Last Day!!!

Wow! It's finally here! This is the day parents dread (and occasionally anticipate when their kids act out). It's the culmination of all childhood finally being put to the test as the chicks are literally shoved out of the nest with a hug and a kiss. Bittersweet.

For the past two nights, I've been laying in bed thinking as much as I have been actually sleeping. Pretty sure they call that excitement. Even if tomorrow I were moving into college instead of a small house in Denver, the first of six locations, I would be excited. The fact that I'm getting to travel the world and, more importantly, see God in a new way only makes the transition more exciting. Will I find direction for my future? Will I become horribly homesick? What will I eat?!?! The questions can only be answered with time (and by bringing along granola bars just in case...)

Just briefly, for those of you who may not know (which is probably rather few considering how much my mom seems to talk about it...), I have decided to defer college (at UVA and UNC Chapel Hill- still haven't really made the decision) and join a program called the Kivu Gap Year this year. The program allows high school graduates to travel to six different countries and take internships in different fields, all the while with a strong emphasis on faith and personal development. It was never really my plan to join a program like this, although I always thought the idea was cool in theory. I love community service; I love that feeling you get when you sense you've made a real difference and maybe even helped someone in their faith. People also tell my I, "march to the beat of my own drum," so I guess it's not that outrageous that I would be the one to go against the grain. I may have said that it was never my plan to do something like this, but I am 100% sure that God was planning it all the while. Looking back, I can see the faint outline of God's plan many times in my life. Raised in a Catholic Church in Texas, I was saved and baptized into the Southern Baptist Church in Nashville when we moved here in fourth grade. Now I really just call myself nondenominational for simplicity. Anyway, the summer before sixth grade, I went to church camp and went down to the altar to "make a decision" (Church lingo) to become a missionary. Keep in mind, I was the ripe age of 11; I had never been on a mission trip and didn't really even know what the word entailed. I just felt God calling at my heart. As I grew older, I kept that desire in my life, but I redefined what a "missionary" was. I felt, and still feel, that all followers of Christ are actually called to be missionaries wherever they are. Your life is a mission field. Look around you; you hold a unique bubble of influence that you can use for God's glory. Despite this redefinition, I knew God wanted me to expand my bubble of influence, through this Kivu Gap Year, when I found my old journal all the way from that summer before sixth grade explaining my decision to be a missionary. It was prepubescent Alexis talking to 18-year-old Alexis, and more than that it was God confirming in the midst of my decision that this was what I was supposed to do.

Flash back to the present: I have less than 24 hours living in my family household. Honestly, I'm not nearly as sad as I expected to be. Of course, I love my family passionately, maybe even more the typical teenage girl is supposed to, but I just don't feel sorrowful about moving into a new chapter. Praise Jesus! As the last to go, I had the sad privilege to send off all of my best friends into college. However, even then, I didn't cry once. I'm shocked and relieved. Maybe tonight will be the night, but if it's not I certainly won't cry over not crying (ha- a sentence only a girl can appreciate). I have a peace that really has the vibe of, "come what may." I'm ready for whatever the Lord has prepared, and there's nothing I can do to stop this freight train. Might as well hop on!