Today or Tomorrow

          Today, I came to the end of another season of my life. High school - or as close as I ever got to high school. I wrote my last exam at the community college, spent my last half hour out in the sun in the middle of campus, and took my last regular bus ride - here, anyway. There will be plenty of exams in university, plenty of hours spent sitting in the sun, plenty of time spent on the public bus. Unless the system changes drastically in the next three months, which I don't expect it will.
          My strange high school/running start/grade status combined with my distance from the school has meant that I hold almost no loyalty to the school that I've now attended for 6 quarters. I'm normally pretty ready to be loyal, so it was strange not caring about sports or campus life at all. I certainly did not expect to miss it at all (okay, I still don't). But I walked out of building 7 today and headed for the grass and was hit with a feeling of nostalgia. As much as it has been merely a stepping stone to my next stage of life, I have lived here. I have many good memories and met people who have influenced my life significantly. It's because of Char and CeCe that I have developed a love for biology and am choosing to minor in it so as to provide some interest amidst my chemistry major. I met Blake in my first quarter and have attended school and walked through life with him since then; he is a part of many of my sunlit memories spent out on the grass. I made new friends: Sofia, Kellan, Chloe, Alyssa, Dung, and many others. I fought with microbiology, laughed over calculus, and debated which 8 out of 40 people should survive the alien invasion (thanks to MFC-J, an inspiring English teacher). I have learned and grown and laughed and fought and loved and lived in the last two years. I won't miss the bus smell, the noise of the commons, or inadequate "microbiology" lab, but I will miss the sunrises over the mountain, the study room in building 15, the web cafe, the random pieces of art, and our building 13.
          I know that countless memories are yet to be made. I have a host of new experiences waiting for me: big city, dorm life, AFROTC, lots of chemistry classes, some biology and art classes, new friends, new opportunities. Right now, I'm working through financial paperwork, placement tests, possible class schedules. I should hear back about my dorm and roommate assignment in a couple of months. The realization that I'll be moving out soon is always at the back of my mind. I'm ready for it. I know where God's leading me - for now.
          It's really easy to give an answer when people ask what I'm doing next year. "I'm going here to study chemistry and then into the Air Force." Those are my plans and I tell them so. But it's been on my mind that the Bible pretty specifically say NOT to do that.

"13 Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” 14 Yet you do not know [b]what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.” " James 4:13-15, NASB

 I have plans and I have been seeking the Lord's guidance the whole way, and He has directed my steps. All the same, I am still a vapor, or a mist as the ESV says (it's mentally challenging to put a verse in a version other than I've memorized). I don't know what tomorrow will bring. I have plans, but God may yet direct my steps another direction. Wherever He leads me, I am excited to follow. And If the Lord wills, I will go here to study chemistry and then into the Air Force, and I will live and make memories along the way.