Predicting my life...10 years from now...

I have been thinking a lot about my future and unsure of where I am going and what it is going to look like. People always talk about they just end up at a place, no idea of where they are going. But they never share, really share where there life might have taken them. I want to take some time and explore where my life will be, realistically be in 10 years--when I'm almost 40.
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I can't decide on one single track, there are too many variables and things that can get in the way of that. So I am going to explore a few different variables that could bring me to a place of my future.
Are you ready for this? I think it's going to be fun!

There are a few things that I don't know what to do with-- My boss keeps telling me that he wants the first opportunity to renegotiate if I ever decide to leave camp-- meaning that I will have a hard time leaving. The Lord told me that Skip is who I am going to marry, meaning that I think that will come into my life and I truly hope that happens in the next ten years. But if it doesn't, I hope that has no negative effect on my relationship with the Lord.
Are you ready for this? I think it's going to be fun!

Possible Future #1
That in the next year or two I will end up in a city like Portland Maine, with a rich downtown, a business job that I work in a office Monday-Friday and spend lots of time at coffee shops, port/river walking trails, and have a rich hipster life. I will own cute boots and scarfs and wear them often. I will be skinny with my downtown lifestyle. Then after a year or two of being here, I will get a phone call from Skip, He somehow made it into town and we meet and catch-up at a coffee shop I am a regular at. Things move fast, within 3 months we are engaged. Deciding where to live and what to do with our lives. We have a cute wedding that is sadly way smaller than I ever wanted. We hang around in our downtown Portland lives for a year, Skip traveling some but mostly in town. A door opens up to move to a port city overseas, and we do so as missionaries. We are involved in planting a church, traveling some within the area, but mostly enriched in our new land. No kids of our own, but have some native teens join our household in our overseas house.

Possible Future #2
I make my way back to Minnesota and work at a camp there, completely in love with my job, seasons that they have and spend all of my free time with my family, cousin's mainly. Skip starts to pursue me, it seems impossible but it happens completely by God's grace, we end up getting engaged the first time that we see each other in person. We then move overseas, its so hard, yet so perfectly incredible. Skip travels all the time, I am able to go sometimes as well. I don't really know what I would do for a job, but something that was administrative and people oriented. Hopefully completely mainstream.

Possible Future #3
To stay and do what I am doing right now, working with retreats at camp, living in a house with other single girls feeling a little lost but on track all at the same time. Trying to avoid the conversation with people why I am not dating yet, want to be married as much as I can. Then one day that starts out like any other I get an out of the blue proposal from Skip-- no conversation before hand, nothing to indicate that today was going to be different than any other. I of course would say "Yes" without a drop of doubt within me, and I would finally be able to share my story, to share how God told me that he was to be mine all those years ago. Our relationship would be very open, there would be all of these quirky situations around it, but soon Skip and I would be able to get married. Maybe here, maybe in our homelands, none of the places seem right, but we would have lots of people fly in and share our wedding with us. We would then have camp be our home base. I would continue to work and be here, Skip would commute and go share the stories of people around the world, but come home and put them all together here, at our camp house. After a few years, Skip would be okay in always being in America and be at camp always, perhaps in media, or another area.  We would become a speaking team and travel with that, share at conferences what God is doing and shaping our lives.
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Oh man, there are so many other things that could happen, I keep thinking about the really sad scenarios-- Skip marries someone else, nothing happens with my life--I don't change at all, parents die, I get in a serious car accident. I make a bad move and end up unemployed at my parents house.

All of these things are possible, but I truly don't see them actually happening, when I think and dream about my future most of the things I think or see are one of these 3 "possible future" or a mash-up of a few of them. Hopefully what ever it might actually come out to be, it will be the perfect way for me to serve the Lord with my life.

When "everyone" is getting married...

When you are single and over the age of 20, you have a pretty consistent feeling that everyone is always getting married, and you are very aware that you are not. But every once in a while it intensify's and "EVERYONE IS GETTING MARRIED" seems unbearably true.

It never is true. Most people are already married :) and no matter what, there is always a crew that is unmarried with you.

Last night and this morning I had a "EVERYONE IS GETTING MARRIED" moment. No one that I was close to was actually getting married, it was all friends of friends. But I still felt left out, behind.

I worry about my life. I am isolated on top of this mountain. Will I even have any friends to invite to a wedding when I get married? Do I need to change my life style? Does that even matter? What am I to do with my life? Am I going in the right direction?

I had a coming to Jesus conversation with Jesus today. Our relationship isn't right, I don't pursue or seek after the Lord in the way that allows me to have a real intimate relationship with him. We are more just surface friends. I hate that SO MUCH.

I want to be real with God, I want my life to be all about Him and our relationship and being obedient to what He says.

About 3.5 years ago, I had a dream camp that I was  hoping to work at. It was somewhat close to my hometown (2 hours away) was a big place with big potential and operates in a cool way. It didn't work out (I dropped out of the application process before I was rejected, but I really don't think that I would have gotten the job) And they have an opening as a office manager right now..

My heart is torn if I even want to look deeper into this job. All their staff lives offsite, meaning I would have to drive into work each day (most likely a 20 minute commute each way) and I would be working with the person who has the job I love, instead of doing the job I love.
But, this job would be at an incredible job, near family and my homeland. I would feel so much safer being so close to family here and it would be in my comfort zone.

As I write, I am confident that is not the route I should go. It does have it's appeal but deep inside I know it's not the right thing for me to do right now. That instead,I should stay where I am at, and do what I am doing here.

In the middle of writing that last paragraph, my roommate came out to the patio and we watched today's sermon from our church. It was about having our life, not about us, but about the Lord and serving Him and those around us before ourselves.

I stink at that. But, it confirmed some things for me. I don't need to leave-- because it would only make ME happy. I don't need to feel a need to be getting married, because marriage right now is only about ME.

Instead, I need to do what the Lord leads and stay intoned to that. I need to serve Him instead of thinking of myself.

Submit and love

I am reading "Love-ology" by John Mark. I am in a chapter about gender roles and looking into the passage that says:
"Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the Church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything" Ephesians 5:22 NIV

John Mark goes on to define "submit" here's what he says,
"This word submit is hypotasso in Greek. and it can be translated "respect" "yield" "defer" or "put another's good ahead of your own" It does not mean "do what you are told" It means" give your own feelings, desires and trust over to another".... (page 189)

I love this definition of submit. It makes me think about the word used in other lights outside of marriage, we submit articles to the paper. We have freedom to make our voice be known, but it isn't saying that our voice is the direction that we are going.

This brings me  great comfort. I love this it makes me want to be married so I can give honor to this command.

It's funny, John Mark goes on to say that this relationship is for within marriage, that not all women are to submit to all men nor are all men to love all women as described in the next lines of this passage. But I am able to understand this type of relationship with how my boss and I operate on the job.

I submit to him ALL the time, and it is really really the best. When I am upset, hurt, or angry at something or someone at work. I often am sought out by my boss and am asked if I am okay, we have been at this long enough that I normally no longer lie and say " I'm fine" but tell him what is going on, "My co-worker said this to me... I saw this going on and it hurts me this way" etc. and he listens and he cares. I give him all of my feelings, and I trust them all to him. And normally he fixes my problems for me. Sometimes he doesn't, but I know that the situation is in his hands and he will act on it in a way with the Lord's guidelines and his selfless leadership way. --Or he will empower me to go and make things right and guide me on how to do that (my least favorite answer, I love it when others fix my problems for me)

I know that a work relationship is SO different than a marriage. But I wonder how much better will my marriage be that I have experience a boss that loves and cares for his people that he seeks them out and makes sure their voice is heard and I can trust him with my thoughts.

I also have learned that submitting my heart about this ministry and place that I love to my boss makes me feel SO SAFE. Its a kind of "being cared for" that can only come from the Bible. It means so much more to me than any compliment, and makes me want to serve here with everything that I have.

I can see how submitting into marriage that is responded in love makes for an amazing marriage. I can see how that makes you feel united. Because it effects the deepness of you. It may be hard. Your husband may not have the same deep love for you and hurt you when you submit. Giving each other love and submitting to your husband is a gift you give each other. You cannot demand it and be given it from your spouse. You just have to freely give what you have and hope they give it back to you.

John Mark goes on, and addresses all the women reading his book who are freaking out about what he just said. And that makes me sad that a response to something so beautiful so magical would be feeling of anger or being upset. --If it is done wrong is is upsetting. There are many people who I would not submit to, but with the right heart, it can be the best God-Centered thing out there.

I am so excited to submit to Skip and have him know me and my thoughts and trust that he will lead our relationship.

I love knowing that we are to have a relationship with the Lord where we submit to Him, I love that we are commanded to give me our feelings, desires and trust him to lead us with those and our entire lives.