The last three or so years of my life I have become very fond of saying that living in the grace of God means I'm flying by the seat of my pants. I said this once to a dear friend of ours, Emmanuel, who is from Kenya. He had never heard the expression "flying by the seat of your pants" so I explained to him it means you don't have a plan, you take things as they come, and you make it up as you go along.
That in a nutshell has been my life the last few years. Alex and I have not been able to make any sort of plans beyond a few months in advance, and sometimes not even that far ahead depending on our financial status. For someone who is so future focused like myself and very much a planner I've been oddly comfortable with this. In all honesty it's been maddening, scary, exciting and actually kinda fun.
I have been blessed to have two points of stability in my life. One is my marriage (thank God) and the other, much greater anchor is God Himself. As crazy as life is with all it's unpredictable ups and downs, God is always steady and stable. He never changes, He never leaves, and you can always count on Him to come through. So what does that mean? Well, it certainly doesn't mean that all the crap we have to deal with should just make us grin ear to ear like fools. Even Jesus wept and felt sorrow at the brokenness of human life. But it does mean that He cares about me and what's going on in my life. It means that when my life seems like more than I can handle, God is more than I need. He's the one being in all of the universe whom can give and give and give to me and never get tired. I can cry and scream to Him and open my hands and ask, "What the frig?". And I can consistently expect to find peace, strength and hope to help me endure.
Sometimes I think it is easy to assume that because God loves us that means nothing bad is ever supposed to happen and that things are always supposed to be perfect and work out. I will admit to being baffled most verily at the way things go down sometimes. I don't understand why some things don't work out or go the way we pictured them. And yet Jesus said that we'd have trouble in this world. He also said that He had overcome it. When you know that you belong to God, that your life is in His hands, somehow amidst the confusion and the pain there is a deep steadiness that comes from knowing the father of all creation holds you, that He is what you're standing on.
Sometimes it's easy to forget that God's hand is upon me, especially when I feel like I should be doing a better job with something or someone, or that I should have handled a situation differently. A lot of times I feel like that with my marriage which I am so thankful for! And that's when I need to take it on faith that God's got a handle on the things I don't, and His actions, plans and ways far exceed my own bumbling buffoonery. When I feel lost, He's still walking beside me, gently guiding to something much greater than I could ever hope for or even imagine.
And that's what makes the instability exciting. I am SO much more open to the workings of God than I think I could ever be if I had a "perfect" life. I honestly don't know what He's going to do next, but I can trust that it's only good because He promised.
If you are wondering what inspired this posting, it's an upcoming move. I have lived in so many places in GR in the past nine years that it's starting to get difficult to keep track. I'm thinking of making Alex and myself t-shirts that say Perpetual Vagabond. It's been good sharing a home with a friend for the past few months, but now we'll be moving closer to my school to further alleviate our transportation challenges. We weren't really planning on the move, but then we weren't really planning on getting a delay from the Air Force in Alex's application, we weren't really planning on him working at Baker again, we weren't really planning on me losing my job, we weren't really planning on the first delay we got from the Air Force, we weren't really planning on living with a friend for a few months, we weren't really planning on Alex losing his previous job, we weren't really planning on Alex's police department applications not to work out, and we weren't really planning on not being to return to Japan once we were married (thankfully we were actually planning on getting married!).
Life is just funny like that. You gotta write your plans down in pencil because you just never know when things will change. And through it all God has shown to be incredibly merciful, caring, providing and abiding in love for these two perambulating children.
So strap on a pair of strong trousers and get ready to fly by the seat of your pants, my friend. By the seat of your pants.
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