I have been struggling with this blog entry for several weeks. Not because I don't know what to say (have I ever been at a loss for words?), but because I don't know how to say it in a way that doesn't evoke deep despair and hopelessness. But...I believe the message is important....so I will try again.
I am one of those people who is always fixated on some future event to make me happy. "When I'm in high school", "When I'm in college", "When I get married".....you get the picture. From 2000-2012 I pinned all my hopes for happiness on our eventual return to the US....once we came "home", once we were settled as a normal American family, THEN I would finally be happy.
Ha. As I have shared in previous posts, our move back to the US in 2012 was, without question, the most difficult move we have ever had. In many ways, we are still feeling the pain and re-entry stress of that move. Once again I found that my dreams/expectations of "happiness" were not to be realized by a change of location, and that has been a bitter pill to swallow.
As I have tried to wrap my brain around "What now?"; as I have scrambled to find a new expectation to pin my hopes upon, I have come to the conclusion that life is disappointing. The world we live in is flawed and broken, and each one of us is flawed and broken. Placing our expectations/hopes on any location, any life experience, any person is setting us up for disappointment due to the simple fact that NOTHING is perfect, NO ONE is perfect.....on some level, we will always be disappointed.
This may seem pretty basic and elemental to some of you, but for me this has been a HUGE shift in my philosophy of life. After 47 years of chasing after the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, I am just now realizing that the pot of gold doesn't exist and that I have been chasing after an unattainable dream of perfection. Ouch.
The good news is, my musings don't end there! As I have struggled with this new reality....an understanding that life and everything in it is broken...I have been overwhelmed by the realization that there is ONE thing that isn't broken. There is ONE thing that IS perfect. There is ONE thing that will NEVER disappoint me. His name is Jesus.
I grew up believing that Jesus is the one constant, the one "perfect" in life. But, with so many other distractions, I was tempted to find my joy in other things. Marriage, parenthood, meaningful work, friendships....all of these things glittered with the promise of fulfillment. Don't get me wrong...those are all good things, and I have been DEEPLY blessed by my husband, my children, my family, my friends. But I have also been deeply wounded by my husband, my children, my family, my friends. I placed upon them an unrealistic expectation of perfection, and ultimately found myself disappointed. Just as I, in my own brokenness, have deeply wounded and disappointed them.
Which brings me back to my earlier declaration -- Jesus alone will never disappoint me. He is always good, He is always just, He always has my best interests in mind, His will is perfect, He can use everything that comes my way for my good. I may not always see that, I may not always understand why He chooses to act (or not to act) in a certain way....and there are certainly days when I think I have much better ideas than He does! But, in the end, I see His goodness. I see that He did have a plan, and that His plan was SO much better than mine.
So....this is my new reality: Life is broken. But, in that brokenness, I have a Savior that loves me, a Savior that is working in ways that I may never see to accomplish His PERFECT plan in my life and in the lives of the people that I love. And in the end He WILL bring me to a place of perfect peace and rest -- standing in His presence where there will be no more tears, no more death, no more mourning or crying or pain (Revelation 21:1-4). My hope is secure, my future is secure, because it rests on the One who will never disappoint me. Hallelujah and Amen.
