Tetris

I hate tetris. I hate how all of those little pieces get piled up and misplaced if you look away for two seconds. When I'm actually paying attention to the game I get panicked when a new piece appears. I shuffle it around, looking for the perfect fit, and move it all over the screen until I finally place it. Then it's too late to change my mind. Sound familiar? It strangely sounds a lot like life.

As most of you know, my upcoming trip to Senegal has been the light at the end of a seemingly never ending tunnel. I have taken the semester off from Birmingham-Southern in order to find some form of fulfillment, or put the right pieces in the right places. The idea of returning to Senegal has been in my mind since I left there last August. It was not until recently that I saw the pieces actually coming together. I shuffled the trip around my calendar, moving it from January to March to May and back to March. I wanted it to be the perfect timing, so that I wouldn't miss any important events both in Senegal and Birmingham. Then, I started to panic as the deadlines drew nearer and I still didn't have things where I wanted them. Moving it from time to time, I finally placed it, smack in the middle of everything.
There's no need to panic as those pieces begin falling from the top of the screen, because in the end everything stacks up, one way or another. People said it wasn't feasible. "You can't just take a semester off to go traipsing across the world, Anna." Oh, really? We'll see about that. I'm not saying that I've got it all figured out, but I am saying that I'm heading in the right direction, and I'm putting the pieces where I feel they fit best.

A good man once wrote, "By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back. " - Philippians 3:13-14

I've taken the semester off. I'm not graduating at the planned time. I'm missing some great friends. However, I am spending 6 weeks in a United Methodist mission in Dakar, Senegal, and I think that's well worth all of the panic and misgivings.