I’m 2 days away from being 28. Wherever you are on the spectrum of age, I hope you can find at least some similarity in the feelings of getting older.
For me this age-28-thing was feeling “old” compared to 27. In all honesty I even had some moments of freak-out because I compared where I am in life to where I expected I would be at this age. It felt as if future dreams I have might not become a reality.
That’s something I have trouble with – realizing what I hope for or dream for may not actually happen. It feels worrisome, like a problem that needs solved and I’m in control of finding that ever allusive solution.
But over the last few weeks, as my birthday approaches and this new number looms, my feelings little by little have shifted. Shifted away from fear, concern, worry toward peace, contentment and yes even hope.
How did that happen? Why? When nothing in life itself changed, why did the way my heart responds to it alter?
It’s hard to explain. But through a few moments of insights I realized a few things. Forgive me if these thoughts are disjointed and don’t read all that poetically… but life doesn’t always come at us like a poem does it?
Last week as I was having a nice lunch with my mom I brought up the inconstancies of my life with my expectations for this age. My mom is someone I have the blessing of living close to and being in great life-giving relationship with and she asked me “Well what’s so wrong with that?”
And there in that moment, faced with this question, I realized nothing was wrong with where I am at right here right now saying “If God is in control? Nothing.” Quickly followed up by, “If I am in control? Everything.”
You see, it sank in that God has a plan much greater than ours and this, yes even this, is a part of it. The fear of our “not being ok” in any form we deem ourselves unfit, has completely to do with perception. It has to do with our with our faulty thinking. Our thinking we know better than God. Resisting this moment because we judge it as not right, not good enough, not capable of producing anything beneficial. This fear comes with placing our judgement of our life and our self above God’s judgement of it.
In essence our fear is simply the revealing of our inability to make our future beautiful and our lack of Faith in the one who can.
So this worry or fear you might be feeling about something in your own life? Let it speak to you. Be OK to have this feeling for a moment. But do so only to let it point you back to Him. Point you to the realization that no, you can’t make your life beautiful on your own. Point you to the truth that you need God to make your story grand. Pint you to the hope that there is purpose in your today for your tomorrow.
Now, may we soften the edges of our resistance to this very moment. May we slowly, daily, continually let go of our needs to “figure it all out”. May we notice our fear and then exchange it for radical Trust. May we do these things until one day we fully embrace every moment living through the eyes of Hope and possiblity beyond what we see.
