I’ve never been good at being ignored. It’s gotten me into a bit of trouble, too. When boys didn’t call back, I’d be sure to let them know what I thought of it. When friends didn’t want to hang out, I’d be sure to return the favor. To my own surprise at the time, when someone’s intentionally ignoring you, pestering them about it only encourages their icy behavior. Call me cold-hearted, call me desperate. You wouldn’t be the first and you wouldn’t be wrong.
So now here I am, 40 days out from the end of the race, and I’m finding that I’m being ignored more and more. I put my heart on the line for a boy who I’ve put my heart on the line for one too many times and waited (am waiting) for a response that I know will surely never come. I made it through two rounds of interviews for what I thought was my dream job and haven’t heard a word since. (Despite my many calls and emails.) I sent my resume to many more who—to my mind’s most sound logic—must have died suddenly, leaving them unable to respond to my simple request for a job I’m probably unqualified for and far too unsure of. I even emailed a university—twice—asking for admission information. Nothing.
At times, I look in the mirror just to make sure I haven’t faded away into nothing.
I mean, I’m just trying to be a responsible adult. I’m just trying to figure out what my next steps are. I’m just trying to manipulate everything in my life so that it falls into my lap perfectly packaged, without a bead of sweat on my forehead from effort. Is that so wrong?
As I sit here—painfully aware of my own shortcomings—and read (too far) into the silence around me, there is one voice that responds. It reminds me of a time, not too long ago, when I thought God himself was ignoring me. But on the other side, after coming through the isolation and confusion and silence, was the full picture. Right? So if there’s art in being ignored, like with any work of art, we can’t see the beauty until it’s completed. But that takes time. Weeks, months, sometimes years of hard work pass by and we look at the disheveled, incomplete canvas and think, “My God, it will never be beautiful. I don’t understand how it all fits together.”
And then, one day, it does.
So maybe I didn’t get the job I thought was of my dreams or the boy who I thought was the one. It’s confusing right now, because I can’t see the full picture. I can’t see what happens next—what color God chooses to paint on this messy, unfinished canvas next. But rather than lie in turmoil and annoyance and desperately attempt to manipulate my future, I choose to trust.
I choose to trust God with my next steps. Where I will live, who I will love, what I will do, who I will become. It’s okay not to have it all figured out right now because I know He does. I know that if I am passionately pursuing Him with everything I have, I cannot possibly miss what He has for me.
And so, while being ignored might hurt in the moment, how beautiful is it to know that there is one who, despite his quietness, will never ignore or abandon us, but who is ceaselessly working on the masterpiece that is our life? That is the art of being ignored.
