"Deep in her soul, however, she was waiting for something to happen. Like a sailor in distress, she would gaze out over the solitude of her life with desperate eyes, seeking some white sail in the mists of the far-off horizon. She did not know what this chance event would be, what wind would drive it to her, what shore it would carry her to, whether it was a longboat or a three-decked vessel, loaded with anguish or filled with happiness up to the portholes. But each morning, when she awoke, she hoped it would arrive that day..." - Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

When you're at a crossroads in life they always say to go out and find yourself, but where to go they don't say and what to look for they don't mention. I much prefer the approach that Tina Fey suggested, "stall until the answer presents itself." Some may call this passive, but I'd rather err on the side of caution and wait for the answer to be revealed than go out make my version of destiny happen.

Because when you force yourself to be somewhere you're not supposed to be before you're ready to be there, you have to work extra hard to keep yourself there. And that's too much energy wrongfully spent.

I've learned that who you are often finds you.

Like when my obsession in high school with Boston - a place I have never been - and this ridiculous dream of going to BU was abruptly sidelined once I was awakened to the reality that is Jerry Falwell's university hidden in the beautiful Blue Ridge mountains of central Virginia.

The best decision of my life thus far almost would not have been made if my life was not put on pause, redirected, and not planned with purpose.

Thank God for life's not-so-glamorized but sometimes necessary pit stops full of unknowns and uncertainties.

And so it happens, I've found myself at another put stop in life (and I pray this isn't the pattern for me every four years.) My brief interlude in the real world has made me apprehensive to entering into it again, because I long for purpose, and there is such a superlative lack of it out there.

It's hard not to look around and see uninspiring miserable people in the American workforce slumming away at jobs for the college-educated that appeal as much to me as working at Walmart.

But at least at Walmart I can wear a comfy smock and generally make my own hours.

At the height of my post-grad melancholy, I came to the conclusion that all jobs exist so we can eat, so why don't we just get a farm and feed ourselves; move to Montana, start a town, raise families (with people we bring with us of course), plant a church, and home school (so our kids will never dread Monday and neither will we).

The cynical nature in me wants to escape the way of the word (like the pioneers who set out West once did) and run away to a picturesque landscape because it's easier to see and feel God there than in the city with people you don't like walking around made in His image.

And I know we're supposed to work as if we're working for the Lord in everything we do, but I desperately want to see the fruits of my labor...and, to be honest, I want to be rewarded for my faithfulness even in some small way...which then makes me question how faithful I've been in the little things.

Is there a difference between a life's calling and a career? Because I'll take the calling, you can keep the career. Can I live a life full of passion with purpose over entering into an egocentric and workaholic environment where my 9-5 is my identity and it's not even really a 9-5? Oh West Wing...how you've set me up with romanticized false expectations...

Why am I more interested in being an interesting person with vision, and would rather work with inspiring and creative individuals, over having an interesting title with the opportunity to rub elbows with power players? Is it because power without purpose is meaningless? Is it because I've realized at 22 that being on top never lasts forever and once you're off the mountain you still have to live out your mission and some don't know how to exhibit leadership in a lesser role? How can I avoid having just a job and the ever-aching sense that Monday is looming beyond my weekends?

Then there's the idealistic dreamer in me that wants to be in the world, not of it, and change it - or at least the parts God grants me dominion over.

I've seen the dark reality, but I've also seen the rare diamonds shining in the darkness, and I've decided I want to continue to bring light wherever God sends me. I won't let the darkness distract me from what attracts me in moving forward.

If you're like me, God's given you big dreams with no certain pathway on how to actually achieve them. But I suppose He does that on purpose so we learn to trust Him, to rely on Him, to walk closely with Him for direction and guidance, and for our life's "achievements" to make absolutely no sense to the world but instead give glory to the one who made the world.

While I admit His plans and my plans have intersected on more than one occasion, which makes me joyous to know I'm walking in His will, I still feel like He's sending me into the wilderness on what the next five years will look like, which for a recent college grad is sure to be the most life-changing.

I may not know what I want at this very moment, but I do know what I don't want: I don't want to work to make someone else rich or to make somebody a somebody.

I want my days to matter. I want to fight for the lost causes because those are the only causes worth fighting for. I want to bring down the bad guys, to hold people to account. I want to stand for Truth, to be brave enough to talk about things that no one else is willing to talk about, and to dedicate my life to living out what I preach - to be the example and the role model that I needed when I was younger.

Heck, I'd even take the job that Tina Fey humorously describes on Getting Coffee in Cars with Comedians where you wake up at a reasonable time, go to work, bring brilliance to the table for a few hours, walk to lunch, come back and continue, call it a day around 4 when the kids get home from school. That's a solid day.

I want to do something, and for a moment - even for a fragment of a moment - before ambition sets in again, feel satisfied and a little bit shocked that I did even that much.

But more than worrying about building my brand, I want to rebrand what it means to be a female follower of Christ, to continue building the Kingdom of God - because His legacy outlives mine - and to reclaim the good name of Jesus Christ in our broken world that so desperately needs Him.

I want to be used in the capacity I was created to be used for, to serve with honor, and to be around those who inspire me where I can aid them on their mission. I want my time to be spent directly helping people, having an honest conversation and meaningful relationships. A reason why I'm insanely looking forward to being the parent of teenagers.

I'd rather know the energy it took to get out of bed that morning was well worth the effort for someone else, because if given the choice, I probably would have stayed in that bed a little bit longer.

Purpose is what drives us out of bed and out of the sea of ambiguity.

And if there's ever a time to be in the dreaded sea of ambiguity: it usually shows up after major life events, like when you graduate.

There are two types of people who graduate college: "those who know exactly what they want and are on that path to get it: already going to med school, working at the perfect NGO, doing research. To you, I say both congratulations and you suck." And then the are those who went more liberal arts in their degree choice or desired field, "not quite sure what road we're on and whether we should have taken it," which leads to being overwhelmed with a plethora of options, yet none of them personally desirable or presently doable.

But there are also two types of the first kind: those who truly are where they're meant to be and those that are taking the safe route which will disrupt them mid-life. There are also two types of the second kind: those who will find their niche in due time where the wait will have supposedly been worth it or those who never seem to find their path. I hope I'm not the latter.

"So college ended and I became lonely, as one does, and for the [second time] in my life, bored."

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us..."

If that wasn't a perfect assessment of my current predicament.

Add that to Marina Keegan's ambivalent retrospect: "My professional ambitions were still switching with the channels of my illegal downloads. Wide-eyed, I was convinced by the dramas of forty-six minute episodes, idealizing the pursuits of doctors, politicians, and astronauts in space. Bored or exhausted with regularity, I watched away my apathy until I was reminded that all I really wanted was to lie in bed."

What a sad truth to swallow. But I feel the primary reason we escape into the story of a book, television show, or movie in the first place is often because the characters are doing more interesting things than we are. Fiction inspires us. And inspiration is required for action. So maybe the Netflix phenomenon is less about the need to chill and more about the need for inspiration in life and a void to escape into. I can look back with envy at the moments I've had in the past where I thought to myself: my life this very moment could be captured on film for some story yet to be told.

And maybe that's universal. I think we all want our lives to be as epic as what we see on screen, to have our chance at being the hero, having a plot and knowing for at least 2 hours that there's a point to all this madness.

"I was unemployed. My days were shapeless. I slept until noon. I became irritable and defensive when asked about my plans for the future. I had been ambitious once. In high school I scavenged for opportunities to work in local politics without even considering it as a career at the time, maybe that's why it was fun, like playing on the river court in One Tree Hill; drawn in for the love of the game. In college I founded a conservative feminist club, was on leadership for various campus organizations, wrote for the student paper, presented a controversial anti-birth control argument at an event I organized, went to every conference and seminar I could, interned for eight months in Washington D.C. for members of both the House and the Senate, as well as on a presidential campaign. I was eager and hungry: for new friendships, for a deeper relationship with God, for learning, for traveling, for being used by God in some big way. Despite my ambivalence about academia, college was a wonderful gig, thousands of hours to dream about the future and enjoy your present moments, acting as an adult, but not living as one. Now I was back to zero. No grades. No semester breaks. No Cliff Notes in case of emergency. I was lost. It's not that I didn't have plans. Oh, I had plans. Just no official next step or sign from God on what to do with my life at the moment. There was no rom-com ready job for me come graduation day." (paraphrased and altered from Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham)

Finding a job is a full-time job. And most people won't even have the decency to reject you from a job anymore. The people you reach out to simply ghost you, which may ring familiar for some people's personal lives as well; the one area where professionalism is now mirroring the tragic era of Tinder.

But I've recognized this is the time to find the right one, the allusive one. That good first step that projects you on an opportune path where you can afford decent pad, and by that I mean any place not condemnable in a desired location.

This is the time to go visit a friend far enough away that requires a day's drive - the kind of purposeless trip I hear you will never again take after age twenty-five.

Or drive across country with your cousin, for DAYS, but you have a whole bunch available, so why not?

But oh how I long for the days of employment where I find myself in more and more situations I don't want to run away from, as Lena Dunham describes. At work when I realize that I've spent the entire day being who I am. That I are a tool being put to its proper use.

I was initially amused with an excerpt from Tina Fey's book Bossypants where she prays for us ladies entering into the world with specific instructions: "Lead her away from acting but not all the way to finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled, get outside, and not have to wear high heels [all the time]." But I now recognize the truth in that statement.

I've decided it's most likely my lot in life - to be late out the gate, but catch up once I find my stride. I sense my purpose will be found in the chaotic, in the attempt to "have it all" differently, the right way, whatever that looks like.

"To embrace the mess, the complicated, and the surprises that await you." Wise words from Nora Ephron who triggered my thinking about the influx of change that women face throughout their lives, where each threshold provides more opportunity for growth and self-discovery.

She said in a commencement address to women on the forefront of graduating: “You are not going to be you, fixed and immutable you, forever. I have a game I play when I'm waiting for tables in restaurants, where you have to write the five things that describe yourself on a piece of paper. When I was your age, I would have put: ambitious, Wellesley graduate, daughter, Democrat, single. Ten years later not one of those five things turned up on my list. I was: journalist, feminist, New Yorker, divorced, funny. Today not one of those five things turns up in my list: writer, director, mother, sister, happy. Whatever those five things are for you today, they won’t make the list in ten years — not that you still won’t be some of those things, but they won’t be the five most important things about you. Which is one of the most delicious things available to women, and more particularly to women than to men. I think. It’s slightly easier for us to shift, to change our minds, to take another path.”

Right now I'm: passionate, Liberty graduate, Christian (classified as neither Protestant nor Catholic), constitutionally-conservative/classically liberal/libertarian, first-wave pro-life feminist.

Right now I'm not simply five things.

But I'm looking forward to the woman I'll be meeting ten years later, after much shifting, changing, and changing of paths occurs. I hope she finds what she's looking for, and if she didn't, I hope she keeps looking and doesn't settle.

As with all matters of the heart, I trust she'll know it when she sees it.