There is an old saying if you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans. All I have to say is if this statement is even half true, God must be having a laugh-riot up in heaven watching my life these days.
It’s not enough that the majority of the past year has been spent in lockdown craziness or that our entire society seems to have lost its ever-loving mind, becoming more and more polarized and unwilling to hear – let alone accept – another person’s point of view. No, whatever lunatic life-planner that designed my life from start to finish decided that I needed an incessant gnat of a challenge to a time when a little peace would be ever so welcome.
I am supposed to be entering a time in life where things should be getting easier, I have somehow been transported back to junior high where the mean kids rule, there’s no visible escape route, and whatever I thought my life would look like at this point has completely evaporated
I had so many hopes when I was a kid. I was certain that when I became an adult, I would be able to escape the abusive people in my life and would be doing something meaningful with my life. No, I wasn’t one of those kids who always knew what they wanted to be when they grew up, but I did have dreams and wishes about the future. Maybe I would be the first singing veterinarian/human physician in the state of Colorado or maybe the journalist my mom had hoped I would be maybe a soccer mom with lots of volunteer work to keep me busy. Regardless of the specifics, I felt certain I would be able to overcome, to find a track for my life in which I would not only be successful but fulfilled.
I was wrong.
Instead, at 54 I have worked in numerous roles in a multitude of industries and feeling just as lost as I did when I graduated high school or college. Not only do I wonder what went wrong, but I feel like an absolute failure and wonder how I can ever find a way to make something meaningful out of my life.
To be fair, I have done some things that I have made an impact and that I have truly enjoyed, but I haven’t ever had what anyone would consider a career track. Instead, I have moved from role to role gathering lots of skills and abilities along the way but never ending up in a situation where all the pieces clicked together enough to create even a stepstool, let alone a ladder, to lead me anywhere.
I know I have no one to blame but myself. I am not someone that easily asks for help and thanks things that have happened in my past, the people I do turn to for help turn out to be the abusive, manipulative types that reinforce my feelings of failure and inadequacy proving to myself over and over that I’m not worth anything more than what I have.
As a person of faith, I know that I have been placed here to learn and to grow, not just to fulfill some professional goal or other, and I know that growth is always painful (that’s why they call them ‘growing pains’, after all). I also believe that the God I know is a God of love, not punishment and that He has given me tools to succeed.
While I am somewhat at a loss about is what this loving God has equipped me to do as far as a career or how on earth am I supposed to make my way to this unknown destination, I have realized that I after having had flashbacks to junior high mean girls and bullies, I have now realize I need to find the thing that makes my heart sing and trust that God will show me a way to make that joy pay the bills as well.
Of course, if anyone wants to give me a winning lottery ticket in the meantime, I won’t argue. 😉
crookedroadfaith 