My head was spinning. My throat was dry, my body was shaking and I felt like I could throw up at any given moment. I was on the verge of tears, wrestling with my own thoughts inside my head. I was scared because I knew this feeling. The same feeling that hits you when you arrive at your terminal and they tell you that your flight has been delayed. The all-too-familiar sense of fear, panic and worry. I just need to clear my mind. I decided to go for a run to the quietest place I knew. No one would see me there, no one would hear me cry or struggle with my brain.
My constant thoughts of worry had captured me. They slowly fogged my mind, a little more every day and with every day I grew weary. I thought something was deeply wrong with me. I didn't see anyone else walking around on the verge of tears, the look of fear in their eyes. I seemed to be the only one living in this fear - fear that I would miss a step, that I would take a wrong turn and that the perfectly curated path I had set for myself would crumble away at my feet. I feared the future I had set up for myself would no longer be mine.
The worst part was trying to act normal around people. I couldn't explain what was going on in my brain to anyone, I knew no one would understand. I couldn't even think of the words to explain to myself what I was feeling. Plus, if I acted as if I was fine, I would surely eventually get over the feeling.
I couldn't concentrate correctly. Every single thing kept taking my mind back to the constant state of fear. But that day, on that run, I knew I couldn't continue living the same way.
It was almost like I had never given it a second thought. Sure, I had visited different schools and applied to different colleges but once I stepped onto the Clemson campus, I had a gut feeling that just felt like home. And for me, Clemson was home. It was my home for new friendships, exciting adventurous, and silly excursions. It brought my sense of spontaneity to life and led me to try so many things I had never tried before. It taught me how to learn to be open minded and how to grow in new ways. I assumed it would always feel that way. It would always feel like the warm, cozy kind of days where the rain slowly falls and you snuggle up in a sweater and a hot latte.
Slowly, during that season my heart started to change. And I hate change.
It was this crazy idea that maybe I was doing all of it for all the wrong reasons. Maybe I didn't actually love studying biology as much as I told myself that I did. I didn't love my major, but I needed to love biology to make it. I didn't love the idea of becoming a doctor, but I had to become a Physical Therapist to make it and be "successful." After all, I even had a good story to tell people when they asked me how I decided that I wanted to become a PT. I told myself that if I could just "fake it til you make it" then I would be golden. I figured everyone else felt this way about their studies, too. There was just no way that a person could be filled with so much honest passion for such a boring and confusing major.
It all made sense to me in theory until that day on my run. The day that I finally started asking myself the hard questions. Do I really want to be a doctor? Do I really need this particular degree? Is this is path that I truly want to pursue, and will I be open to pursuing different paths? I wish I had easily given myself the answers I knew deep down. But the only three words I could come up with for myself were "I don't know." At that point, I felt like I didn't know anything anymore. I was exhausted and frustrated with myself. All I knew was that I need some type of change. So I finished my semester, went home and didn't look back. I did the scariest thing I thought was possible for a happy college student. I left my friends and started working a retail job at J. Crew. And gosh, that season was so testing. Nothing about leaving my friends, feeling like a failure and making little money felt good. I hated to answer people when they asked what I was up to lately. As rough as my heart felt during that season, it taught me to ask God to pull my outside my comfort zone. Spirit, lead me where my trust is without borders. This became my battle cry for His plan for my life.
God moved my heart on that run by the lake. He showed me how big the world is and how I had boxed myself into my own tiny universe. I was limiting myself in so many ways, only giving myself one shaky path to follow and shaming myself for asking questions. That day I was reminded of the power and freedom that we have when we follow Jesus.
What they don't teach you in college about growing up is that there is no right or wrong way to do it. Life isn't this linear shape that we walk into but rather a glorious maze. In the navigation of this crazy life we have tons of decisions to make and we do need direction. I think the biggest mistake that we can make is taking away our own freedom and confining ourselves to one specific future and blaming God if it doesn't work out that way. He wants us to see, feel and dream bigger. He wants us to step out of our comfortable little boxes and trade them in for golden tickets. For some of us, that looks like giving up what we thought the career we were supposed to have to take on the unknown. For some of us, it looks like trusting God with our soulmate. None of this is supposed to be easy but somewhere along the line we begin to find ourselves making better, bolder and more confident decisions.
Today, I'm overwhelmed. I feel stressed and I feel some of the world's weight tugging at my feet.
Today, I'm choosing freedom in Jesus over worrying about my circumstances.
"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us." Hebrews 12:1
