From time to time I get antsy…..  I start to question everything about myself and life in general.  I get down and nostalgic about years past and the people that at one point or another crossed my life and left their lingering essence.   I wonder why I am where I am, doing what I’m doing, why here, why now, why this and that?????  Everything just becomes a giant question.  I become so touched by memories, hopes and dreams and before I know it, subtle tears stream down my cheeks as my heart, thoughts and reason play a game of tug-a-war.

I think the happiest moments in my life go back to when I was a child.  When all I worried about was cartoons after school and running around like a wild creature under the hot summer sun.  Back then I didn’t realize how great I had it.  I didn’t have a care in the world and I used to think, “Man, gown ups have it made!  They are able to work and have money and they can buy and do whatever they want.”

Little did I know the real struggles of adulthood.  Mother used to say I didn’t know what I was talking about.  She wanted me to enjoy childhood and said it was the most wonderful time of her life; the happiest moments before real life hits and boy was she right.

I feel like I was in some kind of hurry to get somewhere fast.  Truthfully, I don’t know what that somewhere was because at 29 years old, I still feel lost.  I graduated early from high school with a class I hardly knew.  I felt like I had to get some sort of head start to college and then in college I didn’t really know what I wanted to do.  I finally decided on Culinary Arts and graduated with a Culinary degree but that wasn’t enough.  I have always been over ambitious so I decided to enroll at a University about an hour away from home.  I commuted to school almost daily and worked more than full time.  I was always on the run and had my fair share of sleepless nights.

I majored in Culinary Science & Food Service Management but that still wasn’t enough so I decided to do a double major and tagged on a degree in Food & Nutrition in Business & Industry, minoring in Business Administration.    All of this and not a penny of debt…. Yay! Right? Well, I entered the industry for a pretty big restaurant group and it was okay.  Reality set in and it became just that 9-5, sometimes more like 9-9 and I was quickly burned out.  I wanted nothing more than to go back to what I loved which was actually working in kitchens, cooking.

By this time though, I had all of this great education and I felt I needed to put it to use somehow.  So I did and every position I have ever applied to, I have gotten.  Seems like luck but truthfully it was because of my faith.  Every time, before I went into an interview, I prayed and said “God, you know the plans you have for me. They are plans to prosper me and not to hurt me and I believe in your word.   Lord, I give it up to you.  Let it be your will as you know where you are taking me and where ever that is, I will follow!”   I also started to honor him by tithing which I had never done before.  It was difficult at first but from that moment on, I can tell you that I was prospered so much more than I ever expected, but it was not because of my efforts, It was because I put God first in my life and he showed up for me.

He has shown up for me in such an evident way but I often wonder… what if I leave everything and just do what my heart truly desires?  Then I ask myself, where would the money come from, you have a fiancé now, you need to keep moving up, etc…..  I ask myself, if I should even be having these thoughts because God has brought me here for a purpose and I question whether I should throw this all away?  If I do and continue to honor him, will he still walk by my side?  Am I trying to walk my path instead of his?  I wish I could answer all of this and yet I can’t.  I just continue running this rat race and dreaming of life beyond an office cubicle.

In my dreams, I would love to go back to my beautiful Guatemala and live there for a year.  Then skip over the pond and try Korea for a year.  Then maybe some European country and so on and so forth.  I would also like to start some sort of organization to help children in third world countries.  I would like to take up pottery and have my own restaurant.  I want so much yet I can’t bring myself to take the first step.  These thoughts and hopes and dreams parade in my head and in my heart but they seem to trample each other and from time to time, in my desperation, I crumble to pieces.  I’ll sit in my car, cry for a good ten minutes and then remind myself that God has a purpose for my life and that his purpose will be fulfilled in his time, not mine.  So I dry the tears, pick myself up, wrap myself in his love and continue moving along.

 

Lacey Magnolia