(Sur[real)ity]

I’m not sure why I am writing on a night in which my brain is fried (for a multitude of reasons), but perhaps it gets it out of the way to allow my heart to do the speaking instead.

This morning I got an email from the Art Department informing me (and all the other art students) that I needed to complete my annual advising, filling out a contract for the next 5 quarters of the classes I plan on taking. I’ve done this the past 2 years, and so it’s been familiar.
However, as I opened it this morning, it took me by surprise. It listed the next 5 quarters, as always, but the last quarter listed was the Spring of 2010, which is also my time of graduation.

That occurrence brought a new, stark reality to life—that graduation is actually, for the first time, in sight. It coupled with the fact that time has been flying by in a brazen, somewhat frenzied pace lately, and time seems to continue to speed up.

I’ve had a few discussions with friends of mine about the fact that our entire lives, up to this point, have consisted of only faint views of adulthood and what it looks like. It was always the prospect of the future, but one far off, intangible, and one that seems like it will never come. Yet, now, for the first time in our lives, it is no longer a prospect, but now a reality. And it’s the reality for the rest of our lives.

The days of innocence and carefree bliss that we associate with childhood are passing. Our eyes are coming into a truer view of this broken world, and we wonder and ponder what God’s role for us in it is. The aspect of going home one day to our Father is more and more enticing—perhaps, because there, we could avoid the realities that are seeming to plummet upon us.

I’m not trying to make this out to be a bad thing. Because it’s not, really. We are to move on from the elementary ways and onto the mature, and that is good. Even though we want to be Peter Pan and never grow up, growing up is good. It means many of the long held, highly regarded dreams of our youth can come into fruition now. Just about every girl has long dreamed of her wedding day and walking down the aisle to her groom. Just about every girl “couldn’t wait” to have kids of her own, even if she was 8 at the time. I know boys have dreams of this nature, though their content I do not know. I think we are coming to understand that though life isn’t the fairy tale we always dreamed it would be, in slow motion and with beautiful panning shots and a vignette blur around the edges, we understand that God has a far better story written. We’ve been walking in it from day one of our lives, but now just seems more real and tangible, because now, these things can actually happen, and are happening to those we know.

But I’ve had a strange occurrence in the midst of this stark reality…and that’s that life seems surreal to me. It doesn’t feel like I am fully here. My appetite for things is changing to some degree. I’m longing more and more the presence of my Lord rather than the blessings He’s given on this earth. It’s surely a lot of prayer answered, as I used to struggle otherwise. But it reminds me ever so, that this life, is transitory. That though, God manifests Himself tremendously on this earth, there still must be more than this.

A passage from the book The Shack talked about Heaven, stating “our final destiny is not the picture of Heaven that we have stuck in our heads, the image of pearly gates and gold stuff; instead, it’s a new cleansing of the universe” (pg 177).

Whatever Heaven may be, I do not know, but I eagerly await. This earth that I reside on now is my lot that God has cast. I attempt to embrace it wholeheartedly, as I am coming to understand that not just this present reality and the lessons with it, but also all of the future ones as well, are just preparation for that day I return home. As for now, may I become more and more like my Savior, resemble the image of my Creator, and live by the Holy Spirit indwelling within.