I work at J.Crew. If you’ve
never worked in retail, you can’t really relate, but if you have, you know the
feeling of spending quite some time organizing, folding and size ordering a
table only to look at it thirty minutes later and have the table completely
messed up. As I drove home from work on Saturday night, I couldn’t help but
feel like this situation, which I’ve encountered numerous times the past couple
days, was exactly what my life felt like. I worked to nicely order everything
and over the course of a couple of weeks, everything fell into disorder. Unlike
the tables of clothes, my life isn’t so easy to put back together and
reorganize. But, I keep asking myself, “Would you change it? Would you go back?”
Over the course of the week, I’ve watched my answer change from yes, to no.
Hopefully that doesn’t sound insensitive, but I think its progress. I may be on the strugglebus, or even driving the strugglebus, but I’m
learning things here that aren’t easy, but are important for me in walking with
Jesus for a lifetime.
One of my high school
English teachers would make us repeat the phrase, “Embrace the ambiguity.” In the midst of difficult chapters of
literature, when we would get tempted to quit, she would stop us and have us
say, “Embrace the ambiguity.” She said that the quicker we got uncomfortable
not knowing everything, the more we would enjoy the text and then start to
understand it just a little bit better. I like knowns and outcomes. Feelings
are my favorite, but sometimes I just need concrete, which leads me to search
for answers in places I’m never going to find them. This side of heaven there
are things I’ll never know – why people keep bringing me back for final round
interviews of jobs that I’m simply not qualified for, is one that I just don’t
quite get. Why seemingly good things fall apart is another. The quicker I can abandon
my entitlement to know and understand the why, the better off I will be. There
are so many things I don’t understand right now, that I’m being forced to
embrace the ambiguity that is my life.
I’ve never been good at
faking anything. Especially faking being okay. My emotions always give me away.
Usually this is really annoying, especially when I’m sad and can’t stop crying,
or when I’m just feeling down and the thought of putting on a happy face seems
impossible, even if it’s just for a couple hours of work. But, I’m learning
that realness and even rawness invites others to be real and raw. I have
nothing else to offer the world except me, and the evidence that my life
provides to the transforming power of Jesus. The more real I am, the greater
Jesus looks to others because they can see just how broken I am, and be
encouraged about what it looks like to be loved in spite of that. Being raw encourages authenticity in
others.
At this point, I don’t
know what next week looks like; I could be starting a new job, or still be at
J.Crew. The future is so uncertain that
I have to live day by day. I like to plan, but right now, I’m being forced
to live in the present. I wake up in the morning and ask Jesus what He has in
store for the day. I can’t really worry about the future because I have
absolutely no idea what’s going to happen. So I can only really take things one
day at a time, and trust that God has the rest under control. Plus, at risk of
sounding cynical, this prevents me from getting my hopes up about what the
future has to offer. I’m still healing from that one, and very thankful that I
get to live here in the present not wishing the future would hurry up and get
here already. Life on the strugglebus is teaching me the value of the present
and how to make the most of it.
What are you learning in
the season you’re in… even if you’re not on the strugglebus? Are you a willing
learning, or dragging your feet like me?
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