What do YOU want?

The other day I was talking with a professor friend of mine and we were talking about what I am going to do after college (which is coming to an end all too quickly). He asked me one very important question, "What do you want the end result to be?" He was referring to what I want to do with my life, what's my main mission, what do I want life to look like for me...and right now, how do I take the small but necessary steps to get there. This conversation reminded me of John 1, which I learned a little bit about at Cedar Bend this year...

"What do you want?" - Jesus' words to two disciples in John 1.

These two guys left their main main John to follow the Lamb of God and as they were following him, Jesus turns around and asks, "What do you want?" they reply with asking him where he is staying and Jesus says, "Come and you will see."

I first heard this at Cedar Bend this year and it has been a thought that has been popping in and out of my head quite frequently. I just imagine Jesus, as I'm following him, turning around, looking me dead in the eye and asking me, "Nicole, what do you want?"

I don't really have an answer to that question...yet. It's a very honest question and the more I think about it, the more I think that I don't know what I would say back to him. All I know, is that when he turns back around and continues walking, I want to be right behind him. Not to one side or the other, not running in front of him or lagging behind...I want to be right there, right up close.

Pebble in the pond

Flipping through the pages of an old journal the other day (something I've found myself doing quite a bit lately) I stumbled upon this quote from Dorothy Day. Give it a read, I'm a fan.

"What we would like to do is change the world - make it a little simpler for people to feed, clothe, and shelter themselves as God intended them to do. And, by fighting for better conditions, by crying out unceasingly for the rights of the workers, the poor, of the destitute - the rights of the worthy and the unworthy poor, in other words - we can, to a certain extent, change the world; we can look for the oasis, the little cell of joy and peace in the harried world. We can throw our pebble in the pond and be confident that its ever widening circle will reach around the world. We repeat, there is nothing we can do but love, and, dear God, please enlarge our hearts to love each other, to love our neighbor, to love our enemy as our friend."

I want to throw my pebble in the pond.