I am restless, yet assured. I know God is going to work everything out and my future is His, but I am anxious to know the plan. It’s like climbing into a car and not asking the driver where you’re going, even though you know you can trust the driver. You know he is capable and will take you somewhere wonderful, but you try to sneak a peek out the window to get an idea for what this journey holds. I keep trying to peek out the window; I keep trying to look into the future in the next few months to see how it will all work out and fall together. But it won’t fall together coincidentally. My Poppa holds it all together and is threading it together to fit so beautifully in His plans. May I not thwart them. Hold me still, Lord. Keep me calm.
“Wait for the Lord. Be strong and don’t lose hope. Wait for the Lord!” (Psalm 27:14)
It’s no coincidence that verse is the memory verse for Kids church this month. I need it engrained in my heart just as much as they do. I always want to say ‘still’ in place of ‘strong’ in though. Not sure why. Is there strength in stillness? Or is stillness and being immovable a weakness? Maybe it’s something in between. In yoga, when I hold a pose for a long time, my muscles start to shake and I feel so weak as my body tells me it can’t hold it much longer and my brain frantically tries to convince my body to suck it up. As we move to the next pose, though, I feel the strength those long pauses are building. And then next time, the long straining pose doesn’t seem as long as it did before. My muscles gain strength and soon the shakiness goes away, too. That is my life right now. I feel like I am holding a really long pose and eagerly waiting for the next one. I know He will provide for the house and dogs and all of it. I know the finances will come. I am just so sure He will come through on all of it and I am holding onto this faith with all my might. But I can feel my muscles are starting to shake. I can hear the doubts in the background trying to cause me to break this stance. I know that if I hold onto this hope in His promises that it will be worth it; that strength will come from the waiting. I KNOW this to be true, and yet I can feel the restlessness trying to creep in.
I have always been someone who is ready for the next thing; graduate high school-go to college. Go to college-get a job. A to B, B to C and so on. I make to-do lists and I count the hours in a day to do them and it never adds up. I always lose on time. And here I am, counting the days to June 27th (which is 100 by the way), and the things I need to do between now and then seem immense. There’s shots to get, passport pages to be added, organizing, packing, more organizing the packing, selling or renting the house, finding the dogs an interim home, and garage sales to do. It all might seem unsubstantial, but this is my life. I have to have my life organized and condensed into neat little boxes that will somehow fit into a storage unit the size of a closet here in just a few months. And then I am taking what is left, the essentials I need to survive for a year, and putting it in a bag and hugging everyone I know and everyone I love and saying Good-bye. Not forever. But for now.
And as I think about all there is to do and all the faces I will leave here, I somehow find a peace in the chaos. I am assured and I settle in. I cling. I grip the rope in front of me and I say, “Abba, you have to help me. You have to get me through this.” And then I realize, that maybe that is the point of all this; to rely on Him alone. To leave what is comfortable and go out into the unknown to find endless comfort in Him (even if that is on a mat on the floor surrounded by bugs with no air conditioning-yikes). And as I know that kind of dependence is what He wants from me and part of His purpose for this World Race Adventure, I can’t help but wonder if it also isn’t the posture He wants me in now, too. One He wants us all to continually be in. A posture of desperation and need; resting all our hope and all the unknowns upon Him. Because He is capable. He is stronger than I ever could be. He can hold this pose longer than me; infinitely longer. He asked me to step-out and into this journey and He plans to respond to that faith and see it through. He proves it time and time again as He meets me when I feel like I am drowning and pulls me out. He once and for all did it on the cross and He didn’t give His son on that cross so I would fail; so my muscles would shake and I would buckle. He did it so He could be my strength. So that in those moments, these moments, He could hold me up and carry me to what is next. He sent His Son to be our great rescue, not just that one moment 2,000 years ago on a cross, but in every moment of our lives forever and always.
You are here in this stillness, Poppa. Your strength becomes my strength in the waiting. And in the waiting…in this stillness…I am able to see the hope. “Be strong and don’t lose hope.” My hope is in the assurance that I have a beautiful flow of endless love upon me. My heart bends to make room for more and more of you. My hope rests in you and your plans. As you stretch me in this waiting, please give me peace. Let my fidgeting and shakiness stop and let me simply breathe. Let me live here in every moment by weighing it down with thanks and praise. Every moment. Even when I don’t know the outcome of any of it, you do. You know the destination and the best way to get there and I will simply sit back and enjoy the ride. And I thank you now for this long pause of anticipation and the strength it is building. I trust in you to see this all through.
