Do you ever have those moments where insanity seems to make sense? Like you actually think you may be going insane? Thinking over my life so far this year makes me think that. Not because my year has been bad, on the contrary, it has been crazy wonderful for the most part; but the sheer surprise and emotional drain it has taken makes me laugh and cry at the same time. My heart has been on emotional overdrive for months now. I’ve been just taking what comes as it comes and not really processing.
My life over the past 6 months has been pretty much a whorl wind, a really happy and new whorl wind of blessing. In that time, I finished and graduated from bible school and fell in love again. I’ve been pretty much on cloud 9 since about March.
Until now. When everything in my life seems very uncertain and directionless.
When the year started I was in my last half of bible school, learning about God and studying the Word constantly. I had my little weekly routine and I loved it. I loved getting to be taught by some inspiring and scripturally knowledgeable men and women of God. I got to be in a classroom with the sweetest, most heartwarming people, and I got used to walking in the classroom and opening up my bible and notebook ready to learn. It was a beautiful time in my life.
Around the last few months of school a certain very kind and charming man came into the picture. I started to get used to him as well. He made me smile and laugh more than I ever had.
I graduated from bible school on June 1st and naturally went straight into spending my free time with my new boyfriend. I’ve had the blessing of spending most my summer days with this very sweet guy, being happy and creating memories. Sadly the constant spending time together has had to stop while life has taken us to long distance, 15 hours away from each other.
And now, without him and without school, I am finding it hard to figure out just where I need to be, and what I need to do. I’m in the weird between stage of what I want, what I’m ready for, and what God actually thinks I need.
It’s a very frustrating process, and being my very controlling self, I want to know how it will all work out.
I want things I’m not ready for; this is a very hard fact to accept when you want so badly to be ready for what you desire. It’s maddening. The heart tends to always be ahead of circumstance and our dreams ahead of God. The sad thing is that I know that what I need is going to take time, but what scares me more than that is that it’s going to take waiting in the dark. Waiting in the unknown. I’ve never been good with the unknown. I just wish my clock and God’s clock were in sync…with his being in agreement with mine.
But this morning, while lying on my bed thinking of my wants, needs, and can’t haves, my face toward my window where the soft, calming sun was shining through, I heard one thing speaking in my soul; submit to the process. Just submit to the process and get on living your life.
If there’s one thing God has taught me over the last year of my life, is that I need to learn to submit to Him. Submit my life, my dreams, my wants, and my will humbly to Him. I’ve been taught this lesson so many times and every time I think I get it, and then I realize I must not have, because I never follow it through long term. And while I think submitting our will to God is a battle we will all fight from time to time in our lives, it’s something I would really like to follow through longer than just a couple months. Especially because i know that when i did start submitting to God in the past, things were a lot happier, and instead of seeing black, I could see a faint rainbow in the distance.
Isaiah 55:8-9 says “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways.”
When I’m trying so hard to control my life, thinking I know exactly what I need and want, sulking over not getting it, that scripture humbles me. His thoughts and ways are not our thoughts and ways, they are higher. Who do we think we are to say what God should give us, what right to we have to grumble, when our Lord’s ways are higher than ours? We couldn’t’ possibly comprehend the picture he is trying to paint and the story he is writing with our lives.
Friends, if you are going through a time in life where everything feels uncertain and even painful, I encourage you to submit to the process of growing, learning, and listening. If it hurts, then go to God and ask why, but mostly, listen. Psalm 37:7 says to “be still in the presence of the Lord”, and tells us to “wait patiently for him to act”. So if you’re stuck waiting for life to move, then sit in the quiet with God. Let him grow you, and understand and accept that you may not be ready for what you want, even if you think you are or want to be. God knows when the right time to bring things to pass is. He does have a specific plan for each of our lives (Jer.29:11), and he is a faithful God. So take this time to grow into the person you need to be for the appointed time you need to be it. There are things to be learned and felt in every season of life, so submit to learning and feeling.
What I want in life is going to take time of waiting, working, and praying. Time of growing and falling hard, crying hard, getting back up and smiling again. It’s going to take patience. And it’s going to take submission to God’s clock.
“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight” - Proverbs 3:5-6
“He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand." - Psalm 40:2
~Cecily Priscilla
