Set Adrift Far From Shore

When I was a little girl–about four, five, six–I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up.

Whenever my older sister exclaimed with deep determination that when she grew up she would be "a missionary and a mommy" I would crinkle up my little girl forehead and ask myself what I wanted to be when I grew up. I could say the same thing, because that was all I really knew, or I could just shrug and turn my childish mind to other "more important things" for the time being.

By the time I reached the age that it started to feel more important that I "know" what I was going to be when I grew up, I knew exactly what that was.... I was going to be a singer/songwriter.

I grew even older and my list grew to include not only being a singer, but also being a horse trainer, a hippo-therapist, a photographer, and on occasions I would get a little crazy and desire to be a runner, a gymnast, or a shepherdess.

Around the end of my elementary years singing dropped off the list and I added being a writer–something that I had always loved doing, but had never thought of myself as.

Middle school brought with it a deep, burning passion for acting and making films.

Everything else fell away.

I still loved horses and working with animals. I still really liked the idea of being a photographer and traveling the world to seek out all sorts of rare animal species to capture on film. But I "knew" my calling, and it was to go work in Hollywood and to write novels on the side for fun.

Since the age of twelve I have been headed in this direction. I have dreamed over and over and over what it would be like when I would finally get a chance to move out to LA and begin work in the industry that I loved and was passionate for.

It would be hard, but God would lead me and would open the right doors as I needed them.

And He has done just that very faithfully!

Fast forward to today.

Here I am...

In LA.

On my internship.

Looking for a job.

...

Trying to figure out where in the world I am headed.

I have two months of an office-type internship.

Then what?

I thought that I knew what I wanted.

I thought I knew exactly what direction I needed to keep my heading in.

Now that I'm out here, I don't know what that heading is. What it should be. I'm not sure that the exact direction that I have been aiming at–become an art director and write on the side–is what is right.

In the picture at the top of this blogpost you can see a ball of clay that I'm holding. I got this from the church that I visited this last Sunday. It was meant as a reminder that "our lives are an art form for us to create," to ask myself "what am I creating with my life?" and that "each day God is inviting us to join Him into making something beautiful out of our lives."

I hold my life–an unformed lump of clay–in my hand, but what am I to make it into? What am I going to shape it into? Will it be beautiful or mediocre?

For the first time in my life since I was four, five, or six, I don't know where I am headed. 

Sure, there's been moments throughout my life when I have doubted and questioned my course, but I always had some sort of direction, or just two options to choose from. This time I don't have the freedom to just wrinkle my brow, shrug my shoulders, and turn to "more important" things for the time being.... Now, I have the whole world of adulthood laid out in front of me like sculpting tools.

What do I grab?

What is the end result that I want?

I hope that next time I write a post I will have the answer that I'm looking for....

Assr vísa ykkarr brand.

(May God guide your sword)

Elizabeth Marie Kauffman