Waiting…

Wait for the LORD; be strong and take heart and wait for the LORD.

Psalm 27:14 has been my mantra for the past couple of days. I have recited it over and over in my heart. I hum it in my mind before I go to bed. I cling to each word in desperate need of encouragement in my current walk with God. Here is the dish:

So I graduated from University (woo!) about a month ago with a fancy degree I do not like at all nor see myself actually working in. It just sounds nice when people refer to me by the adjective of my degree. It is an ego boost and it makes me really wish I actually wanted to work in this field. But I can wish until Tinker Bell comes home…the truth is: I never want to work in this field. It was horrible enough getting a degree in it, but that is another story.

So I graduated from University (woo!). Two weeks later I left for Bolivia, where I would be (and currently am) until the end of July. As I do what I do in Bolivia. I am looking to God to guide my heart. It is hard to do something you dislike for four years. You become well-versed in things you do not like; I can write a four-paged letter about all the things I do not like. But when it comes to what I do like, I am like **Kanye Shrug.** I have no idea. I have nothing in mind that I am confident enough to say I like and would like to pursue as a career.

This stuff gets me thrown. I pray to God to make things clear. To get my heart to listen to his will and purpose for my life. Of course that sometimes gets puts to the side when I get caught up in my fantasies for my life: “Perhaps I could become a web-developing graphic designer who lives on some obscure Island with my city-farm and my husband and our two cats.” WHAT?! NO!! I don’t even like cats like that. So when I check back into reality, I get so down. I feel like I do not know myself and I running around like a purposeless chicken with its head cut off. At times I wonder what I am even doing here in Bolivia. I feel I am doing nothing of purpose but standing around staring at the sea-forest green walls of my room here.

After freaking out (and crying). I just pray. Lord please make it clear to me what you want me to do. I just want to have purpose, be really good at it, and bring glory to your name. Le sigh. I just don’t know these days. I just don’t know.

All I know (from what dictionary tells me) is that patience is the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.

That is probably why we have to be strong and take heart. Waiting is…not easy.

How about you? Have you faced a season in your life where you wondered what your purpose was? How did you deal?