In The Process

           My foot grew heavier as I swerved in and out of traffic on Hwy 85. I could feel the knots in my neck that had developed over the seemingly endless day. When I began feeling dizzy, I realized that my breathing was short so I began taking deep breaths and releasing them slowly. “This too shall pass…” I reassured myself aloud, remembering the familiar mantra of my precious great-grandmother. But my mind couldn’t escape the mile-long list of assignments that had been thrown on me like a scarf just an hour ago, choking me for the pleasure of it.

          “All I need to do to finish this unit is…” and I caught my breath before another word could be conceived. Thoughts escaped me as awe encapsulated my being. Before me was the most spectacular view: beyond the city limits, the highway, and the cell phones there was an eternity of color on the horizon. Pink met orange at the top of the hill and stretched just above into the blue abyss, where the moon hung, full and bright in its entire splendor. There was no speck of mismatched color or the slightest sign of a foreign brushstroke… just the deep, deep endlessness, an invitation to come.

          At the realization of the divine beauty before me, I looked around into the windows of the other cars zipping by. Did anyone else notice this?! One man passed me with a solemn stare and for a moment, I thought that maybe he was seeing it too, but when he opened his mouth in response I noticed the Bluetooth in his ear. Two young women eased past, lost in 5 o’clock traffic conversation. As they leaned into the next exit, I was amazed that they had not so much as noticed this miracle before us. Who cared about exits? This sky was pulling the string attached to my soul and everything inside of me wanted to keep driving until I ran out of cement and my tires touched gold.

          That’s when it hit me: this view that had captured my attention and changed the course of my evening was truly my destination. Sure, I would take an exit and go back to my apartment, but that would just be a pit stop. In fact, this whole college thing is not even my goal in life…

1 Thessalonians 4:3 says, “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification…” I began to recall all the nights I begged God to show me what His will was for me in certain situations… which college should I go to? What should my major be? Where should I live? The list goes on and on. All I wanted was to be dead center in the will of God. I wanted answers… couldn’t He just tell me exactly what He wanted me to do?? But His Word tells me that His will is for me to be sanctified. Could I be sanctified at ASU? –yes. What about UNCG? –yes. Have I been sanctified as a single? –I pray with all my heart that I have! Could I be sanctified as a married woman? –That’s the whole point of marriage! Easy laughter filled my little car as these realizations flowed. I don’t have to create the perfect final product… I WILL BE the perfect final product.

Everything I do is supposed to prepare me perfect and complete for my Husband on our wedding day (1 Thess. 3:13). This stirred up an image in my mind on the day of my brother’s wedding: my beautiful sister-in-law stood with her bridesmaids (myself included) in a little room at the back of the church preparing herself for the marriage of my sweet brother. Although she had to stay in the room and get ready, she enjoyed watching out of the two-way mirror as family and friends filled the sanctuary. Around her, we were fixing our hair and making last-minute touch-ups, but love-struck Erinn gazed to the place where her soon-to-be husband would stand and take her as his wife, promising to her his forever. She didn’t stress out about her hair, her nails, her bouquet, or any of the other things that the people around her were worried about. She knew where she was headed and that was all that mattered.

Peace nestled into my chest and breathed its smile onto my face. I turned into my exit, but drove past the street to my apartment. Three stop signs and a bridge later, I pulled over onto the curb and retrieved my park blanket from my trunk. Excitement crept inside me as the cool dusk air layered my skin. My boots clicked along the sidewalk and danced into the grass. There on a little hill in the Arboretum, I took my hair down and my watch off to cut the chains of the demanding day before wrapping up into the cocoon of my blanket. And there He was: my Beloved. My Husband held me in the grass on the soft earth, singing to me in the songs of crickets and sparrows and smiled at me in the first star of the night, shining from afar between the silhouetted branches of the maple trees. Everything in me was screaming, “I’m Yours!”

His love draws us in, undeniably and irrevocably, and shapes us into His holiness in the process.

“Stand in awe, and sin not…” Psalm 4:4