Wind Slams Doors

Today I am on Sanibel Island, off the gulf coast of the sunshiney state of Florida. I am here on spring break with a handfull of some of my very favorite people. The weather is magnificant. Low 80's, the occasional afternoon rain shower. I've spent the last few days soaking up the warmth to the point of a slight sunburn. And for a girl who wouldn't exactly label herself as a "beach lover", I'd say this is a sweet little get-a-way. Though, I will say, I feel somewhat guilty being on a "break" from my Charleston life. It's not at all a tough one. My school load this semester is particularly light, the community God's placed me in there is a total blessing, I absolutely adore my job, and I feel as though I get more than adequate rest. Not to mention Charleston is lovely enough itself and I graze by more incredibly breathtaking scenery on my runs than most people could anyday. However, seeing that I am here, and God IS sovreign, I suppose I must assume that this is where I'm supposed to be and there is purpose in that.

SO today, while everyone else is having fun on the beach, I am setting myself up for my own fun. The perfect kind of fun for Katelyn Bridges. The fun that involves a beast of a back porch, a comfy cushioned sofa, sun tan toes propped up on a coffee table that hosts a cold glass of lime water, a playlist of my favorite piano instrumentals and a stillness in the Lord, His word, and who he says he is, met with a blank page, a blinking cursor, and anxious fingers. I am home. Despite the somewhat unfamiliar surroundings, I am home. Despite the absence of that sweet comfort I can always grasp in the embrace of those certain few, I am at home.

Earlier today, as I was inhabiting this very same seat, spending some time in conversation with God, I was startled by a loud door slam. Myself and one of my friends were the only ones in the house at the moment, so I assumed it was him. But when I turned around, he was walking out in the hallway with the same somewhat puzzled look on his face that I had. After a few seconds, we realized someone had left the front door standing wide open when they walked outside and the wind must have shut it. The slam echoed through house and the only thing that was more astonishing in that moment than the fact that the wind made such a noise, was the simple comment my friend spoke afterwards. "Hmm...Wind Slams Doors." The poet in me was jumping at the chance to scribble this among the sea of other mental notes of phrases I can't wait to mingle in harmony. However, the daughter of Christ in me, was craving some silence to think through how this could somehow be received as a word from the Lord.

I sought silence and got it. (If you are a college student, you'll understand when I say this is often a tricky thing.)  And in the silence the Lord reminded me of a time when he not only shut a door in my life, but he slammed it. Growing up, there was no doubt in my mind that I would one day be a Clemson Tiger. I went through several stages, the most unimaginable for me now was the years I spent dreaming of being a Clemson cheerleader. Then there was a Geneticist, a YoungLife leader, and the countless other snapshots of myself in orange that I always saw when I thought about my future. However, when time came around for college applications, my prayer was this, in variation. "God, I want to go to Clemson. I've always wanted to go to Clemson. I want to stick around the upstate, continue on working with middle schoolers at Fuse*, be emersed in the wonderful community of NewSpring Anderson, and be "just the right distance away from home to not be too comfortable." So if that's not your plan, if it's just mine, then you're going to have to decline my acceptance. Otherwise, I'm going." So when the time rolled around for us to get our acceptance letters, I was shocked to find I wasn't accepted.
Door=slammed.
Suprisingly, I wasn't too upset. The only slightly confusing aspect was the presence of a few "peep holes." Examples: the Bridge program (a year at a tech school, then I could transfer into Clemson in the fall semester of '11) and some connections my dad had with the engineering department that could've gotten me in fairly easily. But neither of which felt right. I was so humbled by the slam of the door that my family and I had spent 18 years building, that I fell to the floor in submission to God's plan. No pressing desire to look through the peep holes, just a forceful reminder that my plans, for lack of a better word, suck. So by June, I was meeting with other people who would be facilitating the launch of NewSpring's new campus, and by August I was packing up and almost-willingly moving my things to 8 Liberty St. Charleston, SC. During all of this time, I had peace in the Lord and His plan for my future, though to me it was and still is, so unknown.

So today, my question is why isn't decision making always made this simple? Why isn't the voice of God in my life ALWAYS loud enough to force me into submission, without doubt or question? Or is it that He is always speaking at the volume of a door slam, and i'm simply not always in a place where I'm willing to hear him?

Maybe his interest is in making our decisions simple and clear, but most of me, if not all of me, is thinking maybe he is less concerned with the actual decision itself, and far more concerned with my willingness to listen, and hear, and bend into submission at the echo of his voice.

Whether in a door slam, a punch in the gut, an owl on a bridge, or a whisper; the point is, I have His ears. I have the abilty to hear, discern and act, and the volume is somewhat irrelevant.