The Future

The future scares me sometimes.

It's unpredictable, it's ever changing and it's full of promises that remain a secret.

Only God knows my how my future unfolds but He won't tell me. If only He would.

"Oh, Carissa. You've been so obedient this month! As a reward, I'll reveal to you what you're going to do over the next two weeks."

It doesn't work that way.

I don't know where I'll be two years from now, whether I'll be in the United States, Australia, Singapore or back home in Malaysia. Okay, maybe two years is quite a long trip into the future, so let's shorten it a bit. What about six months from now?

I need to do an internship before I graduate, but I have absolutely nothing planned. I'm totally clueless about where I should intern at. I'm comfortable with online journalism and magazine writing and would love to intern at a magazine or an online publishing company. I don't even know if I'll be interning in Arkansas, Texas, California or NEW YORK. God, I would LOVE to go to New York for a holiday, but I'm not too sure if I want to stay in that rowdy city for three whole months and take the subway to the office every day. The cost of living in New York is just way too high; I doubt I'll be getting a paid internship anyway. Besides, I'll be honest. Big magazine companies like Cosmopolitan, Self and Glamour actually intimidate me.

I've just been thinking a lot lately. I've been thinking about the future even though I know I shouldn't. It's so much easier to live for the moment, isn't it? It's so much easier to bask in the present, reminiscence on the past and dream of the future, but it's scary when you start trying to make that dream a reality. Because when you lay out the pieces of your future in front of you, you see so many missing pieces. And then the big picture doesn't look so pretty anymore; it looks incomplete. That's when you start searching high and low for the missing pieces and drive yourself crazy when you don't see them.

People say it's better to live for the moment so you can focus on the current and not worry about the future. They say it's best to let the future unveil itself. There's only so much you can worry about, and worrying over the future won't make it any better. They're right. But I can't help thinking, you know. I can't help feeling scared that I won't be able to graduate on time, or that I won't be able to find a suitable place to intern at when the time comes. I know I should just thrust these concerns to God and let Him take the wheel because that's what He's good at. It's hard, but I'll do it.

I'll release the wheel and let Him control my destiny. The future is in His hands, not mine. And wherever I end up six months or two years down the road... it doesn't matter right now, because I have a whole semester to finish :) I have assignments to do, tests to study for, story ideas to fetch. I have a busy semester that desperately needs my attention.

I don't know where I'll end up. But I know one thing for sure.

Wherever I'm meant to be, there He will be also. :)

I know I'm not alone.