The Plans I Have For You.

Somewhere, in some cold and crowded mail room, sits an envelope. It's a white envelope with a logo by the return address, immediately broadcasting to the missals surrounding it that it is important, professional. Tomorrow, the envelope will carry its contents as it is carried by one postal warrior after another into a mass mailbox positioned at the mouth of Chapel Lane. A British-Mexican-American, either lanky with curly grey hair or short with a large smile, will pick up with the postal service ends and toss the envelope on to my bed.

The white, professional, logo-d envelope is filled with my official transcript.

No big deal. I've requested an official transcript be sent to me before for various portfolios. The difference this time is that I didn't request this transcript for the purpose of throwing it in sheet-protectors. I requested this transcript to scan and attach as a document.

Online.

As part of a job application.

Job application.


I have five job applications ready to go. There are five different versions of the same cover letter sitting in its own little .pdf pile. There are five rows entered in a spreadsheet titled [Job Search Status.docx]. There are five resumes in a separate .pdf pile, all identical except for a word or two in the Objective heading. Five jobs - three elementary and/or beginning band, one high school, and one comprehensive instrumental.

It's only January. This process has only just begun.

I've gotten incredible feedback and complements on my student teaching so far. The St. Joseph Fine Arts coordinator is coming to watch me next week. Student teaching often turns into a job, and I would be more than content if that turned out to be true in this case. However, the reality is...

...none of these could amount to anything.

They could. Or they couldn't.
I may never have more than five entries on that spreadsheet. Or I might have twenty-eight.
I may have a job when I graduate. Or not.
My time in St. Joseph could be a semester long. Or longer.
I might teach elementary. Or not.

I'd like that St. Joseph position. So many pieces seem to be falling into place, so many paths seem to be heading in the same direction. I could go on and on about how much I have loved student teaching, about how I'm thrilled about an age group that terrified me, about how I'm finding my niche in the St. Joseph church, about how I feel like I've found a place that I could call home base for a few years and be happy about it.

I could go on and on.

But it all boils down to this: I'm one application in a flood. As much as I feel that I've earmarked myself here in St. Joseph, I'm still just one application.

None of this is in my control, really. Yes, I can be proactive and professional and put my best foot forward but when it's all said and done, the decision isn't up to me.

I'm learning that that's okay. I'm learning that no matter where I am in life, I am exactly where God wants me to be. I'm not here on accident, not because I messed up somewhere along the line and God's just doing the best He can to salvage His plan for me. No, He's got it under control. If I'm not meant to teach in any of those five positions, that's perfectly fine.

Trust.

I feel as if a word that describes something that weighty and crucial and deep should be more than one syllable.