Filling in my blank: A Journey (1)

On the wall above my desk is a small, lined, yellowed piece of paper in an old wooden frame. At the top, in careful childish cursive, is the title,“Life Goals,” with a little squiggly underline and a sticker of a little girl with a bow in her hair. At the corner of the page is the date: Sept. 6, 1989. Yes, I wrote them more than 21 years ago. Then there is a quote by Victor Frankel (I write it here exactly as I wrote it there): “Not having a goal is more to be feared than not reaching a goal. I would rather attemt to do somtheing great and fail than attenpemt to do notheing and succeed.”

Yes, my spelling has improved. 🙂 Below that are four categories and my life goal for each. Here is exactly how it reads:

God: pray and read the Bible every day.

Family and church: Obey my parents.

Self: Save money and earn money. [Ha! I was frugal from my youth!]

World:

–

Pretty basic, and funny to see how much I am the same person as a thirty-year-old mother and ministry wife, as I was as a nine-year-old girl who loved bunny rabbits and ballet. You may, however, notice, that the World goal is blank. Interesting.

And most interesting is the fact that that has largely been my life goal for the world—nothing. Yes, God so loved the world. Yes, I’ve done some short-term missions and traveled to a number of different countries. I have family from Japan, Bangladesh, Calcutta.  So I can’t say I haven’t seen the world.  But a heart for the world? A love for the world?  A goal for how my life impacts the world? Not at all. I’m content reading my Bible and praying every day, obeying my parents, and saving money. 🙂 It makes me chuckle just sitting here, to see how my 9-year-old goals have truly set the course of my entire life.

At least, I pray, until now.

I feel like very slowly God is beginning to fill in that blank on my yellowed sheet of notebook paper from 1989. It has been blank for far too long. So while I am not an expert on the world, on poverty, on missions, on compassion—I am a 9-year-old girl again asking God what He wants me to do about the unfinished business on that page.

And I’d love to share the journey with you. I know it’s not complete; in fact, I have no idea where it will go. But just as a baby Christian shares her newfound faith before she knows all the ins and outs of theology and doctrine, I share my heart with you as someone discovering a tiny glimpse of God’s heart for the world.

Will you join me as I pencil in that blank?  Many of you already have beautiful goals penciled into your page.  But if you, like me, find a spot that is still blank, perhaps God will pencil something in for you as well.