A heart torn in two

If you'd entered our house anytime between 11 am and 4:30 pm today, you would've found two girls knee-deep in college applications, essays, interview questions, scholarship apps, pretzel m&m's, ginger snaps, and pop tarts.

Needless to say, we were having an app marathon. After finishing every college essay, submitting every college app, and getting a good start on the scholarships, we made a celebratory visit to Panera's.

I've always been excited for college. Venturing out on my own, living in a dorm, making new friends, cheering my lungs out for my sports teams, even turning in college papers and participating in class discussions: everything connected with college thrills me. Ever since visiting my first college at the beginning of tenth grade, I've been counting down the days till I sent in my first app.

That is, until the day actually arrived.

I felt kind of lost today after I pressed the "submit" button on that final application, and it wasn't just because I'd had too many pop tarts. When I go off to college, everything will be different. I'll make new friends. I'll only see my parents on holidays instead of every day. I'll join a new choir. I'll eat new foods. My life will change.

I guess I never realized how much I love my life before.

I shiver and my heart literally starts aching when I think about leaving behind all those I love. When I come home after four years of school, things will be different. I'll be an independent young woman, ready to get a full-time job and enter the real world. The girls I love and know like sisters now will start getting married, moving away, starting families. We'll still be friends, but it will be different. My heart is torn--I want this year to end so I can begin a new phase of life--but I can't face the end of what I know, of my friendships as I know them, of my being a young, dependent girl.

"For I know the plans I have for you," He whispers to me.

And though I want to doubt, to be scared for my future, to cry about leaving life as I know it behind, I have to trust. He created the universe. He knows me better than I know myself. He loves me more than anything I can imagine. He promises me that He has incredible plans for me. And it is all I can do to lay myself in His arms, praising Him for Who He is, for the way the Creator of the Milky Way and of human life cares about little me.

And once again my Savior brings me unmeasurable peace and comfort, and once again I surrender my life to the control of this loving Lord and Father who holds me in His arms and pours His grace over me.

And there's no where else I'd rather be.