uncertainty

Last week, a door closed on an opportunity that looked promising. Even though it wasn't a position I was super excited about, it was a job that I would have been confident in, a job where there would have been room to grow.

But that door closed. It was clear as day that the position wasn't for me. However I responded to the thought of continuing the job hunt by getting lost in the overwhelming big picture. Everything became a blur...I nearly walked into a closed door. It all just seemed so uncertain.

In my delirium I made it up to Roger's Park and sat myself down at The Common Cup (looking back it's surprising I didn't get hit by a car or miss my red line stop). I immediately knew I needed some frozen yogurt. I ordered peach. The nice girl who was working recommended it to me (and made sure to let me know it was made from real fruit).

The real peach frozen yogurt made everything clear again.

...At least for a minute.

Really, I just needed a little time to focus on the here & now. The big picture is not for me to figure out. The long term does not need to be decided right now. I needed to remind myself that this is just my current circumstance.

I like what Sara Miles writes about uncertainty in Take This Bread:

"And [being a Christian] meant not...turning the awesome mystery of God into a fairy story where everything turns out nice in the end. It meant bearing the real, scary, and unknowable.
'You know,' I told Jeff, the next time I saw him, 'when I was looking at it from the outside, faith seemed to be about certainty. What a surprise.'"

Dear friends are experiencing an uncertainty right now in an unimaginable way. Can't begin to think about what a whirlwind the past couple weeks has been like for them.

I'd say faith has more to do with the way we face, respond, react, and cope with the uncertainty -- "the real, scary and unknowable" circumstances.

Because life is not a "fairy story", life is uncertain, I've found that it is important to remember that joy trumps circumstance.
Repeat that a few times.
Say it out loud.
Let it ruminate.