I recently started taking a “how not to be a loser” career development course. (Sadly, I must have missed the session where they informed us that the first step is to not refer to yourself as a loser!)

I can tell already that a big part of the course’s appeal is in the sharing of experiences, of celebrating the small victories and providing support and encouragement when things don’t go well. For some reason, though, tonight I was struck by the fact that my career failures/delays/missteps are painful to me on a level beyond that of the usual disappointment and discouragement of not succeeding. Of course, those elements are there as well, but there is something more going on here. When I don’t get a job, when I have those times when I am so, so certain that something is going to happen–and then it doesn’t–it’s not just my own disappointment in myself that I am dealing with. And when I face my fear of being stuck in my current job indefinitely, it is not just because I don’t think I will find something else. No, all of this is couched in terms of a relationship . . . there is Someone who is calling the shots, Someone who I feel has let me down, again.

I’m sure it’s bad theology to say that God would truly let me down. But disappoint me? Yes, He has, and not just a few times. I am quick to attribute this to my disobedience–surely I am doing something “wrong”, and if I would only start tithing/wake up at 5am to do devotions/go to church three times a week, He would immediately remedy my life circumstances and bring about all that I have hoped for.

But at least some small part of me knows that this isn’t how God works. He is not malicious, nor does He act out of spite or treat us as our sins deserve. No, when He closes door after door after door, I have to acknowledge the truth that I know, which is that He has me where He wants me and His plans for me are better than any plans I could come up with for myself. He knows what He is doing; He is God, and I most certainly am not.

It still hurts, though. It hurts because, for whatever reason, I have repeatedly been convinced that this was really it–that God was telling me that _______ was going to happen. Everything within me felt that certainty, once even to the point that I received confirmation from one of the most godly women I know. Every time, it’s been the same thing. “This is it”, I would think. “This is what I’m meant to be doing. This is where my life will start. This is what I was born to do.” And time after time, I’ve been devastated by the closing of a door that seemed destined to open.

There is a disappointment in this. Disappointment because I feel that Someone has betrayed me. And it’s not like the God of the universe has to answer to me; even expressing my disappointment displays an arrogance that falls just short of blasphemy. But the disappointment and the discouragement and the ceaseless hunger for something more remain. And perhaps I am disappointed precisely because I know that He has my best interests at heart. He loves me, and He created me for a purpose, but the waiting is sometimes intolerable.

I am loved more than I can fathom, and His ways are higher than mine . . . I know all of this, and yet it hurts. It hurts because I know that He could change things–and I suppose someday He will–but today there are no answers, and I wait.

My job search, and my larger career angst, is not just an inanimate set of circumstances. It’s a sign of a relationship that I am less than satisfied, a reminder that this God who loves me so, so much has nonetheless not chosen to deliver me from my current situation in any of the ways I would have liked. Worse, I have hoped for these things, have prayed about them, have been certain they would come to pass. Am I not hearing Him correctly? Or is there some lesson I’m missing as I wait?

With that said . . .

I so, so desperately need for something to change. I have been at the end of my rope in the work arena for going on three years now. Blah, blah, blah, be grateful you have a job . . . I know. But my dissatisfaction is growing up in me like a tidal wave, and I am desperate to be able to catch my breath, to break out from under the smothering force of this restlessness. I have been wrestling with this for far too long . . . I am so, so tired of these hopes deferred. I am tired of not being able to decide which direction I want to take, but more than that, I am weary at the doors that keep on closing at every turn. I just. want. SOMETHING. to. change.

There’s a song that I keep hearing on the radio that I don’t know what to do with, but the lyrics keep echoing in my mind nonetheless.

God gave me
A dream that would not die*

And that’s just it. So many of my dreams have died, or at least have faded away as I have lost interest, moved on to the next shiny object left in my path to distract me. And as doors continue to close, it is an uphill battle to convince myself that I’m not doomed to a life of career failure and dissatisfaction, that something better might yet be ahead for me. For now, I am doing everything I can to move forward, but every small setback brings back that fear that I am doomed to a lifetime of purposeless wandering. I am just not okay with that, and so I continue to press on, even when the destination is entirely unclear.

I pray that God will help me to see the next step, and that I will be faithful in this desert while I wait.

(*Shirley Murdock, The Dream that Would Not Die)

Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.
Sydney J. Harris

In the iconic television game show The Price is Right Let’s Make a Deal, one of the popular games requires the contestant to select from among three doors. If I am remembering this correctly, the prize behind Door #1 is revealed, and the contestant then needs to decide whether they are going to keep that prize, or risk asking to see what is behind Door #2 or Door #3. What’s behind those other doors could be much better than what is in front of the contestant, or it could be much worse.

I have been thinking about doors quite a bit lately as I have been reevaluating my life, because I have seen what’s behind Door #2 and Door #3 (or at least, I have seen a glimpse of each of them), and yet I stand here, hesitating, almost paralyzed by the crushing weight of inertia.

I am not happy with my life as it is. I am sure that this is no surprise to anybody who knows me. And for years, I have vacillated, unsure which direction to take. I am annoyingly fickle; it seems like I follow a given passion for a while before discarding it for the next whim or fad that comes along. A few things have remained constant, however, at least on the macro level. I have not outgrown my love for children, or my passion for fighting racism. The desire to have someone to mother is another longing that I have not been able to shake.

Over the last few years, desperate for something to change, I have felt a pull to two different doors, each related to these underlying passions. I have taken halting steps towards each of those doors; however, I have yet to make a choice, and I am hyper-aware of the fact that time is passing me by, and that every day of non-decision is a day that brings me closer to being stuck with the crappy-living-room-furniture set that is my current “Door #1”.

Behind Door #2 is the “mommy” prize. I have glimpsed into this door, even going so far as to take a few initial foster care licensing classes. My experiences with Elijah have convinced me that I would be able to do the hard work of fostering without any promise of permanency, and I am awestruck at the thought of what a gift and a privilege it would be to be in a hurting child’s life for a season. Am I certain that I could do it? Not at all. But I know that the need is huge, and I do not want to avoid doing something merely because it is difficult.

Door #3 holds the “teacher” prize. Having pursued (repeatedly, and unsuccessfully) a particular alternative teacher certification program has been a roller coaster. Certainty that it was going to happen, followed by crushing disappointment. Trying again . . . and again. Still not succeeding, and yet, unable to shake the almost visceral sense that this is what I am meant to do. That feeling ebbs and flows . . . working a temp job grading standardized tests recently, I felt the pull again, “seeing” these students and their need through their essay answers. Who is going to speak for those who have no one to advocate for them? Again, the need is huge, so why not me?

I have begun to identify steps that would bring me closer to being able to walk through one or the other of these doors, but I have a long way to go. I am paralyzed by indecision, however, and my greatest fear is that I will continue NOT to act, that I will indeed waste my life. Tomorrow isn’t promised, and my body reminds me daily that I am getting older. If I don’t do something now, I am certain that I will wake up one day an old lady, sitting on that outdated piece of furniture that will daily serve as a reminder of the way that I chose the default option, the “safe” choice that is no choice at all.

I believe I was created to live a life that matters. That I am not moving in that direction is a travesty of the worst sort. I need to fling open one of these doors; there is work to be done. I say that I want to live the way my heroes did, but those words ring hollow in the shadow of my inaction. I need to work around the pile of excuses that have held me back for so long. I need to move forward, because life will not wait for me. And the one thing I am certain of is that what is beyond those other doors will enrich my life in ways that I cannot yet fathom.

I just pray that I don’t miss it.

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION
The fight by the rich and powerful against the middle class and working poor continues.  Their strategy is to blame complex economic problems on one of three scapegoats: teachers, immigrants, or government employees.  And unfortunately, it offers politicians an easy way out.  At a time when our country is in grave distress, they can pick out a select group and blame all of our problems on them. From a distance, the tactics being pursued in different states look diverse and varied.  But their three-pronged attack suggests a national strategy.

First, under the guise of targeting “lazy” and “overpaid” teachers, the rich and powerful with the help of the politicians, are working to dismantle public education.

Second, as they talk about balancing state budgets, these same folks are trying to undermine the public sector’s role in providing critically important public services.  A bill in Michigan would privatize support services to public schools.  Again, the goal is to strengthen corporations and disempower organized workers in the political realm.

Third, this same wealth/power group attempts to block the voice of immigrants in our country’s politics.  Various attempts are being made to create barriers to voting and to discourage people not yet registered from exercising their legal rights.

Now it’s up to us.  Those of us who are concerned, disgusted, and outraged that our democracy is being taken over by multi-national, big, big corporate money  need to step up.

We should not allow the wealthy, powerful, and yes, greedy to ride roughshod over the needy of our land.  In Psalm 72 we see God’s picture of a good governmental leader:  “May he defend the cause of the poor of the people, give deliverance to the needy, and crush the oppressor.”  May those types of leaders soon be raised up to save our democracy!!

I had planned to ask about leasing, and when a woman from the Toyota dealership told me that she could get me into a lease at a price that was (at least “sort of”) manageable for me, I decided I would go and take a look. The problem is that a car dealership is like crack . . . the cars are all new, and shiny, and they put you behind the wheel of a car whose odometer reads 38 miles . . . from that point on, it’s so, so hard to walk away. The woman I worked with was sincere enough that I was able to brush off my nagging feelings of needing to take a shower from being around all of the sleaziness that is inherent in such a place. Had she been any less sincere, I’m quite sure I would have walked away, and this leaves me feeling even more duped.

I am also starting a five-day-a-week temp job on Monday – yes, in addition to my day job. So without a car, the plan was to get on a 6:20am bus to get to my day job by 7:15am, then to get on a bus across town to get to job #2, then to try to catch the last bus so that I could transfer to the other last bus and get myself home by 11:45 before starting it all over again the next morning.

This plan, in and of itself, had me thinking that I was going to give in very soon and buy something. I just didn’t know I would succumb so soon.

my first, and (prior to this) only car

It’s no big surprise that I tend to be impulsive, nor is it any secret that I am a chronically poor money manager. But that is not the thing that is causing me to hyperventilate as I write this. I am broke no matter how many or how few bills I have, and no matter how little or how much I am making. The payments are affordable on paper, so having this car primarily means that I will need to end my habit of eating out more days than not. I will not be on the bus, but I will be on the ramen noodle diet. This seems to me like a good exercise in restraint. I will probably end up putting my student loans into forebearance yet again, also, but that’s also nothing new.

All of these things are realities I will just have to deal with . . . but my real problem is two-fold. First, I consider my inability to delay gratification by saving for a cheaper car to be a clear sign of my lack of character. Second, (secondly? help me out, grammar police!) I feel that having a nice car is not something I should aspire to, if I believe what I say I believe.

too late to give it back?

The reality is that I have had a myriad of opportunities to save money over the past several years. I knew that Anastasia was on her last legs, and I could have been preparing for that, but I did not. I am still living very much paycheck-to-paycheck, and could not even put a down-payment on the car (unless I had waited two weeks). Had I been able to save money, I would have been in a better position to purchase a $2000 or $3000 or $5000 car, and would not have fallen prey to the temptation to go after as much car as I could afford, and then some.

Similarly, my month on the bus while working 13-hour days was supposed to be a test of my character. It was supposed to prove (to me and to whomever else might care) that I have the ability to work hard to get what I want, that I am not one who seeks the easy way out. It was supposed to put weight behind the lip-service I give to “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with using the bus as a form of transportation”. Two days before I first was to get on that 6am bus, and I have already failed that test of my character. In fact, I have not merely failed the test, but have shown the true nature of my soul by spending much more money than I needed to.

This brings me to my next concern, and one that I fear has more profound eternal consequences. I made a choice today–a choice to spend almost $300 a month on myself, entirely for my own enjoyment and convenience. I don’t have a better point of reference, but I know that $300 could send four students in Liberia to school for one year. Multiply that by 12, and maybe you will see my dilemma. I am choosing to avoid the minor inconvenience of having to take the bus on a daily basis over the opportunity to change the lives of nearly fifty children. And I fear that even my choice of that example is me making things too easy for myself . . . how many children’s lives could be saved with that money? Am I really going to get to the end of my life and look back on this moment with pride and not horror? And yet, I made that choice today.

So I came home from this ill-advised purchase, and in an attempt to ask for a sign, I opened my one-year Bible and began to read.I don’t know what I expected to see . . . but I think that I was looking for some confirmation that it was somehow okay for me to be all about myself. But Jesus doesn’t roll that way, and I should’ve known better than to try to find justification for my actions in those pages. What I found instead was this:

“Then He said, ‘Anyone who wants to follow me must put aside his own desires and conveniences and carry his cross with him every day and keep close to Me! Whoever loses his life for My sake will save it, but whoever insists on keeping his life will lose it; and what profit is there in gaining the whole world when it means forfeiting one’s self?’ ” (Luke 9:23 – 25, TLB; other versions translate “self” as “soul”.)

I know I’m rambling; I’m not even going to edit this at this point. And please know that I am not looking for any of you to tell me that I really am a good person deep down inside or any other such nonsense . . . I’m not looking for affirmation here. I just wanted to explain exactly why I am experiencing this remorse, and why I am wishing that buying a car was like buying Tupperware, where they allow you to change your mind within 72 hours.

And I know that Jesus still loves me anyway, but I still do not relish an eternity spent living with the knowledge that I chose my own comfort over self-sacrifice. Of course, that I made this choice is nothing new, but it’s all the more difficult to face when it’s done on such a large scale.

Maybe this is the real reason why car dealerships are closed on Sundays. They know that people will go to church and feel convicted about their choices. If I had waited for Sunday, maybe I wouldn’t be in this predicament.

There’s no easy way to wrap this up, so I am just going to stop. Maybe I’ll do some editing later. But I wanted to get my thoughts out as best as I am able to . . . for better or for worse, I won’t be on the bus come Monday, and I guess I just have to live with that.

Words have had such power in my life, and for so long, that it’s logical that I want to believe that there’s nothing words can’t do. Words can persuade, can change hearts, can tear down or build up. They are a formidable weapon. They are a gift. John’s gospel reminds us that “In the beginning was the Word” . . . God’s answer to the impossibility of our sinful selves ever being able to be in His presence was a Word–THE Word. All God’s promises are “Yes” and “Amen” in Christ Jesus.

Every so often, though, I come up against a situation where words don’t seem to be able to reach. And I am never willing to accept this, to concede defeat and succumb to wordlessness, and to the admission that the situation is beyond my power to repair.

Over the last eight months, I have been up against a situation that has tested my faith in a way that nothing else I have lived through ever has. In some ways, I think the pain is more acute because it is something that is not happening directly to me, but to someone I love very much, someone who is like a sister/daughter to me.  And the things that she has gone through in this time have taken us to the most fundamental questions that humans struggle with. We have been slammed again and again with wave after wave of these unanswerable questions.

The knowledge that this God we trust in is described with the word “good” crashes into the reality of an overwhelming and unrelenting pain, a pain whose incongruity with that word “good” is intense to the point of mockery.

The word of God insists that He is passionate, even militant, about justice, and yet this justice seems so long in coming.

At some point as we were travelling this road, I came across these words from wise-beyond-her-years Hannah Reed. Hannah’s father Bob, a hero of mine, had suddenly and unexpectedly died a few months earlier.

Hannah’s description of the divide between the words we give lip-service to when things are not hard and the reality of the struggle to try to hold on to those promises when faced with a mountain of grief and pain captured exactly what I had been feeling throughout this whole ordeal.

Bad stuff happens. It happens to everyone, in varying degrees and in different situations. We have all experienced crisis. Many times, a response of ours is to question God. And many times we find that God is silent . . .

For most bad occurrences, I could usually find a satisfactory conclusion that allowed God to remain good in my mind, despite how bad the situation was. For example, the situation could test a person’s faith, make them a stronger person, allow them to touch lives with a story, or things like that.

It’s funny how when something happens to you personally, the questions take on so much more power then when something happens that is so far away. When Daddy died, the questions that began forming were absolutely overwhelming. I didn’t understand where God was when Dad was sick, didn’t understand why He would allow such a strong, smart, kind man to die when there was still so much good that could be done with his life. I didn’t understand why God would allow my family and me to hurt so badly. I didn’t understand. I couldn’t see the good in such situations as this.

And God was silent. I couldn’t hear Him. He didn’t give me a logical answer, didn’t write on my wall, and didn’t give me an epiphany. He felt distant, and I felt abandoned and alone in my grief . . . it didn’t seem fair or right or just or loving or any of the things that God promised to be and give to us as children that He professed to love.

Like myself and the friend I have been walking with, Hannah had found a place where words could not quite reach. She understands, and at far too young an age, that the faith we give lip-service to can ring hollow when those promises are tested beyond what we ever thought we could endure. And when the world has beaten you down and you are beyond the place where any words you’ve ever spoken can even begin to touch the immensity of your pain, you have come to the place where words can’t reach. What we are left with, then, is a wordless desperation and a tiny flicker of hope in the One who is the “Yes” and the “Amen” . . . the One whose final Word will finally reach that unreachable place..

Until that day, we stammer in our sadness, trying as hard as we can to learn how to sit in that silent place of suffering. Until that day, we wait and hope and carry on with broken hearts. Until that day, we continue to reside uneasily in this place where words can’t reach.

I have to say that I don’t believe in luck . . . and I also have to tell you that this is not as true of me as I would like it to be. In fact, the struggle to avoid attributing the good or bad things that happen in my life to “luck” is a constant one. Having a persistent case of OCD doesn’t help matters; in fact, I could easily blame my superstitious ways on my ever-present anxiety and tidily explain away the heresy inherent in every decision I make to “knock on wood” or throw salt over my shoulder.

But I will spell it out plainly: I do not believe in “luck” for the same reason that I do not believe in “coincidence”: I believe in a God who is in control of all things. I believe that there is a purpose for everything, and that every moment of our lives is woven into the larger tapestry of a story whose end we have yet to see. No “chance”, no “luck”, just a God in whose love and goodness I continue to trust, no matter what my circumstances may be.

With that said, nobody was more amused and delighted than I was when I won a one-hour massage last week in response to an email ad from a local chiropractor . . . and then found out yesterday that I had won a dozen gourmet cupcakes via a contest I entered with a local business via Facebook . . . and sure, those two bits of information, taken together, might lead someone to say that I’ve been having a bit of “good luck” as of late, just as the flat tire I got this afternoon might be interpreted as a change in that “luck” . . .

But I need to remind myself, over and over and over again, that all of the good things in my life, and all of the bad things, and everything in between, come to me not by luck but by the hand of One who loves me more than I can imagine, and who not only wants what is best for me, but knows exactly what combination of good, bad, and everything in between is required for me to become who He means for me to  become.

That’s not lucky. That’s blessed. And I pray that I will continue to remind myself of that minor, yet oh-so-important distinction between the two.

FOR COUNTEE CULLEN

Holy Haloes

Ring me round

Spirit waves on

Spirit sound

Meshach and

Abednego

Golden chariot

Swinging low

I recite them

in my sleep

Jordan’s cold

and briny deep

Bible lessons

Sunday school

Bow before the

Golden Rule

Now I wonder

If I tried

Could I turn my

cheek aside

Marvelling with

afterthought

Let the blow fall

saying naught

Of my true Christ-

like control

And the nature

of my soul

Would I strike with

rage divine

Till the culprit

fell supine

Hit out broad all

fury red

Till my foes are

fallen dead

Teachers of my

early youth

Taught forgiveness

stressed the truth

Here then is my

Christian lack:

If I’m struck then

I’ll strike back.

–Maya Angelou

Today I found myself in the presence of someone who is the type of person that brings out this jealousy in me. She is successful in her career, an amazingly talented woman of God who serves in her church in a variety of ways, has a life rich in relationships . . . one of those people I can look at and see everything that I am not.

I immediately kicked off the self-pity party, measuring my own lack of success against her many accomplishments, and as always, finding myself guilty of not being someone other than myself.  With her example staring me in the face, all I could think was “and I can barely get my laundry done”. I am Just. So. Tired. And I don’t understand where she finds the strength to persevere, and even to thrive.

Today, though, I realized something significant about this longing.  It isn’t just the tangible outward signs of success that I envy, but something even greater than those surface indicators. It’s not merely that I wish my life in some way looked more like hers, although that is part of it, because no matter how others define “success”, my own definition is simple: Success is anything that I am not. And no matter how many people tell me that I should consider myself successful in things that I might label as trivial (being a good friend, loving the children in my life, etc.), it doesn’t matter to me. I am not answering to anybody else’s standard, but to my own internal critic. Plain and simple: I am not okay with being who I am. And so I grasp onto this longing to be like the people I see (or think I see) who seem to have these traits that have eluded me.

And yes, blah blah blah, I know that God doesn’t require “success” of me, but it goes back to the concept that God is like your grandmother–He HAS to like you. So although I would not disagree with the notion that I am valued by God no matter what I do or don’t do, I am still hopelessly bound to my own (seemingly unattainable) definition of “success”.

But I realized something else today . . . aside from the impossibility of achieving even a fraction of what this woman has achieved, and even beyond my own faulty reasoning and twisted self-image, there is a deeper jealousy, one that feels more valid, healthier, maybe even God-given.

She is beautiful. And I want to be beautiful as well.

I’m not speaking of physical beauty, although that often seems to come with the territory. No, this is a beauty which goes so much deeper than that. This woman, and others like her whose “success” I have envied, is beautiful down to the depths of her being. She radiates God’s light, and *that* is where her beauty comes from, not from the outward achievements, but from a place that seems far more unreachable.

I want to know how she got to be this beautiful . . . I want to know how I can be beautiful too. But, even more than I despair of reaching an acceptable level of success in my career or in my personal life, I am certain that I do not know how to get there . . . I do not know how to become beautiful in this way. I am too tired; I am too selfish; I am too prone to inner ugliness. And yet, something within me holds on to some irrational hope that perhaps, if I sit at the feet of these women long enough, I just might find a way to glean from their wisdom, to figure out a way that I might be able to take on even some small piece of who they are and what they have, and to create some of that beauty within myself.

I think I am afraid of the truth that I am certain lies behind this–that the greater the beauty, the deeper the pain that has been weathered . . . and yet, I am hardly a stranger to pain myself . . . so why do some turn that pain into something lovely and glowing and inviting, when people like me exude ugliness instead?

I don’t know the answers to this. But I find myself drawing nearer to these beautiful women, to do everything I can to put myself in their path, to try to glean some of their energy in place of my own constant exhaustion, to try to become what they are.

And maybe, just maybe, if I put myself in their presence often enough, I will be able to put aside my desire to be “successful” in the limited ways that I have defined success, to find new ways of defining it. If I can only learn how to do this, maybe someday I will find a way to be beautiful.

And sometimes, though they are entirely unaware of it, little children teach us something so profound that it almost takes our breath away . . .

Elijah loves stairs. He is always delighted once we get to my house, because he knows what is coming next. Stairs up, stairs down. When we get ready to leave again, he eagerly scales the first set of stairs, carefully holding on to the railing, but proud to do it on his own.

When we reach the landing, though, it’s another story. These stairs are wider; they require bigger steps, and there is no railing for him to rely upon. This is the moment that melts my heart every time it happens. We both know the routine–Elijah reaches for my hand, and together we tackle the big stairs, me with the strange, loping gait that is a remnant of my ankle surgery, and him with some combination of determination to make it down this set of stairs and a simple joy at the act of doing this, together.

We were already well into this routine before I realized the profundity of Elijah’s simple act of reaching out for my hand. At not-quite-two-years-old, Elijah knows what he can handle on his own, and when he needs to reach out for help. He is not  embarrassed to ask for help when he needs it, and yet he doesn’t ask for help with things that he knows he can do on his own. More importantly, though, he knows that when he reaches out to me for help, that I will gladly take his hand; indeed, it gives me more joy to have that precious little hand reaching out to me than he will ever know. I take his hand gladly, knowing that far too soon he will no longer need me to support him as he takes these steps, and I will be left there, waiting until the next challenge he faces that is bigger than he can handle on his own.

And so it is that with the simple act of reaching out his precious little baby hand, Elijah is teaching me about the importance of community, and the fact that there are times when every one of us needs a hand to take that next step.

He is teaching me about the importance of asking for what you need and accepting the hand that is reaching out to you to offer that help.

Most of all, he is showing me that our Father God is always by our side, cheering us on as we take each step, and holding on to us when we just can’t do it on our own.