I know I’ve mentioned it before, but when I rededicated my
life to the Lord – not by getting rebaptized or the laying on of hands or
confetti even – not anything anything grandeur like that – just driving down the
road and crying and listening to Tenth Avenue North and quietly giving up with
My Way…. Well, I guess I did it in order to gain blessing. That sounds like a
drug deal, but it wasn’t, to be fair to myself. I just came to realize that My Way was not working – and I agreed to do things His Way.
I haven’t been an amazing Rock Star of Christian perfection
by any means – I have made mistakes. I have still made some poor choices. I mean, really poor choices. But
when push comes to shove, I’ve been seeking God and seeking Jesus Christs more
fervently than I ever have. More honestly than I ever have.
I suppose in my mind I thought if I did things His Way…. well,
I had a plan. My plan was that I would do things His Way, and then He would
bring me a wonderful Christian man and a family a little bit bigger than just
Edith and me. I included a baby too – the true desire of my heart. This all started
when I was 36 years old. I gave myself a timeline that I had until I was 40.
That’s plenty of time, right? Plenty of time!
But this year I turned 40. I watch families all around me –
people meet and fall in love every day. I watch friends of mine fall in love. I
watch Tom create his own little family that he never seemed to have wanted with
me. I watch my high school friends who are also 40 post about being pregnant
with babies. Trying to get pregnant. Deciding not to get pregnant. Making
choices I don’t have. And it’s hard. It’s really hard.
I suppose I’ve gotten angry with God. No, I don’t suppose. I
have. For the first time ever, I think. And resentful - I feel like He isn’t
holding up His part of the bargain. I guess maybe I DID think it was a drug
deal. I second guess myself. I wonder if I’m just plain crazy. Or if God is
angry with me or if I’m being punished. Seconds of my life are ticking away
that I can’t get back.
Like sand through the hour glass, these are the days of my
life. [insert comic relief]
I’ve considered sharply this year if I want to keep doing
this, pursuing this God thing. If it’s real. If it works. If it matters. I know
I posted a lot of awesome cruise pictures of me and my friends having the time
of our lives, in the sand and sun and sea, laughing and joking. But honestly, I
also spent a lot of hours on that trip alone, staring at the ocean and at the
stars, and searching my soul, asking a God questions who I don’t feel answers
them. Just the swish of the sea slapping against a big boat full of 3800
distant passengers. Very, very alone.
It occurred to me today that there a probably a lot of
people who think I have everything. I vacation, vacation, vacation. I have an
amazing, beautiful daughter. I own part of a business, and I have a job I generally
love. I’m athletic and generally fit for my age, anyway. I own my own house, I don’t
have debt, and I don’t have anyone telling me what to do. I have a ton of
friends and a wonderful church and a great family. The relationship I have with
Tom and his wife is virtually unparalleled in goodness in the divorce world.
But what they don’t see is a little girl with her face pressed against the
glass, looking into a dream world that somehow passed her by. Looking at
anniversary dinners and porch swings and family devotions and sonograms with a
hunger that burns her alive.
I think I know exactly how Sarah felt. Except she had a
husband, and I have a child. But I mean, other than that. Work with me here.
Once I got home from the cruise, I told someone I felt like I
was just turning in little tiny circles. I heard a song, shortly after that, on about my favorite
CD, Tenth Avenue North, which really spoke to me. I’ll paste the YouTube link
in when I blog this [http://youtu.be/OazUWut9xew]. I listened over and over. Funny, I’ve done that with about
4 of the songs on this CD, each at different points in this journey – I never
hear them until I’m meant to hear them, I suppose.
I’ve started to see that I put God on an agenda - My Agenda.
I gave God the plan – My Plan. I gave Him my dreams, I gave him My Requests. I
also worked hard to give Him my obedience – but it was a transaction. He failed
to deliver what I had decided He was going to deliver by the time I decided He
was going to deliver it, after I delivered as best I could what I was going to
deliver (admittedly, my presentation was pretty messy). Now what?
I can get angry and yell at Him and storm off. That’s what I
want to do, but I can’t. I’m too invested. I don’t want that cheap crap I used
to have. I don’t want empty relationships. I have a God addiction. Which, by
the way, I also resent Him for.
What choice do I have?
My desires are not bad. What I want is not evil. There is
nothing wrong with what I want – but I’m not allowing for the possibility that
it might not be what He wants or has planned or knows is best for me. Or it may
not be the right time yet. And I have to tell you, it honestly chaps my ass to
say that. It is not easy to say that. I do not want to say that. I’m not ready
to say that. But I’m getting closer.
The choice I have that I can see is to lay My Agenda and My
Plan at His feet. I picture in my mind taking scissors and cutting out the
perfect family from a Disney vacation brochure and a sonogram from that
Facebook post I saw and the LIFE car with 6 holes filled with pink and blue
pegs and then little stick bodies lying sideways between them because there are
not enough seat belts - and laying all that at His feet. That’s hard. It seems
like more than I can do. But it’s also more than I can carry.
In Sunday school this morning we talked about the parable of
the seeds. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I apologize in advance. I
had tons of thoughts ricocheting in my brain (right now all over again). But
she was talking about the seed that fell on dry ground an never rooted, the
seed that fell in rocky soil and sprouted but never grew, the seed that fell
and grew but got choked out by thorns, and the seed that fell in good soil and
blossomed. I can see that I have been all those seeds at different places in my
life. I asked myself, what seed am I now?
What I see is my roots are too strong to get me out of the
ground. I feel like one of my ugly rose bushes that has yellow spot all over it
and produces some blooms but they are not super pretty, but when I try to just
dig the bush out, it will not come – in fact, I get bloody scratches from it in
my trying to do so.
I asked my yard guy what do with the rose bushes – I actually
asked him to pull them out – and he suggested cutting them all the way back
down to the ground and seeing what happened next year.
Damn it.
