I like plans. I like having a plan. A good plan, that sounds
clean and well-thought-out and impressive. I like being able to tell people
that I have a plan and it’s a good one. In fact, I am totally freaked out and
unhinged by the lack of a plan, especially when it is in fact my life that is
plan-less.
There is also
apparently this phenomenon where, when you live in community with other humans
with whom you converse and who know you or are marginally acquainted with you,
they ask you questions and want to know things like, “what are you up to now?”
(translation: What’s the plan?). That is all well and good when you are a
well-composed human with one of those good plans to tell people about.
I, on the other hand, am neither well-composed, nor
plan-having, or perhaps even truly human-feeling these days. Since my return to
the US almost five months ago I have been flailing about and almost drowning in
this disorienting, directionless ocean I call Waiting.
For me, Waiting has mostly looked like some conglomeration
of activities including, but not limited to: living with my parents and working
at the family cigar shop, going to College Station to see horse and people
every other weekend, sitting up late at night and googling hospitals then
wondering whether I should apply to them then freaking out and not being able
to fall asleep for a long time, thinking about Haiti a lot, traveling with my
best friend in Memphis and having an epic road trip adventure to the Grand
Canyon, moping about in self-loathing over the fact that I am “that loser
college grad living with the parents and not having a plan,” routinely thinking
each month that maybe this time next month I’ll be back in Haiti.
But even more than all that, I think Waiting has been an
exercise in resisting the Lord’s attempts to still me, quiet me, teach me,
refine me. Because when I give in, He shows me how beautiful Waiting can be. He
is trying to show me that I don’t need a plan, I need Him and if Waiting is
where He wants me, then it is the Holiest place I can be; that there is living
and loving and serving to be done right here in the Waiting and it doesn’t
require a plan or career or mission.
He is trying to show me I can walk on these waters if I will
only keep my eyes on Him, but the waves are high and scary and I can’t see the
shore that is coming next and people are asking me “what’s the plan” and…
that’s why I am choking on saltwater instead of walking hand in hand with Him.
I have been living in fear of people instead of fear of the Lord. So instead of
Waiting being the sanctuary He intended, I spit it out like a bad word and try
over and over to compose one of those impressive-sounding plans.
Forgive me, Lord. You are the Author.
“He said to me I was a
tree in a story about a forest, and that it was arrogant of me to believe any
differently. And he told me the story of the forest is better than the story of
the tree.” –Donald Miller
