Leaha asked me last night when she passed my room - "What are you doing - are you blogging? Talking to the boy? I responded "Finished blogging, he doesn't want to talk and I can't read - I'm just absorbing."
God really is the only one who knows what I'm absorbing, but last night was just one of those nights and this morning too, where I feel like I have been, by my own desire or just His overwhelming love, tucked into His arms to grieve everything - not just the current situation, but the overall - as Leah said - I am His child in whom He is pleased. You're pleased? How can you be pleased? I'm not pleased - I'm broken, I'm confused and I'm lost. Yes, lost here - no map, no light, and no snacks.* The whole no plan thing frustrates me to no end at times, but I hold to it because it I did that - I planned out a perfect little life for me that funny enough was devoid of struggle, failure, confusion, strife, anger and heartbreak - it's amazing how we leave those things out.
I failed Calculus - I lost the med school dream the first go around. I fumbled through my first degree dealing with continual martial discord, a year on my own, a mission's trip gone awry, a best friend's secret relationship and elopement and all sorts of other painful events. Then I returned to the medical school dream - one I thought that was given back to me - little did I know that a horrible MCAT score later I would realize the fumbling was for many a reason - some I know now and some I know I will later. I came to realize I was selling God and myself short if I believed that my service, my use to him and this world was only in me being a Doctor, that I had somehow wrapped His love for me into my success - that in whom I am well pleased was only when I brought home A's or raises/advances at work. That it wasn't actually I am pleased when you obey, trust and seek me - when you serve others, when you allow Me to break those walls, soften your heart, move your spirit to compassion.
This was not my plan, but I know He has one and that's the crazy thing - sometimes I get to have a glance at it - a peak over his shoulder. Whenever I get antsy He pulls me back - reminds me to be patient and to know like Ann Lamott says in Traveling Mercies - "It turned out that this man worked for the Dalai Lama. And he said – gently – that they believe when a lot of things start going wrong all at once, it is to protect something big and lovely that is trying to get itself born – and that this something needs for you to be distracted so that it can be born perfectly as possible."
It is for that very reason that I blog, so that I can look back and see the progression of Him in my life - September was an interesting month
http://traversingtheliminal.blogspot.com/2007/09/so-this-is-whats-wrong-with-me.html
http://traversingtheliminal.blogspot.com/2007/09/thoughts.html
Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/12431550@N03
3 comments:
Not workin' today?
I say good for you. I know it's no comfort to you, but you sound just like me when I had my quarter=life crisis in the midst of my undergrad. I felt like a failure, despite having so many reasons and obstacles that were totally reasonable things that complicated my "success." but in the end, I had to realize that my idea of success (in serving God, in life, in relationships) was totally skewed and performance-oriented. It took years of accomplishing very "little" on the outside (and a whole lot on the inside) before I realized that I couldn't be misled by that idea of success anymore.
Back then, I met a person who would be my comfort whenever I thought I was a failure - she was 29 and just finished nursing school, single, and had been through more careers and more different types of schooling than you can imagine, searching for what she was supposed to do with her life. In the end, she came right back to what she thought she'd never want to do - nursing - and ended up loving it, and going off to work and serve as a missionary. She got married at 30 to a wonderful guy, and now has a baby.
Timing is not our own, Jen. I know that too. It's painful, hard on our egos when the things we think will determine our worth and success don't happen when we think they should. But like you say - we are enfolded by his love even still.
PS: I'm sorry I have to be all shallow and say - It's Anne Lamott not Lamont. Annie's my favourite.
Thanks Jocelyn for everything
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