I should not read the Christy Miller books. Seriously. Especially the later ones, they hit too close to home for me. Never mind that her college is based on Biola (the author went there, met her husband there, and one of her sons was an RA here), but at least in some ways, her protagonist is way way too similar to me. She's shy and not too confident and reserved and loves kids and...ugh. The storyline fits too closely too. In the penultimate book of the main 12-book series, she breaks up with Todd, the guy she's liked and been sort-of dating for the entire series so that he can follow his dream and God's call to go off and do jungle missions work. Since it's a Christian series, obviously everything works out in the next book and the two of them eventually get married. But reading the scene at the end of the 11th book was different than when I read the series when I was 16. I cried when I read it yesterday. I was anticipating that scene and my reaction for the past couple days, because I knew it was coming. It was one of the scenes that's stuck with me the most since I read the series so long ago.
I don't know if I'm being too dramatic or reading too much into it, but I've thought of that scene and if that would be me some day, if I'd have to give up someone I really liked because it was God's will. I'd rather have the happy ending that Christy does than her heartbreaking middle or the emotional roller coaster that comes in the beginning of the series. She has doubts, she dates a couple of the 'wrong' guys, she gets jealous and has petty fights with her friends. It's still definitely romanticized, but I want the romanticized love life and epic story without the heartbreak, the ups without the downs.
Right now, I'm in the middle of the first of three books set after her high school graduation. She, her boyfriend, and her best friend travel around Europe after Christy's been working in an orphanage in Switzerland for a school year. I was like...I would LOVE to do that. I want to work in an orphanage, to travel around Europe with my best friends, to be so sure of God's leading and God's will. But...do I want to do it because it sounds like a 'cool' thing to do? Except it doesn't...Christy only feels stressed and drained from working in the orphanage. She decides it's not the thing she wants to do. I want that experience, to do something crazy and awesome, but most importantly to do something.
Ach I want money to not be a concern, for me to know where I'm going and why God's given me the passions I have. I want to get my master's in social work, but definitely not right after Biola. But then what do I do in the meantime? I feel like I ask a lot of questions and never get answers; the questions only pile up bigger and bigger. I think my pile of wants and wishes does the same thing...gets bigger and bigger, even the wish that my list of questions would get smaller and that I'd get a couple answers. The only answer I have now is to wait...just wait. I'm not a big fan of that answer. I want a 'better' one, with a step-by-step plan and specific instructions. Maybe this time next year I'll have a couple answers. I think my plan now is to try, to look into opportunities in what I want to do and to try or make plans based on my desires and what I think God's will might be. God needs to be the center of my hopes and dreams and plans, not me and not anyone else. I'm working towards that...slowly.
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