About a week ago, in response to an informal tag at Marjie's site, I glibly made a Hemingway-esque six-word story about my current reality as follows: "Lost at Crossroads, looking for map."
Things have been so vague and undefined since I left the structured halls and clear goals of my previous job that it finally became imperative to tell myself to stop and get my bearings. Wandering in the middle of nowhere, even leisurely wandering, can get old very fast. Lost is still lost, no matter how much fun you're having doing it.
So over the past few days, I've been off on a trip of a different sort - this time on a solitary journey inward.
Did I come away with any miraculous answers or "Eureka!" moments to take home with me? Unfortunately, I did not. No journey is never completed in an instant, after all. The world I have returned to is as vague and uncertain as ever, and I'm smack dab in the same middle of nowhere I took a break from.
What I did bring home with me is the reminder of promises made by the One who walks with me in my lostness, even when I often take for granted that He is there. So for fellow lost travelers on this unnamed and uncharted road, I just wanted to share some of these promises with you.
For those who feel out of control and frantic, He says, "Be still and know that I am God." - Psalm 46:10
For those uncertain if they will ever find his way, He says, "For I know what my plans for you are, plans to save you and not to harm you, plans to give you a future and to give you hope." - Jeremiah 29:11
For those who are afraid, He says, "Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name and you are mine... Since you are precious in my sight, and important - for I have loved you..." - Isaiah 43:1,4
My retreat director puts these promises in wonderful context when she says, "God doesn't promise that allowing Him to enter our choices will mean we will no longer be hurt or that it will be a sure thing. But our God is a reliable and faithful God, and what He promises is that He will be there with you as you walk through fire or through waters, and that His grace will be sufficient for that moment."
So while I still sit here in a quagmire of my own making, grappling over choices that I do not have any clear idea how to approach, there is the invitation and the challenge to trust Him to help me find my way out of this limbo I am in and into the fullness of life He has always wanted for me.
And as I stand here looking up at these signposts, I pray for the grace to let go and release my life into His all-knowing hands.
a commentary on The Road to Emmaus
2 comments:
Amen. I pray for that grace for the both of us :)
much easier said than done! it's sometimes hard to wrap my head around the reality that God-time is not Claire-time and that the two do not always match...
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