I am a baby sea turtle.

When I was a child, grandma's house was a very exciting place to me for the sole reason that while my mom and my grandma chatted, I would be set in front of a television which, unlike mine at home, actually had cable. This meant I had full access to explore Nickelodeon and the Disney channel to my heart's content - a thrilling prospect! One of my favorite shows on Nick Jr. was "Gullah Gullah Island", a series about a group of families who lived on an awesome island and apparently spent all day every day learning things about nature, themselves, and each other. I very clearly remember one episode in which the family went down to the beach one night to watch baby sea turtles hatch. It was so amazing to watch these tiny little turtles, no bigger than the palms of the children's hands, flop and waddle their awkward way toward the sea and half-leap into the incoming waves. It still amazes me to this day... how can something JUST HATCHED, which has spent its entire life until this point growing and developing in the sheltered safety of a soft egg buried deep in the sand for protection, break free of its egg, push up through the sand, and rush toward the perilous, mighty ocean without a second of hesitation? (Can you imagine a baby being just delivered, and immediately hopping up and trotting toward the hospital parking lot to go home?) How does a baby turtle even have the strength to do it, when these creatures have had no chance to exercise their tiny little muscles until the moment of their glorious emergence? There's only one answer: because that's how God made them. He put it into their teensy little minds - or maybe hearts - to push up out of their soft prison and upon encountering the wide world immediately race toward the raging ocean as fast as their floppy little fins will take them. And He gave them the strength to do it.

Sometimes I have doubts and worries about the future. I worry about whether or not I'll be hired for the summer job I need to help me stay in college next year. I worry about what I'm going to do for the roughly seven months after I graduate before I plunge into the internship I feel God calling me to. I wonder what I'm supposed to do with my life after the internship is complete. And yet, like those baby sea turtles, God is calling me forward. He already knows where I'm headed and what I need to do to get there, and He will draw me toward Himself as I go.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
~Jeremiah 29:11

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works,which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.
~Ephesians 2:10

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.
~Proverbs 3:6

One more thing I learned while watching baby sea turtles hatch... when the time came for a baby turtle to flounder toward the ocean, Ranger Mike instructed the family to keep all of their flashlights off, because the light of the moon and the stars on the water is what leads the baby turtles to the ocean. Seeing other lights would make them turn away from the ocean and wobble toward the flashlights in their confusion. How often do the appealing things of this world make me turn from following the glorious light of God? 

Brothers and sisters, let us not turn away from the one true light to any of the meager imitations this world offers. "[L]et us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:1b-2)" Let's be baby sea turtles, trusting the Creator to lead us and give us the strength we need to complete the journey, constantly plunging forward - awkward though we are. A mighty ocean waits before us!