be thou my vision

Having been home from England for well over a month now and getting ready to go back to Arkansas to finish my last year of college in less than a week, I find myself frequently on the phone or at coffee with a friend that I'm catching up with and the conversation almost always turns to is this really happening?


When did we get to be seniors?


Weren't we just wide-eyed freshman, changing our majors every other week? 


Do you feel really grown up all of the sudden? 


Yeah, me too.


The crazy thing is to think where we will be in a year from now....

A year from now, who knows? My friends are applying for the Peace Corps, touring graduate schools, starting to think about jobs, looking into "gap years" to prolong facing the real world, and such. My family is possibly moving. It's all so exciting and terrifying all at the same time.

I've kind of been complete rubbish as of late at trying to handle all the decisions and challenges and adventures before me on my own. I like feeling like a grown-up, but then I just get really scared to be perfectly honest.

I remembered tonight that God promises never to leave us or forsake us. I realized that means every single moment of every single day; no person could ever do that. And if He is really with me that much, and if my life is really going to change so much in the next year, then God must have so much to show me and teach me every single day.

Every single day I can give Him my worries, my fears, my hopes, my innumerable sins and shortcomings, my everything. I can be open to His spirit and His hand, remembering that He has always been faithful in my life and trusting that He always will be. He can work on me, change me, make me more like the person I'm meant to be every. single. day.

This is the beauty of putting my faith in Jesus. And I realize this is, like, Christianity 101, but sometimes (more often than I think) I can use a refresher course.

All of this reminds me of the old hymn "Be Thou My Vision." It's such a good one. A couple months ago I was praying about my future (which at the time meant all my worries and concerns about leaving England and going home) and God gave me this vision of open hands. Of openness, to Him and His ways in my heart and life.

My friends and I look back on all we've been through in the past few years, and we tell each other it's going to be okay. It always has been, it always will be.

And, desperately trying to have the faith I want to have and be open like I know is only best, I'm praying to God, be Thou my vision.