They say it and I propel into action.
Two and a half simple words,
“What’s next?”
It rolls off my children’s tongues as simply as I’m
tired or I’m thirsty…
I have heard it thousands of times, worse I have said
it tens of thousands of times.
Wherever I am, I wonder where I am going. Whenever I
lay down, I wonder what tomorrow will bring. Whenever I am listening, I am
preparing my next response.
It is exhausting living for the next thing when the
present thing is quite enough to handle. So I listen hard to the preacher who
tells me not to grow weary. I figure he hasn’t met my kids or lived my life,
but his words echo loud in my ears and I realize he did not draft these words,
he is reading them.
They were penned some time ago by someone I ought to be
listening to. God knew. He knew the burdens would be heavy. He knew we would want to run. He knew ‘next.’ So He penned the end, He gave us next in His child
for the end, but even more He gave Him for the now.
We get hungry for more and better and easier, thinner
and fancier and more famous. We look to
Him. We wonder why He hasn’t enlightened us. Why He hasn’t created something big for us,
something noticeable or noteworthy. Why
doesn’t He draw a map to the destination?
Dear one, I am convinced more and more it is not His
engagement we are lacking but our embrace. I am absolutely willing and
catastrophically able to let go of a moment in favor of the hour. I am constantly forgetting the now in favor
of tomorrow.
I forsake His presence for my future.
There was a day two years ago where I felt absolutely
in the middle of life. My age would
tell you I have reached the middle. In
one single span of eight hours I attended the orientation to my daughter’s
preschool and my son’s college. I felt
smack dab in the center of adult life. I
remember counting out four years of college and four years after preschool and
attempted to figure out exactly what life would feel like.
I missed every single moment of that day because I had
propelled myself four years in the future.
Many of my friends are either empty nesting or rapidly
emptying their nest while I pack kindergarten snacks. I have had moments where I feel like the
Father forgets. Perhaps He didn’t
remember exactly how old we were when He handed us the call to adoption. Perhaps I need to remind Him there are people
my age planning to retire while I plan play dates.
Perhaps He is not showing me where I am going; perhaps
he is showing me how it is I am supposed to get there. I stumble and fall and for a brief little
moment I look up and realize grace and mercy are raining down on me. How is it He hasn’t completely lost patience with
my impatience?
Perhaps I need to learn to hold tight and hold fast to
moments and places and days and people.
Perhaps exactly where I am is where He wants me to be. Perhaps my job and my church and my people
and my challenges and my joys and my sorrows have been uniquely scored for this
symphony of my life. And perhaps, just
perhaps I am supposed to dance to the rhythm.
And perhaps, I am supposed to sing Joy.
Perhaps I am not responsible for the next thing. Perhaps He is.
Perhaps it is just that simple. Let Him drive, let Him carry, let Him speak
and let Him direct and maybe I will learn to listen and learn and love every
moment because I am quite simply and quite beautifully no longer in charge.
I embrace what He has invited me to because dear heart
I, we, have not missed the party. We are
exactly where He has us.
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