I stumbled upon this while looking for an inspirational caption for my attempt at being artsy. It made the cut for my high quotation standards, because it is absolutely true. Being born is a wonderful thing. I am celebrating 18 years of birth today by sitting by the fire with a cup of tea, waiting for this so called snow storm (instead of being on a plane on the way to Ohio right now), and am so grateful that my wonderful friends have been born as well. I am so blessed to be alive when all of you are alive. Yet being alive is perhaps not such a good thing, when we don't know what our purpose is. Without purpose, life can get pretty empty, dry, shallow, and hopeless.
As a follower of Jesus, I believe that our purpose is to simply follow Him through waters uncharted. Through the pain and through the pleasure, all we should aim to do is to follow Him.
Pain is awful. My heart breaks for dear friends of mine who are deep in the valley of the shadow of death. Yet pain has a purpose. Without the valleys, we could not have mountains. Kings in Biblical times had to be anointed with oil. Yet in order to get that oil, the olives had to be crushed first. In order to be anointed, crushing has to happen first. And it is sometimes in the crushing and in the pain, that we find our purpose. To keep following Jesus.
If we keep following Jesus, despite the fact that things are dark, eventually, He will lead us out of the pain and into the pleasure. I am experiencing that now, as months of pain are beginning to turn into reaping of the seeds that were sown in these past long months. I can officially call myself a second semester senior. I love all my classes this semester. Every conversation I've had recently, has been about dreaming. Dreaming about the things on our senior bucket list and how to make them happen. Dreaming about the perfect summer. Dreaming about college and our futures. Yet even in the pleasure, our one purpose is to follow Jesus.
I know that I can so often assume that my plans are God's plans, yet He reminds me time and time again that it is indeed the opposite. That His plans should really become my plans. For it is in His plans that we find our purpose, and not our own. It's not a bad thing to dream--infact I believe that the passions God places on our hearts are from Him and are meant to be pursued. However I also believe that God orchestrates and God redeems, and that it is through pain and pleasure, where we find our purpose.
By following Jesus through every high, and every stormy gale, we will find the glorious unfolding that Jesus has for our lives. Each one of us is on an individual journey to pursue His plan, and it's a beautiful thing when it comes to us piece by piece, and we discover the JOY and HOPE and FULLNESS we are offered by Jesus, in this adventure called life.
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