When I think about my life, my choices, where I've been and where I'm going, I realize there isn't much of a common theme stringing things together. At least, there hasn't been much of a theme up to this point, anyway. Unless you count complete and utter indecisiveness. I make one choice--laboriously, I might add--only to discover that I'm unsatisfied with it. Something goes wrong and it feels like a bad decision. Something goes right, but the feeling is fleeting, and soon I'm left wondering what the next step is. I think I've been plagued by indecisiveness.
In the past few years, though, I've started to make bigger decisions, more sweeping ones that change the course of my future. And I've found myself in some situations that I never dreamed I'd be in. But is this really it? Is this really all there is for me? Maybe my "big" decisions that helped make my dreams become a reality were really selfish. Maybe God knew that they were things I really wanted, so He allowed me to make my choices. And now that I've done things on my terms, where has it left me? Am I any happier than I was when I wondered what it might be like to actually live the life I thought I wanted?
But this isn't what I always wanted. It is a life borne out of "could-have's" and "hasn't happened yet." It's a life filled with, well, filler, things that keep me moving in the direction of my future, but things that I never really wanted to do in the first place. It's not that I'm lazy, but I've never really wanted to work. Not in the traditional Corporate American sense, at least. To be a high-powered career type was not something that sounded remotely like me, and to be honest, it never appealed to me much. When it became painfully apparent that I would be taking care of myself indefinitely, a career was unavoidable. And today as I write this, my heart hurts a little at the notion that I felt that it was career or nothing. There's all sorts of in-between stuff that's good stuff. Things that I wish I could spend my time on instead of going to the soul-killing office every day.
And that's what its' doing. It really is. My soul, the deepest, most real part of me is dying a slow death. Suffocation. Drowning. Exhaustion. Starvation. Atrophy. You name it, it's killing me.
And yet.
There are so many beautiful moments in my life, like the sound Brennan trying desperately to talk to us. Like the look on my mom's face when I surprise her with something. The smell of a dark, rich coffee brewing in the dark of the morning. Birds chirping as they fly past my window. How can life be so bad when there's so much good going on around me every moment of every day?
The problem is that I want to be part of it, the beauty, I mean. To let myself in and poke around for awhile, admiring what I see and inhaling the sweetness while the scent still lingers. How quickly it dissipates. I don't want to miss it.
I don't want to miss it. I think that's what's plaguing me most. The fear that my time is limited, and if I don't get started, I might miss my chance. My chance at happiness, at love, at joy, at doing something meaningful with my life. This is the only shot I've got. I don't want to miss it because my own selfish ambitions are in the way. God, I don't want to miss it. I don't want to miss it. I want to be here, be present, be attuned to what He's saying to me in every moment of every day, in every interaction, reaction, frustration and celebration. I want to know more, to know more often, to be sure of the things that I don't see. Certain of what I don't know yet. I want to have Faith. Real, true, knock-down drag out faith. The kind that can move mountains, the ones that get in the way of living out my destiny.
God, how do I do that? How do I get past the mountains in my life? What do I do? Where do I go? How do I change my circumstances? And if I can't change my circumstances, how can I change my attitude? How easy it sounds, how difficult it actually is.
Lord, break my heart for the things that break your heart. Lord let me let go of all things trivial. (Thanks to Andy Smith of World Vision for these simple prayers.)
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