Hello Gap Year!

"Hey Jessi! C'm'ere!" The youth pastor calls me over and introduces me to the blond twenty-something he's speaking to. "He goes to Moody."

Ah, Moody Bible Institute. The place I hope to be someday soon. Intrigued, I ask all the questions I can think of, and he answers, every sentence glowing with the love he feels for the school and the certainty of God's place for Him there. I envy him. And then he says this:

"You know, if you applied this year, you'd probably get in. They're down six-hundred applicants for this year, and next year."

I want to scream, "I did apply! And I didn't get accepted!" Instead of screaming, I inform him calmly, and he ponders, confused like I am.

As frustrating as his words are, there's something confirming about them. Like maybe God actually did it on purpose, actually has a good plan for every season of my life. Fancy that.

It's funny how often we forget what we say we believe.

If I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times, that coffee mug verse, Jeremiah 29:11--"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." (NIV)

He loves me. He's out to prosper me, to give me hope. He knows what He's doing.

Even when I don't.

This gap year, this span of time that now seems floundering and ambiguous--it's not an accident. It's not a lack of guidance, or self-knowledge. I don't need to find myself, or a better plan. He's got the plan. Who knows how much this could impact the rest of my life? How many events hinge on this one year?

Mostly, I wrote this post to get words on a page for faithful readers, and to get the world to stop asking me about my plan. (I know, I know, I'm a real good person.) But if you're in the same boat, everything shifting and unclear, with nothing to hold onto except a God who says He's good, know this: He is Who He says He is, He loves you, and--I've seen it over and over again--He knows the plan.

So hello gap year! Here we come!