"you smooth the ground, tear the knots all apart"

they say confession is good for the soul, so here goes: an uncharacteristically personal post which i now commit to the internet-universe (where, "they" also say, everything lives forever):

Over the past couple years, i have found myself increasingly anxious about the future. (understatement of the century).

where am i going? who do i spend my life with? what do i want to do? what do i want to be?

daily, i will spin myself around and around these questions to the point of physical illness, but much moreso, to the point where my fears and uncertainties have left me pretty heart- and soul-dizzy as well. i lack control, balance. i am careening around off-kilter, running into things (and over people) as i go.

i know there are probably lots of good reasons to explain all of this (and if anyone knows a good shrink, let me know): there are a lot of things that i can't predict. can't control. and all of a sudden i'm an adult, with no sure-thing significant milestones between today and death (save perhaps, someday, retirement). at the same time, i'm so blessed to have the freedom and luxury to choose where to live, where to work, and who to make relationships with.

with such a wide-expanse of time and menu of choices, though, my doubts and fear mean i'm liable to get lost. and starve.

that wasn't the point of this post though, so bear with me, beyond the desperate emotional blog-whoring.

tonight, caught in so much anxiety about where i'm going, i did what any slightly-unstable 20-something girl would do (other than get drunk and make out with inappropriate men). i started to clean out my closets, in a very real, non-lame-eminem-song way. and there i came across all of the promise and encouragement God could ever fit on a CD-Rom. no, not mary mary, jars of clay, or jennifer knapp, but instead, this:


and these...

these too....


this...

and this...
"they" (dr. phil) say(s) "the best predictor of future behaviour is past behaviour." now i'm not sure if it's heretical to apply bad t.v. pop-psychology to the Divine, but i am sure of one thing:

in the past 25 years, God has given me all of these people. all of these places. and all of these moments of such rich blessing, even though some of those blessings broke our hearts a little. God has given me so many blessings, in fact, that they fill 4 CD-Roms before even reaching my college years...

there is a promise in this.

so what am i so freaking scared of?