What Ever Happened To

Thanksgiving?

Christmas lights started popping up the first week of November--right after the Halloween decor came down.

Go online, and see how often Thanksgiving is mentioned--despite the fact that it's only two days away. What has dominated headlines for the past two weeks? Black Friday.

It's not that Thanksgiving really has been eaten up by Christmas [or whatever the PC term is these days]. Culturally, they're both gone, overwhelmed by the festive season of Me-mas.

Senior

I'm at another crossroads in life. When I was a senior in high school I somehow thought that if I could just decide on what to study (and where), life would unfold from there.

I'm a senior again. I feel like I'm a senior in high school again--minus the idea that future decisions will be obvious if I can only get this one right. What will I do next? The past four years of my life were more-or-less mapped out... freshman classes... sophomore classes... junior classes... senior classes. Oh, and mix in a couple of co-op job decisions that helped blow my life-choices-will-become-obvious theory out of the water. But, bottom line: four years ago I could've anticipating being where am now, doing what I'm doing now.

Twelve months from now... only God knows. Maybe I'll be working full-time. Maybe I'll be a full-time graduate student here at UA. Maybe I'll be a graduate student out of state. Maybe... maybe...

This is an interesting place to be. Surely, none of us knows for sure where we'll be in a year, a week, a day, an hour. God holds the future in His hands.

Yet while we can't guarantee tomorrow, much of life has an element of, "Unless something unexpected happens..." Right now, though, I don't have an expected. Interesting. Very Interesting.

It's exciting too--a good opportunity to learn functional theology: God's sovereignty and man's responsibility. I trust in the wisdom of God, not my own. At the same time, I'm doing job interviews, working on graduate school applications*, and talking with older and wiser people who have faced similar decisions in their own lives.

So where am I? Where will I be?

I think and wonder about where I'll be a year from now.

I think with wonder about where I'll be a thousand years from now.

* [An aside: is there anyone who can honestly say that they enjoy--or even don't mind--the application process? I told myself that I wouldn't let this drag out or hang over my head as my undergraduate applications did. Not easy. Complicating matters, the process for each application needs explained... but then parts get overexplained. (So I send my letters of recommendation to... ?)]