I recently made a new Spotify playlist using songs (both new and old) from some of the artists that I loved as a child, which is why I am currently listening to a series of Switchfoot tunes from the past two decades.  Let me tell you — nothing makes me more sentimental than listening to “This is Your Life.”

This is your life.
Is it everything you dreamed that it would be
When the world was younger, and you had everything to lose?

As a twelve-year-old dreamer, I would sing along to this song and plan my post-high-school existence.  I imagined myself studying Elementary Education at a specific college before moving to Okinawa, Japan where I would teach 4th grade at the Christian school that I had already selected.

Spoiler alert:  I attended a different college, and I’ve never been to Asia.

Disclaimer:  Although I will begin my “vision trip” to Spain in less than 48 hours, I never planned to teach in Europe.

And yet, I somehow feel like my life is everything that I dreamed it would be.

No part of me is disappointed that I’m a data analyst in a small city 7,000 miles from my “dream school” in Japan.  No part of me is disappointed that God is leading me to a western, Spanish-speaking country.  I think that, deep down, my dream was not to attend that predestined college or to teach on an island in the Pacific.  My dream was to follow God and serve Him with every second of my life.  Right now, I’m serving Him in North Carolina.  In 6 months (Lord willing!) I will serve Him in Spain.  In three years, I may serve Him in a completely different location.  But no matter where I live, I pray that I will be living my dream — serving my Savior.

My new playlist also includes the compelling songs “Meant to Live” and “Live it Well.”  I doubt I’m the first person to string the words of both songs together to make this inspiring Fraken-lyric:

Life is short; I want to live it well.
[I] want more than this world’s got to offer,
[So] You’re the One I’m living for.

Lord, that is my prayer.  If I’m (really) fortunate, I have 75 more years on this earth.  Let me use every single second to serve You — in Winston-Salem, in Spain, and wherever else you lead me.