Planner Pains

I think I tie “planning” very closely, too closely maybe with hope. I just almost had a panic attack realizing that I can’t “plan” the “next thing.” I’ve always had “the next thing” in process: going back to school, graduating school, finding a job, finding another job and then finding another job. For most of my life, I was planning my wedding in my head and in my heart – the songs, the structure, sketching “the perfect dress.” And then I was planning my wedding for real. And now it’s over.

And I can’t plan the next stage of my career; I can’t look for another job because I really need to stay where I’m at – for a while at least. Maybe that’s why I feel like a caged animal so much lately; the total lack of options that I have in every arena of my life. Everything seems permanent, the husband – the job – the apartment. We literally had friends and family tell us when we moved to the apartment we now have that we cannot move for at least two years. *rolls eyes* Moving has become my sanity; changes in scenery are good for me.

I looked at Craigslist.com today, searching for something that I think may be hidden from me, forever. Contentment. Satisfaction in the present. Oh God forgive me; I abhor the status quo. I’m just so easily bored; over preoccupied with change. I hate the concept of permanent. It’s suffocating for me to even imagine forever. I hope I’m not bored with heaven. *wink*

I recently looked up synonyms of bored and low and behold, the word “jaded” appeared. Is that really true? If you’re easily bored, are you jaded?

I don’t know what it is…I would like to think it’s the fire inside that refused to be tamed. Like rushing ocean water that will not stand still. I would like to think it’s not as negative as all the personalities around me think but, one can’t always ignore the droning of the masses. Something is amiss; something does not equate. And sometimes, rarely, I allow myself to go into that place and analyze its existence. Part of me truly believes its God-given passion, like I was created to race short distances. Part of my thinks my soul echo’s and aches for Eden – the place I was created to dwell and worship and live. But most of me, most of my heart hears and understands the disapproval for my discontent and has to come to terms with the reality that, maybe, maybe there is something very very wrong with me.

The Question of Suffering - Round 1,006

I go through moments in my Christian faith where I believe I am unconditionally loved by an Almighty King. And then there are times I live in fear, believing He’ll take away everything. I’m not certain where my beliefs go wrong exactly or what lies in me that dares question God. I’m not even certain it’s a question as much as I know it’s a doubt. But really, how DOES a good God allow suffering? My mind has gone in circles with this concept since I can remember. I cannot reconcile justice with grace; goodness with bad things happening.

I have a friend who lost her husband less than a year ago. He died at 37 leaving her a widow, a mother of two young children. And I live in total fear the same will happen to me. The lady who sits next to me at work lost two grandchildren, in a fire, not three months ago. I hear reports of miscarriages and births with defected children and stillborn infants almost every month. I work in a large church; people share their pain. The thought that plagues me is, why wouldn’t that happen to me? It could. Some of it, all of it. There’s no quota for pain. It can keep coming or stop; with no notice. The panic of suffering knows no courtesy call.

Oh God, I’m so unprepared for the bad. I’m ill-equipped to praise you in the storms.