What is this thing we call life? What does it mean? Why is it so unpredictable, always twisting and turning so that it is difficult to know what it's true purpose is? I'm writing these questions, and, yet, there is a part of me that doesn't actually care. My thoughts? Why waste energy on trying to understand that which is incomprehensible? Of course, I don't really feel that way, but some part of me does, at least a little. I always say to Mr. Darcy, "If I could just understand it, then I would be ok with it." In so many ways that is true, but in so many others it is not. Or perhaps it's that I have learned there are so many things in this life that I cannot and never will be able to comprehend, so I know that I will never truly be ok with all things. I don't know. My head hurts from thinking about it and pondering all the what if's and why's, yet, my desire to understand is not satiated.
I'm a bit of a mess at the moment, in case you missed it. My life feels like a vast unknown wilderness that just keeps spreading out in front of me, bringing new meaning to the terms loneliness, desperation, emptiness, and loss. While I feel so overwhelmed at times, there is this odd steadiness, in the depths of me, that can't seem to be shaken. I joked to a friend a few weeks ago that I feel like Job from the Old Testament, except that I still have my sense of humor. I cannot see that there is any hope of an approaching dawn, but something on the inside of me knows it will come. I do not know where my next footsteps will take me, but I am sure I will arrive at wherever it is I am destined to land. How strange is this dark, wandering existence I am currently apart of. I cry, I hurt, I grieve, and still I can laugh, can enjoy, can hope. I feel like the ultimate dichotomy, but I am still functioning. Life! What the heck do I make of it?!?!?
I am truly at a loss for how to make heads or tails of what is happening in my life right now. I am equally at a loss in knowing how it will affect my future. Yet, somehow, for the first time in my life, I am tired and weary of the worrying and fretting, and I am content to just ride the storm through. I have no idea how I will get through this time, I have no idea if I am doing it right or wrong, and I don't really care. I am finding that what I care most about during this season is living well. What I mean by that is living with the intention and purpose of doing my best in each area, being pleasing to the God who is ever beside me and always faithful, learning to take each moment and live it to its absolute fullest - be that the fullest depth of suffering, the fullest depth of joy, the fullest depth of sorrow, the fullest depth of knowledge. I want to experience life, really experience it, and learn and grow from it. I want to come out of this experience knowing that I have changed, I have traded some of the dark, terrible pieces of who I am for something more wonderful, more reflective of the One who is working on me and in me.
I know that life is a journey and that each person must travel the journey laid out for them. I just hope that as I am traveling my road, taking my journey, that I am doing it with grace and strength. I hope that when I finish this journey I will not look back and see the way behind me is filled with more regret and brokenness than it is hope and grace. No journey is complete without both good and bad; My hope is that, in the end, the balance created by the two will equal a life well-lived.
