Wonder-Full Joy

“So be truly glad!  There is wonderful joy ahead… You love him even though you have never seen him.  Though you do not see him now, your trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy.”

~ 1 PETER 1:6, 8

Thank you Lord!  Thank you for this day!  I am here because of you, I am living because of you, and I am free, all because of you.  Thank you Lord for spring, for new life and hope.  Thank you for the sun, for light in the world and joy.  Thank you for friends, for companionship and love.  Thank you Lord!

Spring is a time to be full of wonder, and full of joy.  It is a time to marvel at God’s creation blooming into life right alongside the Resurrection.  It is a time to burst forth in song and praise rejoicing in the light.

I noticed in a Bible study a couple years ago that throughout the Psalms, my Bible differs from others periodically with the use of the word happy instead of blessed.  “Happy are all who take refuge in him” (Psalm 2:11).  “Happy are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the way of the Lord.  Happy are those who keep his decrees, who seek him with their whole heart” (Psalm 119:1-2).  Happy brings on a whole new feeling when used instead of blessed.  Sure I can say that I am Blessed, and I am.  But changing that word out for Happy… and all of a sudden I can relate to it in a whole new way.

I am happy.  I am joyful.  I am full of life! I am blessed. 

I am filled with joy that is full of wonder, how glorious is that!

Unanswered Prayers

“Sometimes I thank God for unanswered prayers.

Remember when you’re talkin’ to the man upstairs,

That just because he doesn’t answer doesn’t mean he don’t care.

Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.”

~Garth Brooks

I, like most people here, like to plan out what I’m going to do with my life.  I plan when I’m going to take classes, and when I’m going to be on CO-OP.  I plan what classes I’m going to take, and where I’m going to be on CO-OP.  I plan when I’ll be studying abroad and where I’ll be living when I’m in Boston.  I don’t try to plan after graduation, because frankly I have no idea what I’ll do/where I’ll be, so I’ll just worry about that when the time comes. 

My plan was to take two years of classes at Northeastern and then go on CO-OP back home.  My time spent in Boston in 2011 pretty much consisted of homesick me wishing to be back safely nestled in the valley beneath the towering peaks of the Chugach Range.  I longed for Alaska. 

I had it all worked out.  In January 2012 I began searching for a job in Alaska and came up with three very real possibilities.  One in particular I had in the bag.  I would be working on the Arctic Coastal Plain studying how climate change is affecting the streams and riparian zones and how that in turn was affecting the diets of shorebirds.  Cool right!?  I was so excited.  I would be based at UAF, would take a helicopter to the work sites and stay for two to three weeks, and then would come back to UAF to analyze the data in the lab before heading out again. 

Judging by my past tense, and the title of this blog, I’m sure you’ve figured it out already that this is not going to happen. 

Around the time that my dream of returning to Alaska was coming true, I began to really enjoy my time here.  I began to realize that I was actually going to miss people and events that I wanted to be a part of.  I became fully plugged in to Science Club for Girls and Lutheran Episcopal Campus Ministries and wanted to continue to see the clubs grow next semester.  More importantly, I really wanted to be a part of that growth.  And I was leaving.  Was.

The funding for the UAF job dropped, I didn’t get the REU position at UAA, or the intern position at the Alaska Sea Life Center.  I am staying in Boston.

So I began to apply for jobs here.  My resume was sent out to 15 or so companies and I began the waiting game.  I was called for one interview.  I realized how competitive this position was and how slim my chances were as only a sophomore with absolutely zero experience.  I was so surprised when I was called for a second interview. 

That second interview took place at the facility I would be potentially working at.  It was incredible.  State of the art equipment and a jovial staff made me realize just how much I wanted this job.  It’s real.  Real scientists working in a real lab discovering real treatments for drugs like MS and cancer. 

[Insert shriek of excitement here!!!]

Yesterday I received a phone a call offering me the position.  Today I received the official offer package, and Monday I will accept the offer. 

I will be working on the Protein and Cell Sciences team at EMD Serono, purifying and analyzing antibodies to be used in the development of treatments for cancer and other diseases.  And I am so beyond excited.

My plan did not work.  God was not there to answer my prayers.  Yet he did.  He answered them in a better way than I could have ever hoped for.

I fly back to Alaska on May 7^th.  I will be home for 20 days visiting family and celebrating my brother’s graduation.  Then on May 27^th I will go to camp.  I will work at camp until July 7^th and then return to Boston.  Then on July 9^th I start my job at EMD Serono.

Camp is probably the best thing that ever happened to life, and I get to be a part of it again this summer.  If I had gotten the job in Alaska I would not have been able to be a counselor this summer.  As it is, I get some time at home, then get over a month at camp, then get to come back to Boston and live with my friends and work at an amazing company and help LECM and SCFG grow. 

Thank you God, for unanswered prayers.

Sometime in middle school the pastor at my church gave a sermon, “God has three answers.”  That sermon stuck with me for some reason, and all too often I see it reflected in my life. 

God has three answers:

1) Yes

2) Wait

3) I have a better way

God doesn’t say no.  God never says no.  God answers all prayers.

God answers all prayers, but not necessarily in the way that you think they should be answered.  Sometimes I am blinded to God’s plan and try to work out my plan for myself.  Then God steps in, and works everything out in a way I had never even imagined.  Some of God’s greatest gifts truly are, unanswered prayers.  

Fail

Twice in the last week I’ve been challenged with the task of failure.  Not like fail this week, but fail soon, say, before I graduate.  And I realized how difficult this would be for me to do.  I don’t say that to sound arrogant or boastful, I say that because I am so comfortably nestled in the blanket of what I can do, that it is doubtful I will unintentionally find myself exposed in the realm of what is beyond my capabilities, that being, failure.  This has caused me to take a step back and really examine why I choose to do what I do, and more importantly, what I avoid doing.

When the first person told me to fail* I got so excited about it.  I thought YES!  I need to fail!  This will be so good for me!  So I tried to make a list of things that I can fail at, and found myself stuck before I even got started.  I couldn’t think of a single thing to do that I could go out and fail.

I have two hypotheses for the reason of my predicament.

1) I am an extremely positive person and I have spent so long convincing myself that I can do anything that I truly believe that now.

2) I am comfortable in my box and am so scared to take a step out that I have blocked all things I could possibly fail at and written them off as impossible and they don’t even enter into my head as ideas anymore.

In regards to the first guess, I would like to believe that this is whole-heartedly true, and while it probably does have some bearing on my position, I do not think that it is entirely accurate.  I do believe I can do just about anything.  I knew I could run a marathon in under four hours before I did it, I knew I could succeed in college before I was even accepted, and I know I will be happy in life**.  Why is this? 

There are definitely things that I cannot do.  But I say that not necessarily because I don’t think that I can do them, but because I don’t want to do them.  Really my decisions come down to what interests me and what doesn’t, and I rarely consider my ability to complete the task.  Or so I say…

Could possibility two be true?  Do I immediately write things off as too difficult or too far-fetched to pursue them even when my interests would be most satisfied?  It is difficult for me to think back to those times and analyze my thoughts and reasoning behind my decisions, and it is something that I will challenge myself to pay more attention to in the future.

I think my problem in finding failure probably lies somewhere in between my two hypotheses.  I have random ideas of taking off and doing something amazing.  Traveling the world working odd jobs, and not being tied down by work or family.  Part of me wants to discard the expected go to school, graduate, get a job mentality and just be free.  And then the realistic side of me kicks in and reminds me why I am where I am.  But is that side really more valuable than the first?  Or is it my subconscious scaring me back to what is comfortable, and preventing me from taking risks with the possibility of failure***. 

I think my biggest mistake in searching for failure was the verb.  I went out searching, trying to find some way to fail.  Who does that!?  No one wakes up in the morning and says “Today I am going to fail!****”  Failure happens while searching for success.  It is when that success is not attained that the label “failure” is placed.  In one twisted view if I were to go out searching for a way to fail and found it, I succeeded.

And on that note, I’m signing off.  To fail, or not to fail, that is the question.

*A professor on a Women’s Panel I went to last week

**Again, not to be arrogant sounding, but I believe if I go into the future expecting to be happy, those expectations are more likely than not to be met.  This could be a reflection of a life lived with relatively few tragedies thus far, and therefore is just an indication of my naivety, however I believe it is something more than that.  I believe that (barring some circumstances) I choose my happiness.  Sure, some days will be better than others, and some events will occur that severely dampen this outlook for periods of time, but overall, life is what you make of it.

***Oh man!  Mind just blown!

****Unless it is the morning of an Orgo test, in which case you might fail, but the exclamation point would either be missing or indicating sheer terror instead of elation.