Pardon Me, as I Spew My Thoughts onto the Internet

I have come to the part of my high school career where I must decide what path I'm going to take for the next four years of my life.  I'm applying to colleges.  Although I still have several months to decide between the ones that (hopefully) accept me, it's still a decision that's been on my mind a lot right now.

A couple weeks ago I got the opportunity to visit a state college that is about five hours away from my home.  It was a great college, in a rural setting with beautiful buildings and a good academic program.  It also has its drawbacks:  it really is in the middle of nowhere -- no Wal-Mart or fast food or anything, and the dorms aren't that great.  One bathroom/shower per 10 students.  Count it -- TEN.

Tomorrow I get to visit a college a little bit closer to home.  It's near a large city.  It has tunnels connecting its buildings for easy winter walking.  It has a stellar academic program and study abroad opportunities.  I don't know the state of it's restroom facilities, but I'm sure they're good :)  Of course, as with any private university, it costs a fortune.

And then there is a college out of state that I likely won't be visiting.  It's a beautiful, Christian college with just about everything you could ask for.  Nice campus (from the pics), the admissions counselors are very helpful, and the Christian values are exactly what I believe.  No legalism, no passiveness.  But it's so far away.

And I wonder, how do I decide?  How do I figure it out?  Will I ever know enough -- will God shout it from the clouds -- so that I can sign my life away for four years with confidence?  It isn't just four years, either.  It sets the projection for the rest of my life, almost.  It affects who I marry, what job I get, where I live, what church I attend.  It matters.

And yet, maybe it doesn't.  Because God said go and do, and glorify Me there.  Will I screw up my entire life by attending the wrong college?  Not if I glorify God there.  Not if He is more important than a Bachelor's degree or an insignia on a sweatshirt.  I am just a teenage girl, scared about the great, black void of the future.  Wondering what it will hold.  What it will do to me, where it will take me.

But if I glorify God there, if I glorify Him here, does it matter?  If I make choices with the wisdom I have been given, if I pray and pray, if I let God take care of the future -- because He's been there already --then maybe it fails to matter.  It is but a dot on a globe swallowed up by the immensity of the Omnipresent One.  And He ought to be enough.