As you know from my last blog, we’ve spent quite a bit of time going door to door talking with people and praying for them. What you may not know is that I have been battling fears regarding the post-race situation. As it is, there is no situation, aka job, for me post-race. I know in my head that God will provide, he always has. But not even being able to look up potential opportunities, or make inquiries is a bit chaffing to the ingrained American mind that wants to plan and prepared. You sense my struggle here, yes?
We don’t go home for another four months, I have time. It’s funny to recall but as a kid, I think I was 10 or 11 at the time, I remember having a crying breakdown at the thought of life as an adult. Overcome with the agony of having no direction in life. What would I do? As Eliza Doolittle lamented in My Fair Lady, “What’s to become of me? What am I fit for?”!!! I can totally relate Eliza, as a kid maybe that’s why I resonated with and loved that character so much. How I wish I could go back to that girl and tell her, “It’s ok to have no idea what you will do, or who you will become. God knows what you will do for work, let’s pray and ask him to show you. He understands your concern but he will come through for you.”
At the end of the month my team took a ferry to Monkey Bay, where our entire squad was meeting up to debrief the month. Team Eden spent over 50 hours on the ferry together, woohoo! The lake was beautiful and we jumped off to swim a few times while waiting for cargo to be loaded, getting a last swim before leaving Lake Malawi for good. It was a lot of time to spend on a ferry, or anywhere for that matter, but it was really good. We were able to have some hard but healthy team discussion and I was able to actually be still for the first time in a while.
While on the ferry during quiet time in the morning, God revealed that I really didn’t believe he had a plan for me. I thought I’d prayed for a vision for months and the frustration was a result of no vision yet. But underneath that was the truth, a rotten lie that God would leave me to figure it out on my own. And all of a sudden I was back in my third grader mind, left-out, left behind, full of shame and independence.
So there I was at 11 years old agonizing over my life plan, or lack thereof, and it’s almost funny now. I’m 35 years old, in the same place. The only difference is the history of God’s provision in the years I’ve lived so far. His faithfulness, not my skillful plans. I still don’t know what is next but I know God has the plan. And you’d better believe I’m white-knuckling that one! It may sound like an easy-peasy thing to say, as if I’m moving on, got it- only up from here! The catch is that that thought has to happen every day, many times a day for me to believe it.
Belief in God’s provision is not once and done for me, nor is it for you I suspect. Every time it is a choice. This is a truth for every year in my life and yours. Where are you in that journey? Are you believing he knows exactly who you are and what’s to become of you?
