Anticipation

My thoughts have been consumed today with those of my future:

I plan to go to SLU in Hammond in the Fall of 2010. I just received an ACT score that gets me $2,500 in scholarship money and pays completely for my Room & Board on campus. I am so excited about how God is already helping me prepare for my future academically. I am still anxious though, to see it all play out. I have thought of applying early and securing my spot in the classes I want, but I am still not positive what I want to be when I "grow up". My mom has suggested my majoring in "General Studies" and figuring it out as I go, but I have issues with this. I think it's mostly because I've always thought of myself as focused and ''knowing what I want'', and the posibility that I really have no clue scares me a little. But I'm still praying about it all and hopefully God will give me specific answers to those prayers.

Spiritually, God is doing great things in my life. I honestly feel that Senior Church Camp this year changed something deep inside of me. I can boldly say that I have a "made-up mind", and nothing will turn me from God, which is a treasure to me. My mom has before asked a lady in our church how she has lived for God for so long, and she simply said, "You've got to have a made-up mind, Sister Kelly." I greatly admire this woman, and to have more of an understanding of her testimony blesses me so.
Various leaders in the church have told me that they have noticed my stepping up and am in the will of God to be doing so. (I am in NO way bragging, merely typing as I think.) This conformation in God's using me is a wonderful blessing. Not only to me, but I know also to my parents, my pastor, my youth leader, etc. Not to mention, all the souls that God will reach if I allow him to use me to do so.
I have also felt something else God is calling me to do. I've only spoken with a few people about it, because it really scares me to think about it. I think I'm going to be a.. umm.. speaker? I don't really understand the word for it. I know I'm not going to be a preacher specifically. I think it's more like "teaching in the spirit", which is preaching, isn't it? Geez, so confusing sometimes..ha! God has given me the beginnings of a.. message? lesson? I don't really know yet.. haha. :) Before I told anyone about this, Brother Jared Howell's wife, at camp, said something to the effect of "If you think you're going to be a woman minister..". Then my youth leader said something similar in a Sunday School class one morning. Also, my pastor's wife told me the other day, if I felt anything to teach or just layed on my heart for our upcoming ladies event, I could just let her know. All of these things were said to me before the person speaking knew what God has layed on my heart. That means that God has confirmed it three times now, which, I love it when He does that. In conclusion to all of this, I am still not positive of anything and am still doing a lot of praying about it all. It really scares me, which probably means even more that God is calling me to do it :P.

I think the final part of my future that I have been contemplating, for some time now, is marriage. Please, don't have a heart attack :P. I know that it will be at least 3 or 4 years, maybe more, before I even begin dating, but it has been on my mind nonetheless. I am just happy at the thought of having a physical person to be intimate with. I am more happy at the thought of it being with the person whom God has chosen and given His blessing to us for the rest of our lives.
To live forever in God's will is "the ultimate" for me, and I know that relationships play a big role in that. I am patiently waiting for whomever God is preparing for me, excited at the thought that He is preparing someone for me. I know that I still have highschool and college to go through before all of that, and that I have a lot of growing in God, and learning to depend on Him alone, to do.
I am glad that it is a process, rather than something that I would just get kind of thrown into before I'm ready. But I think the thing I've learned most about that process, as Aaron put it at camp, is to focus more on the process than the end result. It gives you more time to enjoy the things you learn and the life you live in between here and there.

There are so many things happening at once, it would seem overwhelming to some. But I have a God who cares and loves me enough to make sure that these things don't overwhelm me. My brain may be noisy, but God can easily quiet it, if it becomes too much for me to handle.