I don’t like waiting in lines. I don’t like waiting for food to finish cooking. I don’t like waiting for the restroom while someone else uses it. I don’t like waiting for movies to start once I am in my seat… and I don’t like waiting for God’s plan for my life to come into fruition. I think we are afraid to be honest about that sometimes. We hold back saying, “God is taking too long, I want something to happen now. I am afraid it (it being whatever we are searching for) won’t happen”. So we rush things, we go around God’s plan. I have done it many times, unfortunately some of those ending in divorces, lost jobs, and financial consequences. On a smaller scale, some of the decisions result in a boring night out or an awkward date.
When I share my fears and worries that my academic endeavors won’t turn into the career I have always dreamed of, I am often quoted Jeremiah 29:11:
“ For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future”
However, I am not quoted the verses immediately following, and it makes sense this might be the problem I am dealing with:
“Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart”.
Maybe God is trying to tell me to come to Him and listen instead of yelling out demands and frustrations and claiming I am being faithful. I believe whole-heartedly in being honest about my relationship with God because it isn’t perfect and I know as fellow, imperfect human beings, most can relate with that. It is so easy to believe in God’s plan when it coincides with ours, but when it doesn’t it is equally as easy to feel confused and upset.
I find myself in a state of anxiousness and borderline panic often, especially lately. I went through difficult break up, lost my grandmother and father, and moved twice during my Master’s program. I have to remind myself all the time that God’s purpose for me is to be a therapist, otherwise why would I make it through that program so successfully, despite the issues that I dealt with, if I wasn’t? On the other side of the coin, why haven’t I found a job? The economy is bad, got it. I live in community with limited options, understood. There are tons of graduates looking for the same job I am, I know. It doesn’t change the fact I make student loan payments on a degree that sits on a shelf. It also doesn’t help I have to fulfill 3,000 hours in six years or start over again. It also doesn’t help that my desire to dedicate my time to helping people is spent not doing so. Sure, I volunteer or listen to a friend on a bad day, give homeless person money or spend an extra five minutes in Starbucks talking to a person who is obviously lonely, but that’s a different kind of helping.
I want my pain to have a purpose. I want the ten years I spent trapped in that black hole of an eating disorder to matter. I want what I learned about life, and how to overcome tragedy at the hands of others to be shared and hopefully internalized as lessons for other victims. I want to help people not be victims. I have had this burning, internal desire to help people overcome obesity for a long time. I have pursued Master’s degrees and personal training certificates. I spend hours researching and reading on the causes, symptoms, and treatment for this epidemic, but I also spend hours feeling frustrated it isn’t being put to use like I dreamt it would.
I know I am not the only who feels like this. I know I am not the only person with multiple tools in their tool box waiting for an opportunity to use them, and to those people I say be still. Easier said than done, I know. I practically have to sit on my hands and duct tape my mouth to keep myself from interfering with a plan that is created for me that I don’t understand quite yet. I don’t want to get so busy getting in my own way that I can’t hear the sound of God’s voice guiding me over the sound of my own making the wrong things happen so that I can say something is happening. I do not stay still so that I can feel comfort in my ability to be faithful, so that I might feel righteous or entitled to compensation. I stay still because I am an idiot and I cannot be trusted to be in charge of myself. When I get anxious, overwhelmed, or even depressed, I can hear God telling me to shut up and give Him a minute. Okay, maybe He doesn’t say shut up, He probably says “be quiet please”, or maybe even, “hush little one”, but the point is he silences me. I’m a little lost, a little confused, and a lot anxious; but I can’t continue to make life even more difficult on myself by trying to do things my own way.
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