On rollet coasters, tunnels, romantic comedies and life...

I have not written in a while. My life has turned upside down. I’ve felt a gamut of emotions. I have been on the craziest roller coaster ride, some may call it life. And for the sake of procrastination, I find myself here…. writing. You know, life is really complicated. Relationships and roles in life are complicated. We try to simplify them. I try to simplify them. We want the answers, the careers, the futures, the experiences we fabricate in our minds. Sometimes we create what is not there, only to discover once the cloud becomes less dense that God has far more planned than we can see through our tunnel vision. And we ALL have tunnel vision. I have tunnel vision. Wow. Deep, huh? I have come to realize that love is…. it’s actually the least complicated of all life’s mysteries. But defining that love– the way you love, the type of love, how to love. Well, that’s where I struggle. And I am becoming okay with that. Everyone I speak to says it’s perfectly normal to be completely confused with my life right now. I’m on target… bull’s eye. And as much as I dislike it, despise it, attempt to fight it, or ignore it. I am failing. Not in an ‘I-suck-at-life’  or depressed kind of failing, but in a God’s got a plan for you bigger than that tunnel vision you’re looking through—kind of failing. And I’m naive to think anything less than His perfect plan. And that’s okay, because so… is… everyone… else. One of the most amazing aspects of my Faith– my whole life– has been the assurance that God has predestined my life. That He knows me so intimately that He knows my every thought and His intention for me is to live striving toward His image. It’s quite amusing to me that’s the idea I’m struggling with right now. His plan. He has had one all along and He will have one still. And I KNOW this, and so I laugh at myself.


Because really, I want my life to be simple. Not messy. Not trying. Not complicated. I don’t want the tough things to exist: Like sin. Or hurt. Or homelessness. Or break-ups. Or cancer. Or failure. Or unanswered questions. Or mistakes. Or divorce. Or regret. Or What If’s. I’ve got it all wrong. I know it. I’m aware. But I am learning, still.


Now more than ever, I see God’s reasoning for emotions. I find myself happy, sad, hurt, healing, strong, weak, joyful, fearful, angry, anticipating, optimistic, stubborn, envious, jealous, agitated, excited, empathetic, and I am sure far more emotions than I am able to recognize and articulate. Truly, I am appreciating the lows for what I am learning from them. And the glimpses of joy and excitement, and the rush of the unknown make me feel most fortunate for the times when I’m down. I am learning to recognize and compartmentalize my feelings, and God’s reasoning for all the really difficult things bring me to the realization that Charles Swindoll (whoever he is) phrased it most clearly: “I cannot find either in scripture or in history, a strong-willed individual whom God used greatly until he allowed them to be hurt deeply.”  I haven’t checked all of scripture or history to verify this, but from my own experiences I believe it to be true. Through the emotions and struggles of life, I see the glimpses of beauty in the people I love (no matter how it is that I love them), the beauty of the unknown, the beauty of friendships and laughter and forgiveness, the beauty of lessons learned and lessons left to discover; the beauty of other’s joy and His faithfulness. And the happy endings seem to become less and less important—even if I should really discontinue watching romantic comedies altogether. The journey becomes the most significant, and so, if it takes turning my life upside down and being tossed and thrown on the roller coaster I call life to find exactly where He wants me to be and who He wants me to become, it’s worth it. I think.