What do you want to get from your degree?

I've been thinking recently.

I know, it's surprising.

I'm nearing the end of my first year of college. I will be nineteen years old this month. After this summer, where I hopefully complete seven hours of science credits, I will be completely done with my general education requirements. That means at the start of next year, which is approximately five months away, I will be taking my major classes. But the thing is I don't know what I want those to be.

Does anyone? you ask. Really, though. The common thought is that college students change their majors more than Katy Perry changes her hair tone, which, for those of you who don't know, is quite often.
"I changed my major four times in college!" I've heard that bunches. I've changed mine once already and here I am again: uncertain, looking up majors, making my mother a nervous wreck as we discuss my "future."

This isn't a post about changing majors. It is, kind of, but not really. It's okay to change your major a dozen times. You do you. Change it until you find something you like. This is college and you're learning who you are.

This is a post about me thinking about what I want my life to be and I've just happened to start thinking about it once I started thinking and researching potential degrees. (That rhymed).

My major, currently, is Christian Studies with an emphasis in Bible. My plan was to double major in English Writing, take lots of French classes, and hopefully minor in Teaching English as a Second Language. I've loved both of my Christian Studies classes I've been taking this semester; I love learning about Jesus. But one thing that I also hear a lot of is that neither of these degrees are very good for the actual world. One girl in my Christian Studies class told me that her brother said she should get a "real minor" since she was getting a fake degree in Christian Studies. And that's not wrong for him to want his sister to have an employable major, to have a chance at a job.

However, I also started realizing that I don't want my life to be defined by a degree. And sometimes it's not, you're right. My stepdad Joshua has a degree in mathematics and was a salesman, food industry worker, and is currently a firefighter, which has been his dream job for ever. My mother is one of the only humans I've met that got a degree in Chemistry and is a Chemist, but that's how it works: both ways. So degrees don't define your life, but it is a good idea to get one that's employable, so the world says. And that's not wrong, either. This post isn't to rant about that. It's what I've been coming to realize.

I don't want a career to define my life. Or a major. My degree.

As I've been looking at degrees it's like I'm looking at what my life is going to be. X major = this job, this money, this degree. Major B is really employable. What can you do with a C Major degree? As long as you can get a job.

I've been thinking a lot, especially after my recent missions trip and my whole life over the past year. And this is what I want my life to be: I want to be a child of God.

I want to glorify Him and bring others to Him. I want to honor him with my life.

I read this last week in my Bible class textbook: "God is concerned for those who are weak, either physically or socioeconomically. Furthermore, he expects his people, since they have him living in their midst, to be actively helping and defending such people" (Duval and Hays 409).

The bible's challenge for me is to have views, hopes, goals, and dreams rooted in biblical theology, not for me to make 100k a year, be employable, and successful.

Reading that made me think of what the dreams of what I want my life to be, and this is what I've come to see: I want justice. I want to help minorities. Illegal immigrants. The poor. The elderly. Children. Abused women. The unborn. The hungry. The cold. The lost. The broken. Drug Addicts. Inmates. Refugees. The sick. The sad. The children of my God, who just so happen to be all around me.

I want to work with refugees. I want to teach people in foreign countries English and speak to them in their native tongue and show them God's love through every action I do. I want to go to Africa and do whatever needs to be done. I want to love and serve aliens (foreigners, not UFOs in the sky). The unborn. People who don't look or act or talk like me or the girl sitting next to me in my Literature class. The abused. People.

And this is something I just thought about - literally right now - and it kind of changes where I thought this post was going to go. People can do those things through their jobs, too, Gabbie. You can be an accountant and direct people toward Christ and love others, fulfilling our great commission. That's really cool and comforting.

I don't know what I want to say with this post. But Josh sent me this text and I just started to think:

I want my degree to equip me to be a better servant. I want it to help me glorify the Lord, because I'm selfish. I'm a sinner and I sin all the time. I put myself first and am not a good person at all. I want to leave college with a firm foundation of Jesus and a desire to get to know him more. I also want to be fluent in French, because I want to be able to talk to the little African refugees children I encountered in Atlanta with the hopes that I can love them more. Plus, learning another language is always a dope life tool. 

When I think of my life I'm tempted to break it down in what I want it to be. I want to be a writer. I want to be a nanny in a foreign country, like a governess, and take care of a few little kids. I want to be a missionary or work for a Non-Profit organization. Those are my dreams. 

But really I've already been given my dream: to glorify God. 

I pray that he helps me do that and leads me on a path where I can constantly be trying to do that. Because, again, I cannot emphasize how totally unable I am to do that without him. I am nothing without Christ. 

And I think we can do that in so many ways. We can do that by getting a degree in Chemistry and being a Chemist. We can do that by getting a degree in Music and becoming a CEO. We can do that by getting a degree in Pre-med but decide to be a manager at Pizza Hut instead because food service is totally awesome (it so is. It's my favorite job.) We can do that by not getting a degree. We can do that by being a parent. We do that by loving God and serving him with our life. 

This post changed so much. Originally it was going to be me crying out asking why the world cared so much about degrees and careers, but God really taught me just through writing it. 

I also have a lot to say about singleness and not finding identity in marriage or relationships, but let's save that for another time. Maybe when I have more life under my belt and actually become a bit wise. I don't know if that'll happen, but it totally could, God willing. 

One final thing before I go. This is for all of you who are trying to decide what major you're going to pursue. You might be scared or confused or really want to do English, like I did at one point, and someone's telling you that's dumb or something.

I told somebody once that I planned on getting an English degree and they asked me, not unkindly, "and what are you planning on doing with that?"

I wish I had the picture saved of my response, but, unfortunately, I don't. But here's basically what I said:

I could be a writer. Or a teacher. A waitress. Librarian. A wife. Maybe even a mom. An actress. A secretary. A great friend. Missionary. Volunteer worker. Firefighter. A business owner. Politician. A carpenter. A fisherman. 

I can be anything I want to be. 

You can be anything you want to be. Sometimes majoring in Biology helps, especially if you want to be a doctor, but in life crazy things can happen, and there's no guarantees. But I'll say it again: you can be anything you want to be. You don't have to settle for one career or one degree. You can change your mind, switch jobs, not work at all, there's so much we can do, because our God is creative. And he makes loveliness out of the badness and is big enough to do whatever crazy things he wants. 

But my prayer for you, and for me, is that we'll fulfill what he dreamed for us to be: his children, glorifying him in his presence, with the hope of enjoying an eternity at his side.