Waiting by Linnette Le

I was fresh out of undergrad living in Los Angeles, working long days at a “cool” job and traveling so much I barely saw any of my friends or family. I was also in a long-term relationship carried over from college. To those who don’t know my story, it probably looked like a sweet setup, but it was actually one of the most spiritually challenging times for me.

I was eager to excel at my new career, working as much as needed to earn the best ratings and prepare to get into the best graduate schools. By the world’s standards, I had my needs more than taken care of. Nonetheless, I was extremely unfulfilled. What was I working so hard for? Was I helping people’s lives get better with the gifts God had given to me? Was I in a relationship that was spiritually nourishing?

Those years in the first half of my twenties actually brought me to a place that taught me that nothing is fulfilling unless God is first.

After I chased the accolades in my professional career, I applied to graduate schools and found myself faced with rejections that really shook me. I felt worthless, as if my value hung in the scales determined by admissions officers. How easy was I impacted by something so arbitrary, something so worldly? My spiritual dryness, pride, and lack of focus on Him allowed it to eat at me.

In the bigger scheme of things, a couple of grad school rejections seem like nothing, but because I was so self-centered and thought my performance determined my worth, I felt unable to be truly happy.

In my feelings of worthlessness, I found myself rejecting my work, my relationship, and in that low found myself turning to prayer and community at church. I asked God to lead me. That time in life was one of many that showed me that when I ask, God answers.

It was around that time that my brother asked me to join him on a mission trip to Haiti with Nativity. God led me to see that there was so much I could be doing with my talents to be helping fellow brothers and sisters in the world. God led me to know that I needed to work on my connection to Him before anything else, job or relationship, would be good for me.

In that later half of my twenties I entered a period of deepening connection with God. Lots of prayer, lots of time hanging out with people I met through the faith community, and lots of online sermons in my free time led me to a sense of peace I had by myself. I was single. My focus at work was on furthering His kingdom, not my own agenda. I also felt myself relinquish control to God. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever get married (and I was okay with that), or where my career would take me. Instead I tried to just let God guide and provide.

Freedom took over me when I handed my Type-A reins on my life over to Him, and mellowed out.

For those of you who know my story, after that is when I re-met Tu, who is now my loving, better-than-I-could-have-ever-imagined husband, and my career took a turn to a place where I feel like I am serving God every day. I let go and let God take control.

If anyone else feels anything similar to how I felt in my early twenties–perhaps lost, spiritually distant, or lonely–I hope my story can serve as proof that God is so good, especially when He is fully trusted. For me, my time of solitude, prayer, and giving everything up to God changed my life.

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