on my way to...

In the morning, I am headed to Richmond, Virginia for the Journeyman Expo Interview Conference.  I will be there from the 19th-23rd.  I will meet amazing people and hear amazing stories.  And then I will get to see the jobs that are currently open around the world.  Eeeeeekkk!!!!

I am so excited.

At the beginning of college, my future was written out...by me.  I had everything laid out, planned perfectly.  For the next 8 years of life.

And then, I realized that my plan was not good for me.  It was not God's best for me.  And that's because it was mine.

Sophomore year at a girls' retreat at my church at college, my pastor, Kyle, made a life-changing remark.  He said that my future is not unknown; it is just un-named.  

"...All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be." Psalm 139:16

God has had the plan all along.  And by all along, I mean before there was a living, breathing Alyssa Robertson Brown.

So my future turned into this fog that only God knows.  Being blind was hard at first, but it was a real comfort knowing I was being led by the One who never sleeps, who is always watching over the earth.  He sees everything.  He knows everything.

And now, the waiting and the trusting is natural.  I can only say that it is through God that I am not a nervous, anxious wreck right now.  He has everything, including what's next for me, in His hands.

And now, as I head off to the Journeyman Conference the future instead appears in my mind as an opening book.  

I am running down the page as it is being turned

Hoping to see 

What is there just beyond all I can see

With my own little eyes.

The next page in life is coming.  I am getting closer to see where He has me planned to be for the next two years.  

I cannot wait to see what letters will form on the page in front of me this week.

Please pray for confidence and continued reliance upon Him.  

Where do I go from here?

Well, I don't know that yet.  

But I do know that I am on my way to...

There.

i will follow You.

New song by Chris Tomlin.  My theme song for life right now...

Where You go, I'll go
Where You stay, I'll stay
When You move, I'll move
I will follow...


All Your ways are good

All Your ways are sure
I will trust in You alone
Higher than my side
High above my life
I will trust in You alone 

Where You go, I'll go

Where You stay, I'll stay
When You move, I'll move
I will follow You
Who You love, I'll love
How You serve I'll serve
If this life I lose, I will follow You
I will follow You

Light unto the world
Light unto my life
I will live for You alone
You're the one I seek
Knowing I will find
All I need in You alone, in You alone

Where You go, I'll go
Where You stay, I'll stay
When You move, I'll move
I will follow You
Who You love, I'll love
How You serve I'll serve
If this life I lose, I will follow You
I will follow You

In You there's life everlasting

In You there's freedom for my soul
In You there joy, unending joy
and I will follow

Where You go, I'll go

Where You stay, I'll stay
When You move, I'll move
I will follow You
Who You love, I'll love
How You serve I'll serve
If this life I lose, I will follow You
I will follow You
I will follow You


I will follow You.

AMEN!!!!!

a product of work boredom.

"I CAN FLY"  By: Me

I've flown before.

I know
I know
I can't fly.
It's impossible,
right?
To fly one needs
Wings
That are aerodynamically
Sound
Shaped just right
Weighing the perfect
Amount.

But still
I've flown.

I've been in the sky
Alone
Just me and my wings
I've felt the rush
Of the wind beneath.
I've changed my direction
From north to south
I've even tasted
Bugs and butterflies in my
mouth.

But it's impossible,
right?
To fly one has to be
A member of a species:
Bird, insect, spider
Some crazy reptile,
Flying fish, sugar glider.
You have to be made
To fly
To soar.

But I've got to argue.

To fly, really fly,
there's so much more.
To fly it takes inner
Strength.
A hope and belief that
The sky can be reached.
An inner desire to feel
What it is to
Be out of this world
Off of the ground
So far away
From every sound.

You can sit and argue with me,
"You cannot fly!
You've never seen
the earth beneath
On your own
Apart from a window seat!"

But I know
That I've been
Way up high.
I know that
I have been
A part of the sky.

For you see
I have flown,
In dreams,
All on my own.
It's when I close
My eyes
And fall into deep sleep
That I spread my
Wings
And fly.

hobbits are real.

My sister had eleven pages left of the first chapter of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit when my mom began to get excited about hobbits and dwarves.

That's when my sister looked up and asked sincerely, "Are they real?"

I giggled, not intending to make fun of her thought process, but because I wanted to (and almost did) reply, "Yes. Of course."

Of course, there are such things as hobbits with furry feet that live in a beautiful and magical place called The Shire.  Of course, there are such things as wise wizards and dwarves and dragons.

Beneath and on and under and in between the pages of a book are creatures and adventures and entire worlds.  In fact...

In Cornelia Funke's Inkspell, Orpheus explains, "This book taught me, once and for all, how easily you can escape this world with the help of words!  You can find friends between the page of a book, wonderful friends!  Friends like you, fire-eaters, giants, fairies..." 

And Mo teaches Meggie that "[s]tories never really end . . . even if the books like to pretend they do. Stories always go on.  They don't end on the last page, any more than they begin on the first page . . . Isn't it odd how much fatter a book gets when you've read it several times? . . . As if something were left between the pages every time you read it.  Feelings, thoughts, sounds, smells . . . and then, when you look at the book again many years later, you find yourself there, too, a slightly younger self, slightly different, as if the book had preserved you like a pressed flower . . . both strange and familiar."

My sister was right in her thinking.  I hope she continues to believe in hobbits and learns to love jumping into the pages of books just like me.

 

 

one step closer.

I officially heard from the Journeyman Program yesterday evening!  An email was sent to me at 12:33pm, but I did not get a chance to check my email until 8:14pm last night.

The email basically gave me this exciting news....
-We have considered your application among many and have chosen you as one of the applicants to be invited to the October conference.  Congratulations!  You will receive more information soon.
-This does not guarantee that we will place you in a job position, because we are not sure if your background and experience will fit our current needs (as of October).
-We are excited to meet you, although we feel we know you so much already from your application!

Hooray!
It still hasn't hit me yet that I am one step closer to knowing what the next two years may hold for me.  I am really excited!  But I am not getting too overly excited yet, as there is still a possibility that I may not get a job.

But...
I'm one step closer.

And right now, that's enough for me.  :)

4 Things.

1) We got an English White Cream Golden Retriever puppy!
Her name is Maya.  She will be 8 weeks old on Thursday.  She really is the cutest thing you have ever seen.  Ever.

2) I am starting my first official job tomorrow.  I am going to be a receptionist with City Bank Mortgage.  I am excited to have something to do that will be a new experience and be earning me some money.  Shall I say it?  Independence, whether I'm ready or not, here I slowly come.

3) Tomorrow is also September 1st.  The first day of the month that I am supposed to hear whether or not I get an interview for the Journeyman Program, a two-year mission program with International Mission Board.  Exciting...

4) I recently babysat three adorable and fun kids!  Here is a picture of the fruits of our labor, a Tower of DVDs:

Cool, huh?  :) 

Please notice the "Air Buddies" movies at the very top; 

those were the favorites, 

the ones deserving of a place of honor.

The whole thing was all their idea. 

That's the best part about it.

children's literature.

My favorite class that I took in college was, without a doubt, Classics of Children's Literature.

As Baylor classes start today, I am sad not to be present.  It is really weird when I consider the fact that Baylor goes on without me.  The beautiful campus became my home for the past four years, and it is strange not to be there and be in class.

Because I am not in class, I have to find other ways of learning and challenging myself.  One of those ways is through books.  If you know me, you know that I LOVE to read.  LOVE to read.  The busyness of this summer did not allow for zooming through 30 or so books (as I have done in past summers), so the reading has been slow.

But, I just finished my third book of this summer, C.S. Lewis' Letters to Children.  It is a collection of letters that Lewis wrote to children who wrote to him with questions, ideas, pictures, and random thoughts.  Over and over the book reminded me of things we learned in my favorite class.  Here are some quotes that made me smile (and next to which, of course, I pencilled in a smiley face):

"A good toenail is not an unsuccessful attempt at a hair; and if it were conscious it w[oul]d. delight in being simply a good toenail."

"If you continue to love Jesus, nothing much can go wrong with you, and I hope you may always do so. I'm thankful that you realized [the] 'hidden story' in the Narnian books.  It is odd, children nearly always do, grown-ups hardly ever."

Lewis replies to a child's picture of Narnian characters:  "But what I like best of all is the 'spirit of a tree'.  It is so beautifully wavy and graceful and is moving so.  Bravo!"

"You see, I don't think age matters so much as people think.  Parts of me are still 12 and I think other parts were already 50 when I was 12: so I don't feel it v.[ery] odd that they grow up in Narnia while they are children in England."

"The first beginning of the winter always excites me; it makes me want adventures.

"If you become a writer you'll be trying to describe the thing all your life: and lucky if, out of dozens of books, one or two sentences, just for a moment, come near to getting it across." 

 "I enjoyed that imaginary world so much myself that I'm glad to find anyone who has been there and liked it as much as I did--just like meeting someone who has been to a place one knows and likes in the real world." 

Reading is delightful.  Dive into children's literature sometime, and rediscover the treasure trove there.