I realized I spent the entire first part of my life doing things for other people.

I started to think about why I was a good student in school and followed the rules and tried to succeed and went to college. And I realized that my motivation was because I thought that’s what everyone else wanted me to do, or more accurately that doing those things were equated with acceptance and love. 

It’s like I had a sudden awakening and looked back and I had been droning through life, a pawn to what other people expected of me. That, of course, was my own choice. I let myself be the pawn, never waking up to what it is that I really wanted. And in reality, it wasn’t really what other people expected of me, it’s what I assumed they expected of me.

So here I am, 30 years old with even more time in front of me than behind me, and I have no idea what I want. 

I know what other people want. That’s easy for me. I can identify a need without someone even expressing it and immediately take action. I can help others dig out what it is they want to do with a few questions and a dose of reality. 

I know what other people need. Those close to me, I know what they like when they’re happy, when they’re sad, what their drink of choice is, what books they love, what their dreams are. It’s all neatly filed away in my brain to be accessed at a moment’s notice.

I don’t resent anyone for this. I have chosen to bury myself beneath the essence of others because it is truly what I love doing the most – serving other people. 

Somewhere, hidden beneath all of that, is what I want and what I need. But now the problem is I don’t know how to access it. I think I’ve come close a few times when I was younger. When I dreamed of learning guitar and being a camp counselor and then later on dreamed of being a camp director forever and always. While I did learn to play guitar and was on camp staff for 4 summers, my dream of being a camp director never came to fruition and life took twists and turns that I will never regret, but look back on and wonder what might have been different “if”. 

Today I stand in a place where I feel that the world truly IS my oyster (I actually never understood this metaphor. Is it because I can now make pearls? Or what?). I am independent, I am single, I have a disposable income, I can do literally anything. Close friends ask all the time, “What is that you want?”.

“Great Question.”, I respond. 

I can think of a lot of things that seem like they would be good. Or that I would be good at. “That would be fine”, I think, as I run through the list of things that spark interest or that others tell me I would do well. 

I am not so naive as to think that knowing what I want will automatically result in me getting that thing. Perhaps, even if I know what I want, that dream or goal will never be realized because of obstacles or resources or lack of motivation. 

But somehow, going through life never pursuing something bigger than myself seems unbearable. With more life before me than behind me, I want to do something to glorify God and make a difference in the lives of those he puts in my wake. 

But what is that something?

I don’t doubt that God has used me in the lives of the people I have the privilege of having in my life, but I am not content to sit idly by satisfied that I’ve done “something”, and “shouldn’t that be enough?”. 

It’s not. God is bigger. He says I am more. 

So, I wait in prayer. I wait in conversation. I wait in reading scripture and books. And I seek God each step of the way to show me what it is that I want. To help me work through and recover the lost pieces of myself that I have buried away deep beneath the remnants of others.