Senior year has been a marvelous, exciting time in my life. It’s, well, hard to describe if I’m being honest. It has been wonderful, but frustrating too. I think I need to explain.
REJECTED.
I felt like it was spelled out in big red letters across my forehead. More so than a rejection from the school itself, it felt like a rejection of my future, my dreams, and the plans that I had so carefully thought through. All of a sudden, it wasn’t even a possibility anymore. There was no dreaming of getting in because I was rejected. That was it.
I was disappointed in myself. I really wanted to get in and I felt like it was so right. But I must have misjudged it. The next thing I knew I was making other plans. I wouldn’t be hearing back from any other schools until April, so what could I do with the options I had? I didn’t apply enough places. None of these safety schools work. Goodness, why are these safety schools so expensive? I can’t see myself at any of these places. But I could be just as wrong about them as I was about the last. And what about my major? Do I want to go to graduate school? And if I do, then why would I even consider spending this much money on undergraduate school? Oh my goodness. What. Am. I. Doing.
Panic set in. I had gotten other rejections over the past few days that I let slide, but this was supposed to be the one. It wasn’t. And now I feel so confused. This is my future, and I have no idea what to do with it. I had pictured it so clearly. It felt so right, and I was excited. But now, not so much.
I wasn’t upset with God. I was more upset with myself. I couldn’t stand the wait. I became so impatient that my top choice schools became the two schools with the earliest decision release dates. I was exhausted from guessing. From waiting to get everything finalized. From waiting to secure my future. I watched as my friends began to figure everything out and get acceptances and I was just ready to stop wondering what was next. I always pictured myself having a more solid plan in my second semester of my senior year, but I don’t.
Not to mention that I longed to be one of those grand success stories. I really wanted to get that full tuition scholarship because the odds were that I wouldn’t. I really wanted to get into those schools because the odds were that I wouldn’t. I was hoping that if I wanted these things badly enough they would happen and I would be able to tell the story. In other words, this is not the blog post I pictured myself writing. I wanted to the kid running up and down the street with an acceptance letter.
And wow, I had gotten myself so caught up in all this hype.
When we are young and wrestling with choices about the future, we are very often asked, and ask ourselves: “What are you going to do when you grow up?” It is the wrong question. What we are going to do is not who we are.
When it was time for me to make choices, I should have been wrestling with another question. I should have been asking, “Who am I going to be when I grow up?” What I then went on to do with that should have been a reflection of who I was to be, a reflection of the word that was whispered into me. I should have been looking for work to do that would sustain and nurture who I am (who I be, if you will). I was then, and am still, the only person on earth who has any clue at all as to what was whispered into me in the depths of my mother’s womb. Everyone else is just guessing, and their guesses are a lot less well informed than mine. God whispered the word Robert into me, no one else. If I can not hear that word, no one can. If I do not hear that word, no one will. If I do hear it and fail to act upon it, no one will be the word called Robert that God spoke.
Rabbi Zusya, one of the great wisdom teachers of the Hebrew tradition, once said, “In the world to come I shall not be asked: ‘Why were you not Moses?’ I shall be asked: ‘Why were you not Zusya?’ ”
The will of the One who sent us is that we be the one who was sent. What we do is meant to be lived out of the context of discovering and becoming the person we are.
—Robert Benson, Between The Dreaming And The Coming True
I’ve been caught up in this idea that where I go to college will become who I am. That what I major in will become who I am. That the schools I get accepted into determine how hard I’ve worked these past four years. I took all these rejections as failures to who I should’ve been. I should’ve been good enough. But then I think back to what has been spoken over me since the beginning. And maybe I’ve been striving for the wrong things when it comes to college. Maybe I’ve been striving to fit into a mold that I was never supposed to fit into. I’m not really sure at the moment. All I know is that these places I’ve been rejected from weren’t right.
Where I go to college does not determine my future, and neither does an acceptance letter. Or a rejection letter, for that matter. God’s going to be with me wherever I go. He has my best interest at heart, and I’m going to end up exactly where I need to be. Yes, graduating high school is a big deal. And going to college is a big deal. But it’s not destiny. Where I go to college is not my “destiny” and this one decision doesn’t determine the entire course of my life. I gave my life to Jesus, and He’s going to guide me through every season. The decision to follow Christ changed the entire course of my life, and now it’s in His hands.
Right now, I really don’t have things figured out. And this whole period of not knowing is really hard to rest in. But those rejections that I got wiped my slate clean. They made me let go of all the plans I had in my head, which I realized had been such a burden. Right now I’m at that point where the only thing I can do is trust His plan cause I don’t have a plan. And I’m learning how to rest in the beauty of that. I’m excited for what’s to come. I don’t know what it will be, but if it’s by God’s hand I know that it will be good.
This isn’t usually the way in which I like to write. I like writing about problems once they’ve already been solved, or when I can at least see a potential solution, or when I can say something profound about the situation. I don’t know how this is going to turn out. I don’t know where I’m going to college or what I’m going to major in. But I know the Lord is moving. I know He’s working. And I know that in the meantime, He’s going to satisfy my every need.
Ellie Proctor 