closer

Aspirations. My head has always been full of them, my heart running about five steps ahead in about six different directions. And God has been generous, so very generous in the helpings of opportunity He serves me.  I've done more in my short quarter-century than I ever imagined. 

And I like to think I know where and to what He will take me next. 

But this has been a changing sort of year. It feels like God is shoving things around, rearranging the furniture of my heart... until I'm not sure who lives here any more. Or what dreams fit into the revealed corners. 

It's a little disconcerting. 

Simultaneously, more opportunities present themselves than ever before. It's hard to choose between them when I really don't know what I want. Maybe the problem is that I want to do everything.

I hugged the questions to myself in the darkness of the plane. The moon, round and full, bounced off the wing outside my window until we banked. I looked up, then down, suspended between the fullness of the moon and all the lights of Memphis in rows like jewels on velvet. 

In the silent moment of catching my breath, the questions ebbed. In flowed slowly, like a tide, the music. 

"Nearer, my God, to thee

Nearer to thee!"

And into my memory dropped my dad's voice. He had been talking about his life, and how it's turning out so vastly different than he'd dreamed. After the uncertainty and pain, the forceful rebirth into what he never thought, his rest declared this triumph: "I'm forty-eight and closer to God than I've ever been." 

I still don't know quite what to do next, but I know what I want. Most of all. Anything that brings me closer.