Whew…it has been quite a ride since last Friday. Actually, more like since last Monday when I got home from Hawaii. The ups of being healthy and back with my kiddos…the downers of grieving, the ups of the good weather we continue to have here but the downers of all the germs that keep going around because of it (yes, I am currently fighting off the flu bug… like my 5 or 6th time being sick this winter), and on and on.
Of course, then there is all I have learned about myself and even about God since last Friday….
…like the fact that – without realizing it – I thought I had God figured out …but with hindsight chuckle at that thought. Like one could ever figure out everything there is about God who is infinite in – well in everything.
….like the fact that I still have some major trust issues…which makes sense when I match up my childhood traumas along with Erik Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development (yep, I got it in there again didn’t I?)
…like the fact that God gives us the practices of the faith for very good reasons…that the reason Jesus came to live on the earth was just as important as his going to the cross
…like the fact that – when hard times come – we potentially have the greatest learning opportunities of all.
Again, God’s amazing timing – or call it mere coincidence if you must – was sheer brilliance in all this. Just last Wednesday my counselor pointed out to me my tendency to react to my circumstances and make rash decisions when the pressure is on. That, because of those childhood traumas when I was forced into this mode of operation, I have a REALLY hard time sitting still when decisions seem to need to be made immediately. That, just like what Henri Nouwen talks about in “Live Patiently with the ‘Not Yet‘”, I perhaps needed to learn to just sit, to be still before the Lord and not jump into making reactive decisions about my life and its path. 
Then, here I was, posed with an opportunity to do what is so uncomfortable to me…to sit with the awkwardness of not knowing where I was going in a culture that is all about progress. Of having a call – but obviously not knowing how I am supposed to get to that call. To not know if God’s voice was reliable or if my spiritual ears were working properly. To not know if I could admit that perhaps I got something wrong about what I felt God was saying to me.
Or maybe, just perhaps, just maybe – to even throw my hands up in the air, shrug my shoulders and realize that it doesn’t matter if I got it right or wrong…that I am – along with so many others – just trying to figure all this out. That while by the world’s standards I failed at what I set out to do…that I am rephrasing my failures to be Learning Opportunities – right? That there was a lesson to be learned all the same. For if I hadn’t applied and gotten rejected, if I hadn’t again run right into my biggest wound – I wouldn’t have found what I needed most from God: a good ol’ fashion purge of my system while also realizing that He accepts me – just as I am.
But don’t let me fool you – I KNOW that I am on unstable ground still. I can feel it underneath my feet, that the ground I am on is a little wobbly to say the least, like standing on marshland that is soggy and sinks underneath your feet as you stand there.
Or maybe, maybe the ground isn’t the problem…but my legs. Maybe they aren’t as strong as I once thought. Maybe they have been knocked out from under me by my pride and arrogance, by my self-deception. Maybe they are like toddler legs, a little shaky and clunky as I try to right myself into a standing position.
In any case, I am standing with more caution, more humbleness and more respect for the Lord and His infinite holiness than I was last Friday…for when you stand before the Lord you are on Holy Ground, right?
So, for now, I am sitting tight, standing in one place. I am learning to sit in the “yuckiness” – for a lack of any better word – of where I am…and sitting in the “not yet” of God. Knowing I have no where else to turn to find the Reality of truth. So, I am just plopping down right where I am, holding on tight and waiting for something that will tell me it is time to get up and go again. If that is even how this whole thing works – I cannot honestly say I know or will even pretend to know at this point. All I know, is I am learning to …
