I’m realizing in all the time I’m spending on other blogs and such that it’s been awhile since I’ve concerned myself with writing about what is going through my head in the here and now. Given those circumstances, here is a look into my mental state as of the last forty eight hours.
Mary, Manda, and I went to Cabela’s yesterday after church so I could test drive one of the backpacks I’ve had my eye on from looking here on the net. We got out of the car, and stared at the store for half a moment. And that’s when I had it. The what-have-you-gotten-me-into-God? moment.
It’s not a moment I know how to describe very well. I guess, for me, it’s kind of like an elbow to the stomach. Generally, it catches right underneath my ribcage and steals my breath away, and all I can do is look up at the person who hit me with it and wonder where it came from. I’m never prepared for it, even when I know the moment is coming.
This time, it was more of an elbow tap than a full thrust. Like there was something else coming up that was going to clinch my gut and make me take pause. So I quickly gathered myself together, reminded myself of why I was there, and before Mary and Manda realized what was going on, we headed inside… laughing about how inappropriately dressed they were (their Sunday School finery… Mary in heels and Manda in a skirt).
It took a few minutes to get to the back of the store, where the backpacks I was looking for actually were. I zoned out everything else, and just walked, but it still took a little bit of time.
“Do you think I could live out of this for eleven months?”
The words tumbled out of my mouth before I could stop them. Mary didn’t say anything, and I couldn’t see how she was reacting because I was still turning around to look back at her and Manda.
“Well, what all do you have to pack in there?” Manda asked, missing the rhetorical statement in the question. I rattled a few things off the list, but expected no helpful response. She has no more real experience with any of this than I do. Then I pulled it off the rack, and tried it on, found it fit, and then went on to try the two larger capacity packs in the same series (which also fit, and weren’t that much different in price).
But after that, I couldn’t get away from the fact that – starting in January – my life is going to have to fit into a backpack similar to that and a day pack. I think about the room full of my stuff from when I moved home after college, and ask… how will it all fit?
The answer is that it won’t.
But I’m not supposed to take it all with me. No, what I’ve been called to do is leave it all behind and chase after the glimpses of this elusive, yet ever-present and ever-loving God who wants to pursue me as I pursue Him… if that makes any sense. What I know now is just a tiny fraction of what I will find out over the course of the next sixteen months. And I don’t have to be afraid of what it is going to look like… all I need to do is let go and start running.
‘Cuz I’m about to let go and live what I believe
I can’t do a thing now but trust that you will catch me
When I let go…
-Barlow Girl, Let Go
