It's been a hard and lonely week.
It began with a flat tire on the way to work. It became painful with a fall down icy steps, x-rays of my bionic spine, and a purse load of prescriptions. Continuing, it cumulated with a sick husband and feverish daughter. Continuing still, tt became panicky and shocking with the possible ending of a much loved job. Finally, it left me defeated with the cancellation of weekend plans for a getaway and heartbroken by the loss of a best friend moving out of state. Oh, and somewhere in there I turned 27 with no hurrah or cake.
So, I was thinking about all of this and feeling mighty sorry for myself, because really, I am pretty good at it. I thought,
Self: This sucks.
Me: Ya, I noticed.
Self: What are you going to do? I'm pretty sure you can't fix all these things.
Me: I don't know, I mean soon everyone's colds will go away and we'll all feel better, but the job thing? I love my job...I just figured I would do it until I died or something, you know? And the weekend away? We both know that once cancelled there is a 99.987% chance that it will never get planned again. And Amanda (moving to Oregon), maybe I can just cry and tell her not to go and she will stay? And maybe, just maybe Nathan will feel bad about my lack of a birthday and I will come home tonight to something fabulous, like diamonds, or cake so huge all my friends jump out of it?
Self: You are pathetic.
Me: Thanks, I feel pathetic.
These conversations never work out all that well for me.
These conversations tend to go a lot better when I spend them talking with God.
So I gave that a go this morning, and you know what? God answered me in the same way he usually answers me.
He said WAIT.
Which I knew all along was what he was going to say, because he has that way of letting his heart be known to you, before you really even ask, and quite honestly, he tells me to slow down and wait more often than I care to admit. And darn if he isn't always right.
I was reminded that the life I had been creating for myself was just fine, with lots of the right elements in it, but really it was like me knitting a scarf. A nice colorful scarf with pretty yarn, but I already had a closet jammed full of scarves. The whole world is full of nice and boring scarves. What I really need is something that fits me better, something designed just for me. And God never asks us to unravel a scarf with out the plans of helping us make a beautiful sweater. We are never asked to leave a life we like just fine to go to a life we will hate, we are supposed to go to something even better. Sometimes we just have to pull the string and undo everything and just start over. And sometimes we have to take a pause and listen to the direction that we are being called to and then go without hesitation.
And that's called faith.
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