I’ve felt all summer that I’m standing at the cusp of a life change. Part of that has been knowing that I would truly have an empty nest come fall instead of the anticipation of one coming home to live again in December. Part of it has been simply a feeling. A sense of God’s indistinct whisper in every conversation, every book or blog read, every sermon or song heard, every quiet moment of prayer. Even in every circumstance that intrudes. A nudge of the Holy Spirit that says, “Pay attention, this is important.”
And yet while some of those whispered things have created a similar refrain, others seem disconnected. Yet I know they aren’t. I feel they are all pieces of the same puzzle that reveals the moving forward of my life. Not that I’ll ever really have the complete picture of things. I know God doesn’t work that way often. But I feel like I’m waiting for some of these pieces that have been gathering to fall into place, to connect to each other in a way I haven’t yet recognized.
There’s an anticipation in that waiting, a holding of the breath to see what God has for me next. There’s also a tremble of fear that I’ll be disappointed, that the picture–or at least what He lets me see of it–will fall short of my expectations. Which is, I think, why it hasn’t yet been revealed. I’m being given time to adjust those expectations, to crucify them in favor of Not my will, but Thine be done. Not an easy place to arrive at, but a very necessary one. And so as I wait I cling to Philippians 4:13, believing that “it is God who works in you to will and to do His good pleasure.”
Work Your pleasure in me, O Lord.