Winds of Change

Soulprint is a book by Mark Batterson. It was given to me by my pastor a few months ago. I ought to have read it, but as all things I ought to have read, I didn’t—until just a few weeks ago. I thought it was something I would be able to read all the way through, but the first chapter was packed with so much for me to think about that I decided to devote an entire week to each chapter.

This book has really got me thinking. As I try to find my “divine destiny,” it’s so easy to get lost in all I’m surrounded with for the majority of the time while I’m at home or at school. I feel like it’s summers like this that help me to screw my head back on right and think straight. I remember reading through the WorldTeach Costa Rica pre-departure information last year. They emphasized pretty seriously that I should not go into my 10 weeks in Costa Rica with the intention of it being a time of self-exploration or self-discovery. Now, of course, I find this laughable. Of course I taught and loved my students as well as I could, but I can’t imagine how a summer in rural Costa Rica with no Internet and nothing to do after 1pm could have been anything but a summer for self-exploration and –discovery. So, while I knew I would be doing a lot of work this summer, I knew that it would also be a time for the fog of stress, anxiety, responsibilities—everything, really—to clear.

Batterson says that one’s soulprint is made up of a few experiences—certainly fewer than you’d think—that shape it. They’re points along the way. Some big, some small. Like connect-the-dots, they are the backbone of a shape or a picture that is great.

I was interviewing the CEO of APHFTA with one of my colleagues, when I was made incredibly aware of something. Both of us were struggling premeds—and by that I mean people struggling to figure out whether or not they should actually be premed—so we thought we would ask the doctor if he had always know he should have been a doctor. The simple answer was no, but he instead of giving the simple answer, he weaved for us a story embroidered with hope, diligence, and vision. He gave us the connect-the-dot story of how he became a doctor, starting with his missionary father moving from Tanzania to various parts of East Africa, going over his brief stint as a 17-yr old business man, and ending with how he came to be sitting in his leather computer chair that day. It was fascinating. It truly struck a chord within me.

I think I have a new vision of what things are supposed to see. Something as simple as a new understanding of hard work and doing what you are supposed to do when and where you are supposed to do it. But that’s not even quite it. It’s a lot more intangible than that. I am really, really looking forward to next school year, and I can feel a change coming along. I know that a lot of things have to change. They’re going to be really, really big changes, but they’re also going to be great ones.  I’m going to have to make quite a few big decisions, but it’s all a part of a bigger outline.

That, I’m sure of.