PARENTAL control

dang, i must look STUPID to God.
i must look SO FOOLISH!
i just learned the grace of a parent's love.
God's love.

to put it into context...
i've had a somewhat revolutionary day...
i'm not exactly sure when it started,
but i'm pretty sure that it began in my tagalog class
when my professor was advertising
southeast asian studies as a major/minor.
and i thought, "DANG i would LOVE that!"
but i only thought of it for 2 seconds.
cuz if i continued on this current doublemajorinurbanandlegalstudies path,
i had NO TIME to major or minor
or even continue taking tagalog classes.
later...
ten minutes into my history of southeast asia class,
i thought, "WOW, this stuff INTERESTS me.
i would LOVE to study this ALL DAY LONG."
history usually puts me to sleep,
i'm always SO awake for my history 111b classes...
and so i began to think.
why NOT?
what's keeping me from just studying southeast asia?
and its PEOPLE.?
because that's actually what i LOVE...
and i remembered my current path:
my doublemajorinurbanandlegalstudies path.
and then i wondered what major could possibly
let me study what i actually WANT to study.
already long story short,
i decided to go for an interdisciplinary studies major.
specifically, international law and human rights... for now.
with an emphasis in southeast asia region.
i dropped studio.
i dropped urban studies.
i dropped legal studies. sort of.

okay, so i can't quite say that my decision came slowly
and very patiently
with much prayer and thoughtfulness.
i'm known to act on impulse.
but this one. i had no choice.
my studio class is tomorrow
basically, all the arrows pointed to me dropping it.
now. today. this moment. fast.
but also very prayerfully.
and then i wanted to tell my parents.
because usually i can tell when i'm on God's path or not
because my parents either support me.
or they don't.
so i called my mom.

she LOVED it.
she was so happy for me.
so was my dad.
they told me how they had
never thought urban design was right for me.
and they had wanted to tell me to quit it
so many months ago
when i had been crying my eyes out about
not being good enough
and struggling to get by in school and studio...
but the thing is.
they DIDNT.
all because i had loved it so much.
at that time, anyway.
my dad said he didn't tell me what to do
because he knows i'm the kind of person
who needs to find out for myself
or else i would have regrets in the future.
they TRUSTED that God would lead me on the good path
and they TRUSTED that i would be listening and obey.
how mind-blowing!
all this time,
as i was running around,
trashing my body with starvation and coffee,
getting by on not enough sleep
and trying so hard to do something that's not for me
and in the end would not really benefit me much
and ALL THAT MONEY that went into that major!
ALL THIS TIME
they just sat by and watched...
wordlessly.
bringing up the possibility time and again.
but never saying it flat out...
letting me make this HUGE mistake.
a very COSTLY one, at that.
just because they love me.
and then i thought, "i must look so foolish!"

AND THEN
i thought, "DANG, i must look SO FOOLISh to God."
this must be how God sees us ALL THE TIME.
whenever we are going around and messing up our lives.
we must look so silly.
and so stupid.
trying to get by on decisions that we think are for us.
when actually they are not.
but the whole time He's watching,
He knows, ultimately, in the end.
He knows the outcome, BUT!
He lets us make those mistakes.
He lets us screw ourselves over.
He lets us find out for ourselves.
He LETS us do whatever we want
even if those things not good for us.
How crazy!
How ridiculous!
the fact that God would trust this world to man.
such love and grace and trust.
i definitely cannot wrap my head around.
because if i were God,
i would not trust man with such things.

and another scary thought:
my parents are becoming more and more like God...?