You Never Know Until You Try.
Some journeys are fun: vacations to the mountains, beach, Disney, camping, etcetera. Some aren’t so much fun: trips to any medical professional. Likewise, thinking about some journeys can be fun and thinking about others can freak you out. I’ve heard it said that most of the time what we dread happening never happens at all and we expend tons of psychic energy needlessly, sometimes making ourselves sick in the process.
I’m currently in transition; I finished a B.A. in Communication Studies in December 2009, and now I’m looking for a job in this wonderful (not) market, having no luck, I might add. Thus, my life post-degree is very much like my life pre-degree. I still live in the same old house. (Thank the Lord I’m not one of those poor souls who got foreclosed on). I still drive the same old vehicle. (Thank God it’s still on the road). I still haven’t met someone to share my life with. (At least I like my own company).
Though things are much the same, it seems as if I’ve been in flux forever. To use military terminology, things in my life have been radically destabilized. Just since the late 1990’s, I’ve seen my first marriage break up; I married my second husband; he died; I returned to school and finished my degree; both my parents retired and they embarked on home renovations and vacations, some extended; my brother and sister-in-law broke up; I’ve lost 4 beloved pets. Add in the part-time and temporary jobs I’ve had, as well as the emotional “work” I’ve done, and you can understand why I’m tired. I’m ready for things to stabilize and settle into something a little less objectionable. Preferably a whole lot less objectionable.
As a person who’s by nature future-oriented and who has spent most of my life on a journey I've found completely objectionable, I couldn’t relate to something my therapist has said to me several times. Until recently, that is. Before the last couple months or so, whenever she said, “I don’t think it’s about the destination; I think it’s about the journey,” I wanted to scream. I think I told her so, too. She knows how disgusted and restless I’ve been, wanting my life to be vastly different than what it has been. I’ve felt bled dry—or very close to it. I’m ready for the destination! A good one, thank you very much. I’ve had several stopping places along the way that I've referred to as hell dimensions. Knowing that I had a place to go to and a certain task to do that I really didn’t want to do, I’d say, “Well, it’s time to go to hell.” Yes, I know the real hell is no joking matter, and I haven’t said what I’ve said lightly; I’ve really been tormented by some of the places and activities in my life and just had to make the best of it. Unlike the real hell, I haven’t had to endure eternal separation from God. He’s been with me the whole time, as He promised.
Many times in my life I’ve wished I could just snap my fingers or wiggle my nose, like “Samantha” on “Bewitched,” and make something happen instantly—to have the successful career in full swing; the loving mate; the debts paid in full; the extra weight gone; the ongoing pet projects completed; psychic wounds cured. Years of “stuff” “fixed” in an instant. I’m not even going to comment further on how we live in a society that values instant gratification; we’ve all heard that story many times.
It hasn’t made me enjoy waiting, journeying toward a hoped-for destination any more than I have before, but I recently got a new understanding of the journey. It really does have a purpose, and it’s not to drive me crazy (crazier). I’ve asked God, sometimes loudly, what the reason is, and I think I’ve gotten an answer. I’ve come up with some possible reasons for my looooooong journeys toward hoped-for ends. I think God has us wait for several reasons, My wait can be for a different purpose than someone else’s, but the wait, the journey, does have a purpose. God wastes nothing. We can’t say that. I’m trying to keep from wasting this time of waiting by doing what I think God wants me to do: study the Bible, pray, work on projects that have gotten left out before now, and rest without feeling guilty that I’m not buzzing about like a bee. That way, I can look on this part of my journey more as a time of blessing than as a time of fatigue.
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