unease

Plans. We all make them, have them, destroy them, love them, hate them, and watch them crumble before our eyes.

We also hope. Our hopes are not so solid and tangible as plans and often we don't realize how much store we've put in them until they are removed. When my plans are shattered, I tend to respond in anger or frustration. However, shattered hopes are a different story. They break my heart.

Months ago, I was living in a combination of wonderment and unease about the clear voice in my soul telling me not to make a plan. I had no idea what God was up to then and I know even less of what he is up to now. I was doing pretty good living without a plan. Then I started thinking ahead to the fall and pondering a few possibilities. I had one thing in mind that, without realizing, I had come to depend upon as my one concrete hope. A couple days ago, that hope became an absolute impossibility. My heart hurt and I cried for the once open door now slammed shut in my face. For one reason or another, that path is now closed to me. Even though I never felt convicted that it was the direction I was meant for, it was something and it gave me hope.

Now I find myself more uneasy and directionless than ever. As my roommate Ally gently reminded me earlier today, I probably won't receive any direction or plan until I stop looking for one and stop snatching at every ghost of possibility within reach. Though I have no idea what God is teaching me through this time of not knowing, I am comforted by his presence, his being in the core of my existence. And I hope that the not knowing will teach me to live generously into my own unease, embracing the quite tug of longing deep in my soul instead of trying to make it go away. The inner longings of my soul are there for a purpose, wether I understand that purpose or not.

I am existing in between what I once knew and what I may know in the future. For now, I continue to float in this sea of unease, as my eyes adjust to see the wonderment found here.