Rearranging My Grip

I finally found the end of myself. Turns out it wasn’t too far from where I was living. Right past exhausted and just to the left of no-fight-left. It sits on the corner of surrender and trust.

The start of 2012 has been rough for me. My family lurks inside of a wait, the hope of whose end cannot yet be defined. Last August we got news of a temporary move that we thought would happen in late November. Today is February 2nd, and we still don’t know when we’ll leave for that part of the journey. I kind of feel as if I am chasing some anonymous adventure even before it officially starts. The lurking, the unknowing, is taking us down a path I never even knew existed. An adventure in waiting, I suppose.

Dangling in the fringe of life as we know it, aware of its impending change, we avoid long term commitments because we just don’t know if we will be around next month. And I hate that. I feel like I’m avoiding the living because of what might happen. It is hardest on my mothering heart. The part of me that wants my children to thrive and live in security and certainty. But there is really no part of “dangling in the fringe” that even remotely suggests such things.

Turns out, the end of myself is right smack in the middle of that fringe in which I flail. But I have somehow found God lurking there too. In fact, He has shown me new things about Himself even as I dangle in the wait.

I am learning that life as God intends, the kind of real life He designed, actually begins right at the end of Myself Avenue. It’s a process of giving up the fight and actually trusting that Almighty God, the One Who holds the globe inside the palm of His hand, will not drop that globe. And even as I languish between where I am and where I will one day be, I am learning to hold onto the hand that holds the globe rather than the world that He is holding.

Inside my little world, it feels like God has been shaking up that globe, so that things I thought were guaranteed will drop off and out of my reach. I think He’s a really good globe-shaker, so He’s been shaking it in such a way that I’ll stop grasping at the expectations I’ve come to rely on and re-arrange my grip. So I’ll grab His hand instead.

I finally got to the place this week where I stopped trying to grab the things that fell out of place — things like being able to ease my children’s hurts and worries, sleeping all night, even coffee in the morning (yeah, I KNOW, right?!). And I have found that the grabbing was actually harder than just giving up the fight and letting God do whatever the heck He wants with them. Even if that means never sleeping all night again. If He lets them drop, then I will trust that He knows I’m better off without them.

My dear friends asked me yesterday what I wanted them to pray for me. You know what? I want to stay here at the end of me. Because I don’t want to have to find it again. Because for the first time in a very long time, I believe that God’s hand holds everything I need it to hold.

And that is enough.