Things I Don't Know

There's a lot of things I don't know.

I don't know the first thing about rugby, or scrapbooking, or how to speak french, or how to make french bread. And because there are so many other things I don't know, and I'm hesitant to even write this because it puts me at risk of revealing all these things and sounding dumb. That being said, I humbly continue. There's an old saying that the older you get, the more you realize how much know you don't know.

Have you ever known someone who truly loves what they do? My brother-in-law was a finance major in college. He's the right combination of determination and logic. He now works for a company doing something with inventory and planning and money. He could go on and on about economics and statistics, and he starts talking with his hands and his knee starts bouncing, and his red hair seems redder (ok, not really, but you get the idea.) He just loves that stuff.

My sister works in a hospital as a physician's assistant. To relax, she turns on episodes of House and tries to diagnose the patients before the doctors on the show do.

Then there's Jess, she was a marketing major. Jess silenced my assumptions of what a person into marketing should be like. She has a quiet disposition, is a very good listener, and a bit of southern charm which is rare for these parts. She's generous and caring with a talent for asking the right questions. But get her talking about marketing surveys, supply and demand, advertising--anything marketing, and her eyes light up. Her southern accent gets stronger too, and that's when I know she's really excited.

Some people just know what they want and it oozes from them. I admire those kinds of people.

My friend Fine, a Tongan that I met while in Uganda, told me to read Psalm 37. When I returned to the United States, I heard a speaker talking about God giving us the desires of our hearts. Then my friend Kristin, mentioned something about the desires of our hearts and how God wants to give them to us. It seemed everywhere I went, people knew the desires of their hearts, was I the only one who didn't? I knew, at the core of me that I wanted God. I wanted to be where he wanted me, but doesn't that have to get specific at some point?

I know what I get excited about. I get excited about music. I could talk on and on about music, what I like, what I don't, a great lead guitar line, lyrics, the strings that make the song, anything. I'm no great musician myself, but I still love music. In C.S. Lewis's series, the Chronicles of Narnia, there's a part in the Magician's Nephew where Aslan is creating Narnia. The thing I love is that he uses song.

The Bible talks about praising God with the harp and tambourine. I love this imagery, because the harp is a very complicated instrument and takes years to master, while the tambourine is one of the simplest, and anyone can play it. But when it comes down to it, all of them matters to God. Whether you fall into the "harp" category, or the "tambourine" category, God wants our songs.

I also get excited about photography. Not all photography, I'll be honest. I love portraiture. Not necessarily the studio kind, but portraits of people naturally, honestly, with no act to hide behind. I could also look at documentary photography all day. Photography has a way of communicating something that words, or even film cannot. It freezes a moment in time and invites a viewer to stare as long as they want. Feeling each detail and color and emotion.

I'm also a dreamer, I love to daydream about where I'll be and what I'll be doing. When I was younger, I used to think up all the places I'd travel to, the apartment that I would get overlooking a city street. I was going to have a dog named Boy and we'd go running everyday before I went to work. At night I'd come home and spend the evening painting. Or I'd think about traveling to a distant country, meeting the people there and listening to their stories and learning about their lives. I could go on and on, but I'll stop for now.

But the desire of my heart? I want to know God, I want to be where He wants me. I want others to know God and feel the immeasurable love that he has for them.

What does that look like specifically? I don't really know. Maybe for today it just means writing this out. And then loving the people right next to me, the ones God put around for this season.

I'm learning that I need to live where I am, and not always be dreaming of the next thing, because I'll miss out on the right now.

desires of my heart