Railroaded.

"Maybe it's time to change...And leave it all behind! I've never been one to walk alone, I've always been scared to try. So why does it feel so wrong, to reach for something more...to wanna live a better life? What am I waiting for? 'Cause nothing stays the same. Maybe it's time to change."

I feel like many of the changes and choices I've made in the past year and a half were not my own. My career has never been my primary concern in life (perhaps a fault) but yet, in the past year and a half I've completely changed my career path, and made it a reality...almost effortlessly. I applied to a competitive program late and got in...two years later, I'm going to graduate. I passed both my major exams to become a counselor, with barely any effort. I've been getting congratulated on passing them, but honestly...I barely studied. How did I succeed?

Yet, the things I've put the most effort into the last six years have been mostly unsuccessful. The things I chose for myself, the things I wanted most were always out of reach. My career was always something off in the corner...a necessary burden. But yet, I've succeeded in that effortlessly.

It feels like a path has been chosen for me. Sometimes I wonder how I ended up where I am. It seems like just yesterday, I planned to ask my girlfriend to marry me within months, find a job in English, and keep in touch with all my friends...two and a half years later, I don't have any plans at all, but it looks like somehow I'm going to go off alone to a distant city to be a counselor with no plans to date anyone ever again. I could have never planned this. In fact, I didn't. This wasn't the plan at all, and I have done barely anything at all to push it this way. Quite the opposite. I've fought it every step of the way, laying down my own plans...good plans. I was very methodical, very intentional in everything I did. Yet here I am.

I accept this, now. I don't like it, but I accept it. My good friends tell me I should like it. I agree, I wish I could. I wish I could want what God apparently wants to give to me. But I don't. I don't yet understand or know how to want something that I don't really want. I'm just not there.

There was a dream that I dreamed, a dream to unrail.

Seeing the Future.

I think every man gets at a point in his life (at least once) where he realizes that the choices he is making may lead him to either exhilarating happiness or anguish. I think I am at one of these points. However, I think either result is fine by me. Allow me to explain.

Should I continue along in my prayer and discernment of my vocation, there is a high likelihood that I will end up at a point where my future is contingent on someone else's decision rather than my own. It may be a few weeks, or even a few months from now. But no matter what, it is certain that either result would leave me in tears: of joy or grief.

If in joy, well, then that's obviously great. In grief, though, there is good in that, too. I don't think people understand how wonderful sadness can be. There is a different kind of joy in knowing that you've given something your all and it didn't turn out quite the way you expected - because as long as you've done the right thing, you know you will be happy again. And when the moment comes when you've shed all your tears...those are the best days. The days when you have hope again. That is a wonderful feeling.

I will look forward to this future...I can't predict anything but I can see that whatever happens, as long as I remain in Christ there will be joy again.

There was a dream I dreamed, a dream for great hope for the future.

My life in two words.

A miracle.

How can two people so right for one another find each other in the midst of millions? Not only that, but how many times along the way was I looking for something or someone else, never knowing that another hand was in the mix, turning my "missed opportunities" into "steps in the right direction"?

My girlfriend (yes, girlfriend now!) and I were watching the Notebook tonight. It is of course a great romance flick, but the whole thing isn't great - just parts of it make the movie. There is one part near the end that struck me...Allie as an old woman asks Noah "Do you think our love can create miracles?" The thing with this movie is that it always comes so close to getting true love right, and even makes it sometimes, but fails in areas like chastity or just doesn't go deep enough. So I said aloud, "I would take it one step further and say love is the source of ALL miracles." And it's true. I can't name all of the times in my life where I've asked God for something that would have caused me to miss out on what I have now.

The God who loves me knew what he was doing all along...

There was a dream that I dreamed, and that dream was that we could all recognize the miracle of our lives.

A life of irony.

Everything seems so far away in the middle of the night.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not talking about staying up late with friends or something like that. I'm talking about times like last night, where I got up in the middle of the night to do my scheduled holy hour. My church does a 23-hour adoration where people can sign up to take slots so that there are always at least two people with Jesus. Silly me, I signed up for the 3 AM slot. But there's something about it that's so strange. It's like a waking dream, where it's just you and your thoughts, and everything else...anxieties, plans, the future, the past...they all seem so far away. Then when you go back to sleep and wake up in the morning, everything is back to normal. Even though you were awake only a few hours before for a whole hour, it seems like it was ages ago...like a dream you had last week.

It's times like those, where everything is just like a dream, that I can really reflect. My reflections lately have come to the conclusion that my life is a giant string of ironies.

Sometimes I feel like I'm caught in a loop. Things in my life seem to happen over and over again, except slightly different, and sometimes at the same time of year. The funny thing about November is that ever since college started, and perhaps longer, it has been the month that some girl or other burned me. Or broke my heart, if you want to be melodramatic about it. So far though, it hasn't happened this month...well, at least not like it usually happens.

Even more ironic, though, is the fact that this time just a year ago, one of those heartbreaks transformed my life. It was the wake-up call I needed to begin pursuing a God-centered life again...to decide what I want from life, how I'm going to get it, and who is going to come with me. Now, the theme repeats itself. I am deciding almost the very same things right now...in fact, I may have already made my choice. Yet the choices are different...much more exciting. God has a sense of humor, in that the decisions I'm making now are the evolutions of the decisions I made a year ago. Instead of deciding how I'm going to follow Christ, I'm deciding what vocation I could BEST serve Christ in. Instead of deciding how I'm going to cope with the sadness I felt, I'm deciding how I'm going to channel the joy I feel. And instead of deciding what friends I'm going to take with me through my life, I'm deciding...well, I'll keep that a secret for now. :)

It just goes to show God has a sense of humor.

There was a dream that I dreamed, and that dream was that we could always be open to God's call.