Post College Life

I am a recent college graduate. I have a feeling I can't say that much longer. While I graduated May 2011, May 2012 is coming up fast, when a whole new bunch of graduates will be taking over the title of "recent college grad". Makes me feel....old!

Where is this recent age epiphany coming from? Well, I just read my dear friend Anna Gesch's blog. She is a friend I have known literally forever, and is also a year younger than me. She just posted about being in her very last semester of college. We have had many talks about the future and she was one person I went to often last year when I was freaking out about life. Ahh, I remember it well!

Her post really got me thinking. Last year, I was graduating and didn't have 1. a job or 2. a fiance/husband, unlike what seems like the majority of my class.  I had no real plans for my life other than applying for tons of jobs. Everyone else seemed to have a plan, but I didn't. So I went home that summer, no job, no plan really at all. It ended up being one of the most amazing times of my life. I got to travel a bunch, spend lots of time with family and friends, help out at church, and really stop and take a break from the craziness that had been the past 4 years of my life.

The most amazing part of that time in my life was the patience and trust in the Lord I had to have. I am slightly OCD. I like to have things just so, to do things my way, and to have them go according to plan. This was something I couldn't even come close to controlling. It is one thing to say "yes, of course I trust God with everything" when your life is just humming along according to your plan. It is another thing to cling to God and trust when your plan is thrown out the window. I had to trust that God had something amazing in store for me. 

And He did have something amazing in store for me. I look back now and realize that the waiting was to force me to come back to trusting God fully, for everything. How amazing it is to be able to come through these situations able to look back and realize that God was doing it all for your own good! His plans are perfect, and while our lives are not perfect, we can trust that God will always do what is best.
 
"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11