What could have been..

This feels like a deep topic for a first post but here it goes..

Yesterday I was taking my sister to Stillwater to get a free eye exam at Special Olympics and getting off at the exit I started to think back to the last days of high school and the plans to go to Oklahoma State with Virgil and Jason. I was taking courses at OSU-OKC for a semester, then worked for a semester, all the while having high hopes of making it in to OSU to major in Aviation an be a pilot like I have dreamed about since birth. I was so excited that all this was panning out and that I would be able to exercise my renewed spirit to serve the Lord. During the spring semester of 06 we all began visiting the campus and setting up housing arrangements, but OSU wouldn't accept me. I don't know why. My high school GPA was ok, my ACT was decent, and I was confident. But I couldn't even make it into the pre-college they have up there. I was devastated. I had no idea what to do for school, much less what to do with my life. I began looking around and nothing was of interest to me. I started looking at OBU and still wasn't that thrilled. I wanted to be a pilot, that's it. OBU has cross-cultural work degrees so I talked myself into applying and settling for that. I wasn't very optimistic because if I had been rejected by a public school, why would a private school take me? Well, for reasons still unknown to me, I was accepted and started here in the Fall of 06.

Being at OBU kinda rocked my world. I had never had to work this hard to get a grade in my life. High school was too easy for me, thus when I got here I had no work ethic. My grades were bad and I struggled to hang on for a couple years. In that time though I have met some amazing people who are now incredible friends. I was also able to finally leave the US and venture to India to serve the Lord on short term trips. Things were so incredible, yet I was struggling with keeping up in school. And on top of that my family couldn't afford to keep me here. So in the Fall of 08 I sat out a semester. It was probably the hardest, most gut-wrenching thing I have had to do in my life, but looking back on it I cannot be thankful enough that the Lord pulled me out of the game and taught me what it means and takes to become a better student and a better person.

I was able to return in the Spring of 09 and settled on a new major: Interdisciplinary in Cross-Cultural Ministry, Anthropology, and Worship Arts. It's going to take some extra time (more than I would like, actually) to get it done, but I love what I'm studying and I know it will be worth it.

Last Fall I had the opportunity to live in South East Asia for four months. Oh my goodness, what a life changing experience that was! I was really able to break out of any comfort zone I had remaining and really just get used to meeting new people from all over the world and doing whatever it takes to build eternal relationships. That semester set me back even further, but I wouldn't have traded it for anything.

Now I am back at OBU fighting to make the grades (which I have done this semester, PTL!!) and just keep going wherever life takes me. It makes me stop to think what could have been. When I was in Stillwater that alternate universe was playing out in my mind. Different friends, different life-goals, probably wouldn't have left the country, may have turned away from my walk with Christ... It kinda scared me for a minute. And it made me so thankful that through all my failures and upset plans, the Most High God is always in control. He doesn't just step in when things are bad, or when we send out a signal of distress. He is ALWAYS present in our lives working for the good. As I think about all the people who have come in and out of my life I can't be thankful enough for them and this hard path the Lord has brought me down. He is faithful in all He does and I don't deserve any of it. Why He chose to call me out and be His..I will never know. But I am eternally grateful. "What could have been" is of the devil. "What is going to be" is a promise from the Lord.



¹Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ²through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. ³Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; ⁴perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. ⁶You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. ⁸But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. ⁹Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! ¹⁰For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! ¹¹Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. Romans 5:1-11