if snarky isn't a word.. it really should be.

Oh life and the curveballs you throw...

This always happens when I come down with a plan. And this was the plan--spend a year volunteering... give back to the community... gain experience... figure out what you want to do with your life... go to Loyola University for my graduate studies for either religious education or pastoral ministry.

Then I started questioning some more. Is that what you want? Furthermore... is that what God wants? What exactly is God saying? What has God been saying all along? Are you paying attention?

You see... for awhile now, I've been questioning this call I'm feeling to ministry. I don't know if I have the right gifts for it. In my experiences with ministry... at least as of recently... to be honest... I just don't think I've been doing well. I don't put my all into it. I love working with youth. But let's be real here. The ideas I have are generally not well received. I am not a great public speaker. I am shy. I don't have any experience... and the experience I do have with real ministry stuff... the stuff that goes beyond being an active participant... the stuff that involves paperwork and parents and planning (lots of p's there... it was perfectly planned)... I'm just not good at it. Okay? I'm not. I don't have the patience for that baloney. I hate it.

Furthermore... I live in my head a lot. It's not that I'm too lazy to do things... I'm just a very reflective person. I think a lot. I write a lot.

I just had a really long thought vomit session with a friend... and what came out of it is that maybe I've been preparing not only for an education in theology, but maybe, just maybe, I should seriously consider pursuing my writing. I have not met one person who has told me that I would not be a good writer. DePaul... the school I was drawn to sophomore year... offers a masters program in writing and publishing. This is all very do-able. This is so do-able I think it must have been planned. But God. How You throw me for a loop sometimes.

There's a lot more thinking about this that I would have written in this post... except I thought it over with said friend... and now I don't want to repeat it.

What do you think? Any particular thoughts and opinions?