It was the day before graduation. A few hours earlier, I had shown my parents and little sister around the campus that had been like a second home to me for the past three years (though let’s be honest, I probably spent more time there than at my real home. Just ask my roommates). I swung by the campus to pick something up, and decided to take one last stroll through the campus on my own.

As I stepped into the library—the same library where I have spent countless hours surrounded by stacks of books, willing my fingers to type endless papers—reality crashed down on me like a backpack full of theology books, and nearly brought me to my knees: My entire life was changing.

In the same week, I was graduating and leaving my job—which meant that I was going from being a full-time seminary student and part-time Athletic Trainer, to being… well… I wasn’t sure what. No job. No “student” status. And no idea what my life might look like a few weeks or months down the road.

If you’ve ever graduated from high school, college, or anything really, you are probably familiar with the dreaded question: “so, what’s next?” If someone gave me a dollar for every time I’ve been asked “what’s next?” in the past six months or so, I would probably have enough to cover my first student loan payment. (Unfortunately, no one has offered to do that yet, so I’m still not sure how those blasted things are going to get paid!) I have despised this question in just about every season of transition that I’ve faced, but it seems to get worse with age. I mean, it was one thing to be a little clueless when you graduate from high school, but nearly a decade and two degrees later, you’re *supposed* to have things figured out, right?

Next on the list of painful, yet inevitable, questions in a season of transition would definitely be: “what do you do?” This one is common in every season of life, but if you have ever been unemployed for any significant length of time, you probably know how uncomfortable this otherwise harmless question can be. Especially considering just how much our sense of identity tends to be wrapped up in our answer to this question.

Two simple questions: “what’s next” and “what do you do.” But as a (recovering) perfectionist and performance oriented person, the only responses that I have had to those questions in this season of life have made me cringe as they leave my tongue: “I don’t know” and “nothing.”

In our fast-paced, individualistic, and performance driven culture, there is an immense amount of tension in those two short responses. And I’ve been tempted to escape it by coming up with plans that will ease the tension. Because let’s be honest, there’s a lot less tension in going back to work at Starbucks temporarily than there is in admitting to not having a plan at all. And there’s a lot less tension in telling people you are a barista than telling them that you don’t do anything. Then if you add to that the anxiety inducing reality of watching your bank account run dry and wondering how you’re going to pay the bills… it’s not exactly a comfortable place to be.

But I am a firm believer that those uncomfortable places that we find ourselves in life can be the most fruitful soil for growth. I have experienced it in the discomfort of overseas missions in a third world country, in seasons of anxiety or loneliness, and in moments when the door gets closed abruptly on a hoped-for opportunity. It has been in those uncomfortable—and sometimes just downright painful—seasons that God has met me in special ways, and that I have experienced the most growth. So when I find myself in a difficult season, I have (slowly and clumsily) been learning to ask: “what might God be inviting me into in this season? What might He want to teach me?”

In this season of “I don’t know” and “nothing,” I have sensed the Lord inviting me to embrace the tension—not escape it. I have sensed Him inviting me to allow all the doing to be stripped away, and learn to simply be; to rest, breathe, and trust—something that my constant working and striving has never really allowed before. I have sensed Him inviting me to surrender an identity that is based on titles, roles, and performance, and slow down long enough to hear the things that He is speaking over my life. To abandon a life of self-reliance and learn to rest the weight of my hopes and dreams—and even my day-to-day needs—completely on Him.

Over the past few weeks/months, I have been reluctant to write about this, or to share it with many of the people in my life—largely because I don’t have a nice pretty bow to put on it. This season has not reached its resolution yet, and at times it has felt very messy and confusing. In many ways, I’m just as much “in the dark” about what’s next as I was 3 months ago when I walked across the stage at graduation. But I’m learning that it’s OK; that despite what the world may tell me, I don’t need to have it all figured out. I’m learning to trust that my life is held in much more capable hands than my own. I’m learning to be more comfortable responding with “I don’t know” and “nothing,” and to pay more attention to the leading of that “still small voice” (1 Kings 19:12) than to the clamoring of my own anxiety and fear.

I guess I’m learning that I might be done with school (for now), but there’s still a whole lot of learning yet to be done.