Sometimes I’ll sit down and start typing and the words flow like water, and sometimes I sit down and nothing comes. So, I wait, heart twisting in my chest because I know there is something I am supposed to say, something I am missing. I brush tears impatiently – hastily- aside. I don’t have time for tears; their very presence blocks my heart line to God. I can’t hear Him over those salty drops. And I think, ‘Why am I crying? Can’t be for Him. He gets His message through no matter the vector.’ Then I realize I’m crying for myself. For the me I thought I’d be 20 years ago, the me I want to be now, and the me I am; three very different people I assure you. And how did the crevice widen so far?
Do you remember in elementary school when we thought it mattered which tennis shoes to get because which ones determined how fast you ran? (Of course we also ate paste.) The friendship pins (Wouldn’t those cause widespread panic now because the safety pin could be a potential weapon. You can’t see it, but I’m rolling my eyes.) that gave you status, then the embroidery yarn friendship bracelets? When we were that young anything was possible. We could be an astronaut or a movie producer or a ballerina. We could play with the philharmonic, drive in the Nascar series, find cures for disease.
When we were that young, our fathers were Vietnam vets who were spit on when they returned to the US after serving their country. When we were that young, many of us had fathers who refused to talk about what they’d seen or done because as a man, you held it together and bucked up for the real world to which you returned. Before their country sent them across the Pacific to fight a pointless war, they, too, had had ambitions and dreams. Did they get to fulfill them?
The thing is, we aren’t that young anymore. My brother just turned 40. I have a friend from the Air Force who just threw her husband a retirement party. The kids I taught as two and three year olds have graduated high school. One is already in the Middle East fighting for our way of life. (He was my favorite. He was just down right cute, and too mischievous for words.)
So, as we stare down the road that will make up the rest of our lives, toward the different twists and turns and dead ends, how do we know which choice is right? The stock Christian answer is pray. And I do, He knows I do. I carry on mostly one sided conversations all day. But what if I’m misinterpreting His answers? I don’t have another 20 years to waste. And I feel like that’s what I’ve done so far- wasted this life, this opportunity he’s given.
My disability makes it difficult to go outside May-Oct (I live in Phoenix and those are our 100+ days.) and sometimes impossible to even open the blinds. So, my testimony to Him has got to be the only thing possible I can do: write. You see, I believe the bad that has happened and continues to happen, that stuff didn’t come from Him. But He can and will redeem it. Why? Because that’s who Hs is.
“And He will raise you up on eagle’s wings, bear you on the breath of dawn. Make you to shine like the sun, and hold you in the palm of His hand.”
The Unexpected Life 