extraordinary magic

When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I wanted to be an astronaut. Flying amid the planets and stars, floating around on a space ship, that sounded like the life for me. 

When I told my dad this, he told me that you have to be big and strong to be an astronaut -- and plus, you have to know math. The big and strong part was not nearly as daunting to me as the math was, funnily enough. I have since wondered how many dreams have been shattered by math -- but that's a tangent for another time.

As the years have passed, my desire to sail in the stars has remained -- just pointed in a different direction. While I no longer want to go to space (at least not in a pressing way), I do have an itching urge to see the whole entire world and everything in it. (Sometimes I think it might be easier to learn math.) There is something spiritual that happens to me when I'm travelling, something big and beautiful that builds up inside me and teaches me things that I'm convinced it would be much harder for me to learn otherwise. The point? I feel as though my earliest desire to travel to space was just an underdeveloped gift from God that now, given age and experience, helps me see a little of what I'm meant to do here.

If there is one thing I know about Em Pew, it is that she is able to find the good in every person she meets. It's a source of great joy for me, and I hope a source of comfort and peace for those I love -- I hope that those I'm close to understand that no matter how bad they mess up, they can come to me, and I will remember the truth about them that outweighs the mistakes they've made or the pain they caused. And that is something that I somehow believe it's possible for me to spread to the world. Not only do I believe that it's possible, I also believe that it's my calling in life, from God. Em Pew is meant to embrace as many of His children as possible -- and although it's a bit of a stretch from my kindergarten dreams to here, I believe it's all been in my bones for as long as I've been alive.

If you haven't read the book The Alchemist by Paul Coelho, you really should -- it talks about this more poetically and powerfully than I believe I'm currently doing. There are a few themes that resonated with me from the book, but a big one was that most of us know what it is that we should do from the very beginning. 

This is a bold claim for me to make, especially as a college student, where so many of the people I know are absolutely unsure as to the path their lives should be on. But let me ask you this: if you close your eyes and picture your ideal life, what about it would be different than the life you currently have?

I believe if we take the time to look deeply inward, we will discover these things about ourselves -- we will discover the deepest desires we have, and I believe that within those deepest desires is God's greatest gift to us: that is, that He has given us those desires in order to help us accomplish the purposes He has for our life. 

So I want you to think about what makes you feel really good, what makes your soul feel lighter. Have you ever considered that it makes you feel that way because of God's influence?

There is a big reason you have these feelings, and most often, that reason is to bless your life and the lives of others. And the good news is, as long you mean to be the best version of yourself that you can, you will end up exactly where you need to be to do that. 

Everything you need to achieve what God has planned for you is already inside of you. And once you really know that, you'll never be the same.