the work He is doing in my life, for part of me longs to throw myself into these relationships selflessly. But then the other side of me worries once again about reciprocation and poses the question: "What if they will not miss you as you miss them? What if they cannot or will not return your love?"

Batter my heart, three-personed God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town to another due,
Labor to admit to you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be lovéd fain
But am betrothed unto your enemy;
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again;
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.