At a Crossroad

I'm finding myself at a serious crossroad right now. It occurred to me a couple of weeks ago that the reality of things, considering the economic climate and the state of the California college system, is that I may not in fact be able to finish school next year. Which to me, means yet one more failure to add to my list. The hard part of this is, as much as I'm grateful to have a job at least, I can't stand being there anymore. Starbucks has been my home for four years, but I really can't stand being there anymore. My manager sat me down a couple of weeks ago and told me that she wants to start preparing me for an assistant store manager (ASM) position as soon as the summer gets started. According to her, this doesn't necessarily mean I'd be promoting in the next 6 months, but it means I'd be taking the necessary steps to start putting my name on the plate of potentials around the district so other managers know who is who in the district. At the time, I told her that, as much as I'm honored that I could even do such a thing, that my main focus in life is to finish school. But as I look at this looming possibility of not transferring next year, I can't help but consider taking it. Here is my catch-22 though; If I take a job as an ASM, assuming one comes up, this means I work a guaranteed 40-hour work week, with a range of shifts primarily as a mid-shift (9-5). There goes my options of going to school, whenever that may be. On the other hand, I could just stay a shift and while my life away doing the same thing as I do now, hating every minute of....like I do now. The other option is to find a better job. By now, I would hope that I'm qualified for a 9-5 job that I could not necessarily enjoy, but just do. But once again, there goes my chance of finishing school. Which once again, leaves Starbucks as my only option. But Starbucks is a joke. It's not a career, its a "bottom of the foodchain" job. As one of my co-workers said yesterday, "Instead of flipping burgers, we pull shots." Which is so true. And I'm nothing as long as I work at Starbucks. But who knows, things may turn around and Fresno or Sacramento may end up accepting transfer applicants and I may get to finally have my college education. This is the part where I have to turn it over to God, something I'm not good at. I like "being in control" because I know that I can decide how things turn out. But who am I kidding, we are never in control. God always is. But he desires for us to trust him with it regardless. In all circumstances. Which as a human, I seriously suck at.

What if God says no again?

It has occurred to me over and over through the years that God tends to say no in order to create new opportunities. To be completely honest, I have yet to see the opportunities, and have never really reacted the correct way I knew I was supposed to; I've always acted the way I thought would make the disappointment go away. In the end, there is only a handful of decisions I've made in the last five years that I haven't regretted. In the last few months, I've found a lot of direction to what I am supposed to do, or, at least what I think I'm supposed to do. After being a shift supervisor for a year now, I couldn't hate my job any more. Don't get me wrong, I love what I do, but I hate my job. I started looking into what it would take for me to do what I've wanted to do since I was a child; studying volcanology. Since I was eight years old, I've been slightly obsessed with volcanoes. No reason why, I just have. So I started looking at schools, majors, and timeframes. There are plenty of schools that offer a geology degree, and there are plenty of opportunities to consider. I bunkered down and did what I do best; I made a plan, and I've been sticking to it. Then this last week, it hit me; what if God says no again? What if I apply to Fresno State, and once again, they are closed to transfers? That means yet another year added to my plan, another year not doing what I wanted to do, and another year working at a job that offers no rewards, no future, and no respect. What am I going to do?? To be completely honest, I have no idea what I'm going to do. I do, however, know how I'm going to react. I'm going to trust God that he has a better plan that will hopefully come out sooner than later. I'm going to react in the way no one expects me to, because no one has ever seen me react the way I am supposed to.

Inspiration From Above

I just finished a book study at my church called Sun Stand Still. The book was mainly about having faith to fulfill your wildest God-sent dream, otherwise known as a "Page 23 Vision" or a "Sun Stand Still prayer." At the beginning of the book, I was a having a very hard time finding anything that was even remotely close to what this could mean. I haven't been very straight and narrow the last year, so why should I think God doesn't want to start form square one with me again? It would take a lot more faith than what I had to do anything as great as Steven talked about in the book.

But that's where I was wrong. A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to a friend after the study and we started talking. I was telling her about something I used to do, something that was my way of serving our local mission field. I've always been passionate about local missions, serving the local community, and helping those who are around us every day, whether we know them or not. I started telling her about an abandoned project I had once, and told her I had to let the vision die because no one had wanted to be part of it. To my utmost surprise, she showed a ton of interest! She got instantly excited about it, and told me that she had been wanting to learn how to do this, and that she would love to learn as soon as she and I were both done with this semester so we would have time. Of course I was excited, and to my surprise again, another one of our friends heard us talking about it and showed her interest as well! I couldn't believe it, but I figured it would just be a casual thing and we would learn and that would be that. But then my friend started sending me texts about how she couldn't wait to do this thing once we had time!

This small interaction between us got me thinking though; what if this is my Page 23 vision? I had this vision four years ago, but it never went anywhere permanently. But I felt so incredibly called to it back then, and I still feel called to it, so why not start trying to do it again?

So that leads me to tonight. Over the past week, I've been praying about it and looking to God for the answers, and I think my Page 23 vision is this: To start Bundles of Hope again. For those of you who don't know what that is, well, go to the site and read about it! In a nutshell, I learned how to knit hats on a loom about 5 years ago. Over the next year, I began to see that I could in fact use this skill as a tool to serve God. One fateful night, I happened to mention this to my friend, and she immediately turned around and introduced me to the person who would help me make my vision a reality. Over the next couple of months, friends of mine from my church and a few other people here and there made over 380 hats to give to the homeless and less fortunate. About a year ago, I had to give up on it. No one wanted to participate really, and in reality, I was neither in spirit or had the time to head it up anymore.

I still feel the calling to pursue this as strongly as I did four years ago when I started this. I don't know what will happen, who will join, or how many people we will reach. But I do know that, for now, this is my Page 23 vision; to continue Bundles of Hope and have total faith in God that he will bless it and prosper it if he so chooses.

If you want to check it out, the website is: bundlesofhope.blogspot.com