One Straw Too Many On That Poor Camel

Ask anybody who knows me at all, and they can attest to the fact that I am not a big fan of change, and that is putting it mildly. I dislike unknowns and uncertainty. I don't like variables. I like analysis and facts. I like black and white and planning and feeling secure. I studied my brains out for every test, because I hated not being certain whether or not I would pass. I left early for every clinical to account for the variables involved with traffic. I guess that's why I love my job. If school taught me anything at all, it is being absolutely 100 percent sure of each and every result that I report, and somehow that attribute has wheedled its way into my life outside of work and school. 

But life isn't about planning and lists. Life doesn't involve knowing what's around the next corner. Life is a giant ball of uncertainty, covered in a mask of "what if", swinging on a pendulum of "who knows?". Mysterious, uncertain, and at times, quite frightening, life is a series of Jack-In-The-Box moments that leave our hearts racing and our thoughts wandering long after we've turned out the light for the night.

We cannot plan life.

We try, oh yes, we try very hard. We give it our all. We go to school to get a good education to earn money to serve as a trampoline during financial difficulties. We stockpile our resources to give us an edge should our lives take an unexpected turn for the worse. We don our masks every morning to hide our imperfections. Look strong, smile, hold the world at bay. No coming near. Because if somebody sees a chink in your armor, sees where you are vulnerable, then they own a piece of you, and they can use it however they choose. And that is scary. No, better to keep the mask in place. Safety is key.

Lately, within the last few weeks, God has been gently chinking my armor. Peeling back the mask. Teaching me to let go of my need for earthly securities. Lovingly, but forcefully, prying my fingers loose of my intense desire for control. Throwing me into a giant pile of maybes and what-ifs and decisions that are too complicated for me to think about. 

Ultimately, I broke. The strain was too great, the burden too heavy. My mind was tired, my body was tired, every fiber of my being was tired. And I learned the lesson. 

I can't. 

That's the lesson. I can't. I can try for a million years and I won't be able to turn my life into what I want it to be, not by myself. I just can't. Life is a mess. A tangled mass of angel hair pasta sitting in a blob like a ball of yarn. A vase broken into a thousand pieces. I can't make sense of my life. I can't make the decisions. I can't be responsible for getting myself where I need to go, assuming I even knew where that was. I can't untangle the pasta. I can't fix the vase.

But my God can do all things. He puts those vases back together so beautifully. He makes us realize that the tangles in our lives aren't tangles at all, but an intricate, perfect, complex weave that ultimately turns into a beautiful pattern that only the craftsman could picture before the process was complete. 

I don't have to fret that I don't know how to make the weave. He doesn't want me to make the weave. He wants me to have faith that He knows what is best. Faith that He is working all the while. Faith that, even though I don't understand, even though I don't know which path of stones will lead me to the other side of the river, even though I'm up to my eyeballs in variables and unknowns and uncertainty, He is moving, He is working, and He is weaving a glorious pattern that I cannot fathom. 

Perhaps, someday, I'll see the pattern. Perhaps, someday, this will all make sense. Perhaps, someday, I'll have that "light bulb" moment when I realize what all those crazy paths were leading me towards. Perhaps, someday, I'll see the mosaic that never made any sense until the last piece was in place and the beautiful picture was revealed. 

I hope someday I do see it, but even if I don't, even if I live every minute of every day confused and unsure and drowning in a sea of variables, I still trust that my God, the Potter and skilled Craftsman, is working and shaping my life into something that He finds beautiful. 

And so, I have no choice but to hand over my concerns and cares and decisions to the One who knows infinitely better than I. And when I let go of the illusion of control and choose instead to have faith in the Potter, I am relieved of a burden that I didn't even know that I so foolishly and unnecessarily carried. 

I am free.