Friday, February 20, 2009

What comes next

I'm not even going to try and apologize for not writing in a long time. Not going to attempt to make some vain promise about how I will get better. I probably won't. But at least I'm aware of the problem- right? :)

So, we're in the midst of a transitional time in my life. I'd love to say that I exactly knew from what I was transitioning, or to what I was transitioning, but that answer currently seems to escape me. All I can say is that I'm going somewhere because where I've been for these past several years just isn't working.

These past few weeks have been interesting for me. The best way I can think to describe them is in the words of Charles Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities, "It (is) the best of times and it (is) the worst of times." Right now it feels as if everything that I once thought I understood is being stripped away, and all of my concrete ideas are suddenly turning to some indiscernible mush that is increasingly difficult to stand on. If you read The Painful Inbetween it will give you a better sense of where I am right now. And though that place hasn't necessarily changed, I am not going to revisit that right now. Instead, on to Mr. Dickens' statement.

It really is the best of times right now, not because of what I am currently experiencing, but rather because of where I have to believe that all of this is leading me. It's like what Paul says in Romans 8:18, "For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us." I get it. I mean, I understand that there really is some greater purpose to which we have all been called. I am "not my own," "bought with a price," the whole bit. I really do see how this short time of struggle (because in the grand scheme of things, 6 years really isn't that long), is nothing compared to what God can and will do in my life over time. So, I understand how this is the best of times, because it's a part of some grander (yep, I said grander) plan, some plan that has yet to be revealed and will ultimately be a part of the story of life that we all live out together to His glory. It really is the "best of times."

But it's also "the worst of times." As I stated previously, nothing I planned for my life has worked out the way I thought it would. I'm kind of at an impasse with nowhere to look but up. Everything that I have ever in any way found identity or solace in is kind of being stripped away from me right now. I love my job, but can't stay here financially and am working two others just to make ends meet. I've been involved in two accidents in the span of a month that my insurance company has seen fit to deem my fault, my girlfriend and I are no longer together, and I have no really strong friendships in Dallas right now to draw on. To say it's hard is to make one of the truest understatements I have heard in quite some time.

But I'm still hopeful. I still know that this is all a part of some plan that I can neither control, nor fully understand. Everything does happen for a reason, and even in the midst and in spite of the pain- God's bigger, and His plan is being worked out. Bread comes to me daily, and I need to learn to accept that, even when I don't understand why things are happening the way they are and even if I would have chosen a different path.

There's a great couple of verses from the Caedmon's Call song Table for Two that really sticks out to me right now:

Well this day's been crazy
But everything's happened on schedule
from the rain and the cold
To the drink that I spilled on my shirt
'Cause You knew how You'd save me
before I fell dead in the garden
And You knew this day
long before You made me out of dirt

And You know the plans that You have for me
And You can't plan the end and not plan the means
And so I suppose I just need some peace
Just to get me to sleep.

Help me God to get to sleep, not in the sense that I am lackadaisically going through life, but rather in the sense that I rest in the knowledge that it's all working out for a greater good and a greater glory.

Pursue. Original.
Damany

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