The Life That Was To Be and the God Who Led Me Elsewhere

The heart makes idols like that is its job (or used to be). In the church, we talk about idolizing self, idolizing other people, idolizing money and possessions and sex and relationships. I would venture a guess that most of those idols are serving a bigger one, the Life That Was To Be.

Because we talk about the sovereignty of God, too, but it’s a little grudging sometimes. God is sovereign, but I wish….

In this year of fighting fear, I have found that you can’t fight fear without embracing sacrifice. That’s what all fears boil down to, isn’t it? The fear of loss, in some form or another?

Cast your cares on God, we are told, because He cares for us, and if that’s true then we have to stop pretending we don’t have problems, stop pretending we aren’t bowed down under the weight of expectations that never came to fruition and dreams that have faded to shadows. And so yesterday, on the way home, I named names, traced out the sketch of the Life That Was To Be.

I was going to be married by now. My kids would be roughly the same age as my brother’s kids, and we’d all be living close by each other, and get to see each other a lot. My husband would have gotten along great with my dad (who would still be running and would have way more energy than most men in their early 60s have), and with my mom (who would be thrilled to have twice the grandkids), and with my whole family and all of my friends, and he would never have thought of me as a last resort he was driven to because the prettier girls were all taken.

Way down in the deep core places of my heart I believe that God has me by the hand, that He is leading me through valleys and by quiet streams and into green pastures, that He knows exactly where we are going and exactly what He is doing. But way down there, wrestling against the sovereignty of God, are the Balrog thoughts, the ones that speak in the language of the prince of this world: that single women are single because they are undesirable and unattractive and have something wrong with them; that people who are good Christians don’t ever snap at coworkers; that if nothing spectacular has been accomplished by the heady age of thirty-four, you might as well give up on anything spectacular ever happening, give up and just wait to be done.

But is God not better to me than ten sons? And isn’t a woman who fears the Lord to be praised? And weren’t Peter and John headstrong and too quick to speak? And doesn’t the Lord know all of the good works left for me to do? And should I put the Lord my God to the test?

So Sunday night (not for the last time!) I wrapped the Life That Was To Be in the shreds of my self-assurance and held them up to God as a grief offering, asking to love His plan and His purpose fiercely and fully, to find joy in them even on the days when it seems there is no fruit on the vine.

I was thinking of this tonight when I went for my church directory photo. I thought of it when practically the first thing out of the photographer’s mouth was a comment on how many young single people there were at this church. (Yes, I am alone for this picture.) I thought of it when he mistook the mole on my upper lip for a warty-pimply thing and then after being corrected that it was just part of my face still suggested that they could take care of that with photo editing. (No, I am not the most beautiful woman you will ever photograph.) I thought of it when the salesman tried to get me to buy another photo by asking if I have a boyfriend who might want it. (No, no boyfriend wants a picture of me.)

On the way home, I thought of how on Wednesday night I’d told a group of girls that I generally found that making big declarations to God one day led to confrontation on it the next, and it was like catching the smirk and the nudge and the lovingly sarcastic, “It’s all because you’re ugly and single, remember?” And I laughed, and I will take the Life That Is along with the Life That Will Be because God will never, ever let go of my hand or lose His way.

(And I haven’t looked that good in a photo in ages.)