Provision

I've been thinking a lot of the beginning of my freshman year at university lately. It makes sense, I guess, at the end and so remembering the beginning. The funny thing is though that this end and that beginning, well the seem and feel remarkably similar. Similar in a way that gives me goose bumps sometimes because it taps me on the shoulder, whispers in my ear, throws me body and soul up in the air and catches me that GOD IS.

Being. I am captivated by. Being as in the Being who is I AM. Being as in the fact that I be, that each of you be. And I use "be," shortened infinitive very much on purpose because I find sometimes to conjugate it diminishes its power, it becomes a statement of status quo, the way things are, rather than dynamically and terrifyingly alive and moving and at work. Being.

I met my room mate and one of my closest friends at the Open House weekend of my senior year in high school. We met and knew we wanted to live together. Through her, I found out about InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and joined a women's small which has been, from the beginning, foundational and formational both to my time at Georgetown and my faith journey. Also through my room mate, I met an amazing group of people, discovered Father King's 11:15 pm daily mass. I did not seek any of this, but rather it was given to me. I don't know why, but am so grateful that I was given the grace to receive such a gift.

Fast forward three and one half years to today. Beginning life after graduating is much more terrifying. (There it is. That fear thing again). Or at least, its the part I'm living now and having made it through first semester of freshman year, it seems much scarier. There is no road map after university. No expected course. You go to high school, college is the next step. After college there's grad school, AmeriCorps, Peace Corp, a job, something else entirely. The endless possibilities are daunting. I feel, again much like I did first semester of freshman year, that every choice will some how determine the course of my entire life. Which of course every action I take, each decision I make, is a step of the journey, and therefore, a step towards something, somewhere. But each step cannot hold the entire weight of the rest of my life. Process, it is process.

And so I remember the provision of the One who Is. I have a job that was offered completely unexpectedly with a wage better than what I had expected or would have asked for, on campus, with other people -- feeling provided for both economically as well as relieving a fear I have had of becoming isolated. I wish I could remember, be grateful, and give thanks and praise much more than I do. To live in awe wonder reverence love thanksgiving. But paso a paso.

This passage has been in my mind all week. Comforting and challenging all at once.

Matthew 6:25 - 34,

25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life[b]?

28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.