Purposeless? I think not.

I had a minor pity party for myself this morning. I would like to talk to you about it.

This is The Dream Team.

We spent last summer in Lebanon together. I love these people a lot, a lot, a lot. They pray for me and hold me accountable more so than anyone else in my life.

Today I learned that Nasry is going to STINT in Lebanon this coming year. As excited I am for him, it kind of struck a nerve with me... What am I doing with my life?

Jonathan and Miranda just had twins and are settling into a new life in the States. Drew is marrying Greyson and joining staff full-time. Ashlee is working her way to move to Argentina for 3-5 years. Jordan is waiting for graduate school to figure itself out. Kim is heading back to Lebanon for 3-5 years and Nasry is going for at least a year. Ashley is looking for jobs in DC and is in a serious relationship with Marcus. Todd and Erin are getting married and hopefully moving to California so Todd can go to seminary. Dylan is getting married to Christina and finishing up school at UNC-W.

But where does that leave me?

I've been wrestling with the idea of not having a plan. My Type A personality is absolutely freaking out about not knowing where my life is going. There's lots of ideas (ie, loving orphans in Uganda, teaching English in Central or South America, getting a teaching job here, moving to Knoxville, writing a book), but no plan. I have a job lined up for this summer and there's a chance they might would want to keep me on post-summer, but who knows?

My sweet friend Haley asked me the other day what my plans were long-term. Most of my plans include the next two or three years, tops, but she wanted past that. Somewhere along the way I want to be a mom. Correction, I will be a mom. Be it a foster mom, or adoptive mom, or the Lord sees fit to torchure some man into being chained to me for the rest of his life and I am blessed with offspring...being a mom is in the picture.

I meant every word of that statement, but I retracted it a few moments later.

"I want to love," I said. "Love. That is my long-term goal. I don't know what it will look like...whether I love my students, or I love my children, or I write a book and love girls through words, or maybe I just move in Mattie and Lauren's basement and be Crazy Aunt Reba, I don't know. I'm just gonna love."

So love isn't a path. But at least it gives me purpose.

I went to Jimmy John's for lunch today and as I was sitting there eating my sub and doing my devotional for the day, it hit me.


Being aimless is not the same thing as being purposeless.


I've lived life without a purpose before. It sucked.

I have an end goal. I don't know what the path will look like to get there, but I know where I want to end up.

Love is the greatest thing that one can do with one's life. Loving without shame or fear or reservations is a feat to be acknowledged and praised. Few have truly done it. My girls' Bible Study this week is on loving beyond reason. In her book, Strong Women Soft Hearts, Paula Rinehart talks about how love can be used to destroy, but that isn't true love. True love does just the opposite.

"Love anything, C. S. Lewis said, and your heart will surely be wrung. You would think that usch bending and stretching--such suffering-- would do you in, like an ice pick that chipped away until nothing was left. But risky love works by an inverse principle. Our hearts become larger in the process. The more we love, the more we are able to love. We are not depleted, but strangely replenished. Set free. Given more. As the psalmist says, 'I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart.'" (148)

I have lost love in the romantic sense. I have lost love in the friendship sense. I have lost love in the familial sense. However, I have gained everything through love in the agape sense.

Mrs. Rinehart also tells the story of a friend whose husband passed away from cancer. She writes about how her friend could have easily pulled away from the marriage emotionally when he was diagnosed to save herself more grief and pain later. But her friend didn't do that, her friend dove into the marriage and loved with everything she had. After her husband had passed, Mrs. Rinehart's friend said, " I think that love breeds life, and although [my husband] is gone, the love we shared so enriched my life. without a doubt, it as worth it. I would do it all again." (143)

I have been hurt tremendously by lost love. Whether that loss was because the dear one drew their final breath, or because one of us moved away, or because we decided to go our separate ways. But for all of it, I would do it all again. Actually, I would probably love even harder than I did, than I do now, because I would know how precious each of those moments are.

I don't know where I'm going from here. But I do pray that I end up right where I want to be: so far in love that I can barely see straight.

Kind of like I am here...

So to all of you that may be asking me, "What are your plans for next year?" prepare yourself for the answer of: love.

"Not all those who wander are lost." J. R. R. Tolkien