Extraordinary

Tonight I find myself on the futon, sitting next to my beloved roomie, reminiscing on life and its weirdness. I stumbled across an email I wrote someone last year and found that it still spoke to me. Maybe it will speak to you too.

Dear Blankety-Blank-Blank,

So, it didn't even dawn on me that I'd like to share this with you tonight at y'all's killer party, but since this was something we had talked about a while ago now, I thought I'd update you.

So, I have cried almost everyday this semester so far. Don't feel bad for me because really this is a good story. Last year, as I recall telling, I began praying a really, really stupid prayer, that God would make my life extraordinary. Now, when I was a junior in high school, I prayed an even stupider prayer, asking God to test me. Well, God tested me. God stripped my life away my senior year, and then my freshman and sophomore years of college, God put me in the fire. As He promised, He was with me and He grew me. It was hardest time of my life. I've never felt so much pain before, but now, on the other side, I rejoice and I give thanks for what He is doing.

It occurred to me today that God is taking me up on my prayer from last year, which is just like God. When I started praying this Extraordinary prayer last year, it was about that time that I began to have my doubts about the School of Education. Finally, by the end of the year, I knew that that path was not the one God intended for me. This year, I think I am now moving in sync with my passions and my skills and my desires, things that have only until recently been unearthed. Turns out I don't even really know who I am or what I want. One thing I know is true is that God is a God who answers prayers. Just like in high school, God is now taking my life, by my request granted, and is leading me down a path that is scary and wild and extraordinary. It hurts tremendously right now, fighting against myself, against my Type-A personality, against every plan I had in my head a year ago, but I'm fighting to hold to the dream that God could take me farther than I'd ever thought imaginable.

I see God at work around me. I see God give grace and courage and love and justice in a world that is broken and dying. But it's almost shocking to see God at work inside of me. To think that God would be working in me, a broken soul that's missing pieces to a puzzled heart, is irrational because I assume I am broken beyond repair. I am scared and I tremble before a Holy and Awesome God, that One who Is and Was and Is To Be. And all of this is here in me, and in you.

To pray for the extraordinary is to pray a dangerous thing. But God is not calling us to be safe. He is calling us to be wise, but in wisdom, to be fearless. I cry because the ordinary, which is safe and familiar, is once again gone. And I remember, like a dream or like that deja vu that just hits you, that I am a Daughter of Heaven. And I'm free-falling into the arms of a good Father who has called me to a life that has just as much biggness and beauty as a storm in the desert.

God answers prayer. This has been proven.
Why He answers them? This still eludes me, but until then, I will give the only answer I have: For His Glory.

I just rambled there. And I rambled A LOT. I'm not going to edit it, though, but rather I'm going to save me a copy of it so I remember having sat here, reflecting on the ways of the King. I hope that this is an encouragement to you, and that you find your prayers answered too.

With much love and peace,
Kat