Second Star on the Right and Straight on Till Morning...

I’ve been trying to write this post for a bout a month now.  It has swum around in my brain, peeping at the surface, only to dive back under because of either distraction or caution.  But, alas, I am finally trying to get all of it down on a computer screen.  I am trying to share my thoughts for what is approaching quickly in the next few weeks, but I have no clue where to start.

I think it all probably started around January of this year.  We had just got back to school for second semester, and it was official the second semester of my junior year.  Most of my friends were beginning to prep themselves for their graduation, and, as it seems, my tendency is to only hang out with people who are older, or younger, than myself.  As they began frantically assessing what they were going to do with their lives once they graduated, I believe their stress and mental processes became contagion to my brain like a bad case of mental flu.  Next thing I know, I am beginning to stress and wrestle with my own future.  It was as if a weight was dropped on my shoulders. The weight of the future was suddenly bearing down on me, and I was not handling it well.

I began asking ridiculously premature questions for a junior in college. Questions like: what am I going to do when I graduate? Where do I go to graduate school? Do I go to graduate school? Do I stay in Nashville? Do I go somewhere else? Do I get married? Who will I get married to? Do I runaway? What is it like being old? Am I officially old? Is that a gray hair in my beard? Ahhhh. So many questions. So much pressure on my brain. I was overthinking too much, and it all culminated in April.

At the start of April, most everyone had left Nashville for the summer, and I was working an 8-5. 4 hours in the morning at Vanderbilt hospital. There I had to wear pants and a dress shirt, which is literally awful. (How do people breathe in those things?) And, then it was another 4-5 hours in the afternoon at Ethos. There I was at least able to put on a tank top. It was repetitive. It was monotonous, and it felt all too real, all too adult.  If there was ever a question of Isaac’s capacity to continuously preform an 8-5, the answer was declared boldly with an emphatic NO. Finally, I had had enough.  I was sick of feeling old.  I was sick of growing up.   I was sick of the mundane, everyday American life. It was not the American dream for me; it was the American nightmare. So on a Friday afternoon, I got off work and drove down to Franklin to bluntly ask Jesus some questions.

I could tell you all the details of my conversation with Jesus, but honestly, one of two things would happen.  One, you would get extremely bored, or two, you would be seriously terrified of what goes on in my brain. Therefore, I will spare you by simply stating that Jesus looked at me (metaphorically), and reminded me that I am a child of God who is called to freedom. And in that moment, it felt like a weight was lifted off my shoulders. I felt the truth of those statements.  I am a child of God.  He is my daddy. He loves me.  He set me free.  I am free to enjoy life.  I am free to live life.  I am free to laugh.  I am free to adventure.  I am free to enjoy being his child. It was an incredible truth that felt great. Suddenly, I felt like a kid who was flying across Neverland, but what do with I do this newfound freedom of flight?

I knew I couldn’t keep living in the same daily pattern for the entire summer.  I did not want to end my summer like prior summers. By the end of those summers, I have returned to school questioning the value of the previous months. Therefore, I decided to do something crazy and possibly stupid.  I called my Mother and tried to convince her to help, which was an adventure in itself.  “Dear Mother, I would like to quit my job and do something adventurous and stupid.  Will you help me, pretty please?” But to my joy and astonishment, she was completely on board with my childhood fantasy of adventure and exploration.  We contrived together to craft a plan, and next thing I knew, my next Great Perhaps was set in stone.

So here is what I will be doing in T-minus two weeks: I will be spending three weeks backpacking through Europe with me, myself, and Jesus. After the backpacking, I will be studying in Belfast, Ireland for three more weeks. I know where I will be starting, and I know where I will be ending (Belfast), but I have no clue what lies in between those two checkpoints.  I simply know that I will be chasing Jesus with one question: what does his face look like in this world? I am so incredibly excited. I am so incredibly nervous.  The two emotions are swirling together in my mind pushing me each day closer to departure.

The reason I am writing this at all is because I need your help.  You being defined as a broad descriptor for you poor fools who got suckered into reading this silly blog post. I need you to do one or two of things.

1.  Please pray for me.  I am fully aware of the power of prayer, and I desperately need to be blanketed in prayer.  Pray that God will provide me with an adventure that will change my life in him.  Pray that God will provide all that I need, ranging from community, finances, and personal growth.  Pray that God will answer my question in ways I cannot imagine.  Pray for safety. Pray for joy. Pray against the enemy, and pray for anything else that you feel I desperately need prayer for.  I can’t wait to fly out on the 8^th of July with a backpack and a life covered in prayer. 

2. If you have any resources that might benefit me on my journey, please share.  Whether it is churches and congregations I should see, people and places with whom I can couch surf, or any other random, beneficial resources, anything would be useful, and you can contact me at iJonesy.16@gmail.com

If you want to follow my journey, simply follow this blog. Hopefully I can keep you updated with what is on the other side of the second star on the right. Never forget, “I go to seek a Great Perhaps.”