I have recently found a love for hot tea. You could blame it on my mother or my British friend or even the holiday decorative tea boxes from Trader Joe’s. Who can pass up of polar bear wearing a red scarf? I sit here with my tea in a cup labeled tea (that I ironically drink coffee out of sometimes) and feel the most relaxed I have all day. It seems to calm me. To center me. The sweet peppermint scent seeps into my nose and everything awful that was called today leaves for just a moment. It’s a nice feeling and one that is far and few in between these days. See my day was not the best. It sucked actually. Yet it started out tasteful. My cup of coffee in the morning wasn't even burnt and I finally had a small ounce of energy to pick up the array of clothes piles that have accumulated on my bedroom floor. I have so many I can label each one to a particular day. I even broke out my singing voice somewhere other than the shower, belting the lyrics of my high school years. But the goodness stops there. As those notes stayed out of tune and the head bop increased so did the lovely sight of blue and red flashing lights in the rearview mirror of my car—again. This is when I wish I had and invisibility cloak.
My weeks have melted into a lovely blob of blah. I am contemplating switching my major and that has led me to the most logical response any 22 year old Italian girl could have: a very exaggerated and overly dramatic groan followed by the belief that somehow this means life is over. That everything I have done, that I have worked towards is ruined and wasted, never to recover. I find it humorous on the outside, but in the moment every part of my stress makes sense. For years I have had a plan. A step by step path of where my life will take me and what my career will look like. I will be the fun teacher, I will be out at 3pm each day and vacation June through August. I will be like peter pan. The girl who never grew up, the girl who never left school. It was going to be glorious. And now…now what? If I don't want to do that, what do I want to be? I feel it is too late for the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” My 3rd grade M.A.S.H games have already come and gone. I should know by now. But the funny thing is my plans, though I have them, constantly get interrupted by someone. His name is God and He's better at interrupting than a 3 year-old begging for ice cream. Except He does His interrupting with such love and kindness. All of my plans in the last 5 years have been shattered and replaced with His. And yet every time I fear He will not come through. How ignorant am I to test the abilities of our Jesus; the one that conquered death and came back to fight for His beloved. That is His mission—to have us. And for some reason in the chaos of my life I forget that He is here to lead me and all I have to do is follow blindly and take that leap. He says to me Your voice is sweet and your face is lovely. That is what My God, the creator of this Earth thinks about me. He wants to hear my voice, He wants to commune with me. Tonight we sung this truth over and over again in a multitude of choruses that reminded me just how much I am dependent on Him. I need Him in every part of my life. And when I have him there, life doesn't seem so impossible.
The months of October and November have been to me like a school ground bully. To quote one of my quickly becoming favorite books, "I feel like I have been dropped like a hot pop-tart on the cold kitchen floor." But even if I'm dropped on the kitchen floor, have a run in with the law, forget what day it is, have nightmares of jerk customers, and not have a clue what major I want to be in everything is okay. Some may even say it is peachy keen. For there is a power higher than anything and everything and He has my heart and life in His hands. The tea may calm my energy level, but His truth washes over my fears. That is the relaxation I yearn for. My life can be in shambles--22 year-old version shambles and yet everything is okay. Everything is safe because He said so. As I sit at home in the silence, I can still hear His voice whisper His love in my ear and I want to know Him even more. He says come to me and let Me hear your voice.
