Reflections on 25 years

"Still, there are times I am bewildered by each mile I have traveled, each meal I have eaten, each person I have known, each room in which I have slept. As ordinary as it all appears, there are times when it is beyond my imagination" Jhumpa Lahiri

Just thinking about what I have. What I've done, and what I want to do. Pretty amazing all of these things. More than I could have planned, and that's saying something - I plan every detail. But the details of life - can't be planned by us with such a small view of the picture. To look back and see that it was better than I could have imagined. Planned and purposed all along - to grow me and refine me and shape me into who I'm becoming. Not their yet, but moving forward.

Last night went to a friend's house to make these "Treasure Maps" - poster boards of things we see ourselves or want to see ourselves doing in the next day or week or lifetime. Not my idea - but what better way could there be to look at the quarter century mark?
We had quite a variety of magazines - Self and Glamour, National Geo, In style, Science, Shape, Cosmo, US News, and a few O&P magazines I brought along.
I found some great stuff. The 2 O&P magazines I randomly picked out from the pile that come every other week were both featuring O&P missions, bringing me to actual pictures of the students I met at the Cambodian school of O&P and the team which I hope to go to Ghana with next summer. I have a lot of pictures of various exotic beaches, including a surfer (my North Carolina endeavour?). I have a hottie and a lovely diamond ring along with a picture of a man and woman running with the quote "(Sound Mind) x (Sound Body) x two = Happily Ever After"
I have tons of great career stuff, even more than the abroad - "Creating a future prosthesis", "Meeting the Challenge for Your Patients" and a huge quote "Providing the very BEST O&P". I have a whole section on letting go - picture of some feet up, "Finds Calm: When life gets busy, what's urgent can overshadow what's truly important", "Hey, it's OK...", "Let your goodness blossom".
Lots of good stuff. Lots of things I hope to accomplish and be a part of. But - the center of my map is pretty much empty. Maybe it was my subject material, although as I mentioned, I thought we had quite a variety of magazines. I found only a 1" by 1/4" word - Christian - to represent the most important aspect of my life - living for God! Growing closer to Jesus! Loving Him and His people, fixing my eyes and mind on eternal matters, completely surrendering my hopes and dreams to follow His prompting. I know that He will lead me where my life can be most useful. I've seen already that this can look ridiculously different from how I think it should, how I plan for it to look. However, I've also seen that He always knows what He's doing. Some things He'll show me the purpose of later on in life, some I won't understand till I meet Him face to face. But I chose to follow and trust. I want to paste a huge cross over this whole poster because without that, none of this matters anyways.
and for people who make these maps hoping to direct their future (the power of positive thinking? Oprah?), my heart aches for them! God has much greater plans than can be thought up in our minds or cut out of a magazine! And that is the amazing thing.