:: walk in them ::

My blog and I have a few things in common, it seems. One of those is we are both trying to decide what we want to be. In the case of the blog, I am a bit envious of the low stakes. Whether it is a good one or a bad one, in the end it's just a blog. And we grieve the shabby ending of the thing for about ten seconds before moving on to someone else's - perhaps more visually stimulating or full of links to the many wild things on the internet.

But a life... a life. Many decisions were already made for me, things like extroversion, parents, height... and I wonder how much is my simply walking in those and how much is left to a choice of footwear to decide now if I will run a marathon, climb a mountain, dance, or go barefoot in the jungle.

I spent most of Friday in my car, in conversation with the person next to me. She told me glorious things like how Finnish people (she's from Finland) have a big celebration each year on the day the sun doesn't set. There's also a city in the northernmost part of Europe that is famous for the fact that the sun not only doesn't set, it travels in a big circle in the sky. But because we're both missionary kids, we didn't just talk about celestial phenomena; much of our conversation was about identity and purpose, loneliness and longing. We talked about Ephesians and about good things prepared in advance for us, "that we should walk in them." For now, I want to speak Spanish, talk about God in a way that reaches the 15-year-old girls in my small group, be a good friend, and see the needs around me.

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." Soren Kierkegaard