My next step...

I have wondered for a while what my next step after college was going to be. Was it going to be something like grad school, seminary, or the like; or was it going to be staying in Rome like so many of my friends from Shorter have done, or was it going to be moving back home like many other friends have also done. While I have thought about this and have wrestled with what was going to be the next step it was always a ways off and therefore while I am still wrestling with it there is no immanence concerning the need to make a decision. Of course, this was until the beginning of this semester.
The beginning of this semester I began to truly see the light at the end of this five and a half year tunnel that I have called college. Of course, tunnels are usually dark and something that you are simply focused on getting through without any fun along the way; this is by far not what my college life was like, but tunnel none the less. Anyway, at the beginning of this semester I was truly able to say these four classes pending I was going to graduate in December. Knowing that graduation was coming I began to seriously look at my plans for what I was going to do after college. Knowing that God has called me to ministry, and since my degree was in religion, I decided that seminary seemed to be the most logical step. So I began looking at seminaries and decided that while I did like New Orleans seminary, I was(am) still a little bit uneasy about moving to Louisiana to live, so I decided that I was going to apply to the seminary for the Extension Center in Atlanta and still live in Rome and work and go to school down there.
Well, as things seemed to progress closer and closer to today, while I was looking for jobs and would put in applications nothing ever came of my search and I was never able to find a roommate to live with after I graduated, so this put a huge damper on what my plans were post graduation.
This dampening of my plans left me with only one other option, moving home after graduation. Ironically, it seems like to my mom this was what was going to happen all along. However, as much as I love home, I feel like this is taking a giant step backwards on the independence scale and as far as seminary is concerned because while commuting is still an option 2 hours twice a week to school, not to mention home is really not an option at all. Unfortunately, there is not a seminary anywhere around home either.
So, I sit here at school just waiting for graduation to occur a week from today, and then I am moving home. I don't really think that this would be a big deal if it wasn't for the fact that Rome had become a second home for me,even more so than Thomson in some cases. For the last several years, I have only gone home on holidays so I basically lived in Rome. This is where all of my really close friends are with the exception of a few. My friends here in Rome, have become like my family over the past five and a half years. I feel like I am moving on and leaving family behind.
A big part of the family I am leaving behind is my family at Three Rivers Community Church, this church has had such an impact in my life and has definitely helped to shape my thoughts on what the church is and what my calling as a minister can look like. There are several men in this church who have helped shape my thoughts on what it means to be a man, and what it will someday mean to be a father and a husband.
Youth for Christ is something else that I am really going to miss. While I really started getting involved again this past summer I have truly enjoyed working with the staff and really getting to see God change the life of the kids and the families that we have a chance to minster to. The staff has really taught me a lot and my internship has reminded me of the joys of ministry are a lot of times in the small things.
So, right now I am taking the next step that seems to be there, no matter how much it doesn't feel like the right one. I am fully aware that God's plans are not our plans and neither is his timing our timing. In fact, this may be one of the most clear examples of both I have ever had. Until God shoots me in another direction which could definitely happen I am now planning on going home and working somewhere to save up enough money to move back up to Rome so I can start seminary. How long will that be, more, 6 months, a year,I don't know. If it is God's will it will happen, and evidently it is his will for me to move home now. Hopefully, he will give me a peace about it in the coming days.