Straight Paths…

I have been reading Psalms and Proverbs this month and am reminded again and again how great it is both to worship the Lord and to fear him. I just LOVE these two books of the Bible, and I enjoy reading through them at the same time. Early on in my Proverbs reading, I read the well known verses of Proverbs 3:5-6:

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”

Typically I don’t spend a lot of time reflecting on the tried and true verses that I have had memorized since elementary school, but then I realized if someone thought it was important for me to memorize this verse when I was six, it probably has some pretty good stuff in it. I started thinking to myself, “how often do I lean on my own understanding?” I am sad to say, probably way too often. I acknowledge God as my Creator, Savior, and the Sovereign Guide of my life, and yet I spend my days planning my steps and trying to control every little thing that happens to me. Yuck. I am called to trust in the Lord, even at times when it doesn’t make “sense” to do so. Even when my own plan seems sufficient or even excellent in my own eyes.

But the beauty of trusting the Lord comes with a promise. When I trust him, he will set straight my paths. Now the writer of this Proverb probably means “straight paths” in a moral sense. He means that to trust in the Lord means that God will set you on the straight path of a righteous life. And how much do I long to be on that straight path of a God-glorifying life that leads to salvation? But I also think that trusting God means that He will guide you exactly where He wants you on this journey of life. To trust God means that you have faith that the place in which he has you (with your spouse, family, friends, church, job, ministry, trials, joys, sorrows, even your geographic location) is exactly where He wants you, and when he wants you to move along this path to somewhere new, in quiet faith you will feel the prompting of His hand and Spirit guiding you.

I feel like I am at a place right now where God’s hand and Spirit are nudging me, possibly in a different direction. I am in Arizona to go to school, to get my PhD in English, a goal I have had since I was a child when I wanted to become a “Doctor of Books.” Thankfully, there was a beautiful marriage of my own plans with those of God, and both Micah and I feel that Phoenix is exactly where we are supposed to be right now. But now that I have begun my studies in Renaissance literature, I am beginning to wonder if this is what God wants me to study and teach for the rest of my life. Renaissance lit is a demanding field with fierce competition, inflated egos, and very limited job opportunites. I love Shakespeare, but I am suddenly hesitant about going into a field where I will be pressured to become egotistical and self-seeking or risk flailing on the outskirts, jobless and miserable. I know those are two extremes, and with God’s help, I might easily find a place in the middle where I am employed and not an arrogant scholar, but the temptations and the struggles of the literature field have caused me to see another option for teaching that I have completely overlooked in the past…

There is a whole other field of English called Rhetoric/Composition, which until this year, I would have never given a second thought about. I took one Rhet/Comp class in undergrad and hated it. I love books and have always wanted to teach literature. But this year my TA position requires me to teach composition classes, which I am surprisingly enjoying very much. Also, with the way the TA program works at ASU, I will only be able to teach a limited number of lit classes over the next five years, while my resumé has the potential to overflow with various composition classes I could teach at ASU. I am taking my first rhet/comp grad class this semester, and I can already tell I am going to love it. My teacher is down to earth, smart but not pompous, and the subject matter (digital literacies and online networking) interests me immensely. Since Christmas, I have had this growing interest in moms and the Internet and how social networking and blogging have changed what it looks like to be a mom – specifically a “stay at home mom.” As you can imagine, studies of Internet culture are huge right now and will be ever-changing over the next few decades if not centuries. And of course, this means jobs galore for rhetoric/composition teachers. I get an e-mail about a job opening for a rhet/comp professor almost every day in my ASU inbox. On the other hand, I have seen about three job ads for lit professors in the past six months, and NONE of them have been in the area of Renaissance.

I don’t want to forsake my dreams of being a literature professor simply because of a tough job market. I trust God way too much to base my decision on that. But I have also been reflecting a lot about how God has me on this path right here right now… I almost went to grad school three years ago to study Renaissance lit at the University of Miami. I would have been single and dedicated and no doubt very successful in a very successful lit program. But moving to Miami would have meant ending my relationship with Micah and I chose him instead of books (and am VERY thankful for that decision by the way!). Now God has brought me to grad school, but I am married and a completely different person in so many ways. As I look to the future, which now includes becoming an increasingly Godly wife, probably having children (most likely before I am done with my PhD program), and living on mission with a new church in a new city, I am wondering if God is trying to tell me something. Pursuing a literature degree seems to conflict a bit with all the other blessings in my life. It’s hard to cook dinner for your husband when you are supposed to read all of Hamlet and 150 pages of theory on sex in Renaissance by class tomorrow… It’s hard to imagine myself trying to work and network my way in to a ring of elite Shakespearean scholars while I have two babies at home that need time with their mother. And unlike most Renaissance scholars, I won’t be able to move just anywhere to take that ONE job that is available. I will always put my husband’s career before my own, which would be much easier to do with rhet/comp jobs available in almost every state. Clearly, I am at a crossroads. I have not made any decsions yet, but I am eager to see which path God places me on. I know it will be the straight one, if I trust Him with the future…

He doesn’t promise that the path will be free of obstacles, only that it will be straight… and we know the Father walks with those on the straight path and that the path’s end is eternal joy, peace, and glory.

Life of a Lit Student…