Without a Map and How My Yells Echo Back to Me

Sometimes I really don’t get why we’re deposited on this planet without some type of map or plan. As soon as I make a plan, everything spins out of control.

It’s happened more than once.

I have a distinct memory of one late night striding out to the back porch and guttural wailing at the cold moon with fist in the air. My yell probably sounded like some wounded animal, scaring children from sweet slumber and causing adults to check out their windows for the hoodlum. Once again, my life plan had fallen through.

Like a small child, I threw a tantrum. It was a short one (I didn’t want the cops to come looking for me), but I kind of hoped that God might lightning strike me as I raised my fist at him.

At least if he struck me with lightning in that moment, I would know with every fried piece of hair that there is a God of this Universe and beyond. But no. There was no lightning strike; just a brokenhearted, twenty-year-old Barbara left to gather up the shattered pieces of yet another dream, each shard leaving a cut in the soft flesh of her hands and a little bit more doubt in her heart.

Where’s my map? Where are the directions to this life? If you follow the plan, you’ll make it, right? I want some sort of reassurance that I that we’ll make it out okay.

But time and time again, the ones that follow “the rules” seem more chained, dissatisfied, and brittle than the ones that throw all “rules” to the wind, doing whatever they desire. As a kid when you follow the rules, you win the strawberry bubble gum lollipop. We’re conditioned to believe that if we follow the rules, we’ll win the strawberry bubble gum lollipop of life.

Yeah, right. The school of life is a bit tougher and seemingly more random than that. Good things happen to bad people, and bad things happen to good people.

In this stage of my life, I am surrounded by individuals who are much more mature in all levels than me, including spirituality. Where I struggle, they have already been. So it seems silly to write out these thoughts, worryings, failings. Presumptuous almost. Like I could really add something new.

A couple of nights ago, I went running at midnight (Don’t tell mom). Three quarter moon. Big Dipper. Night beauty quietly at its finest. My mind had split into a million rabbits, skittering across fields and down bunny holes. My body needed to go chasing, too.

As you might know about the countryside, there are no street lights. I could trip or twist my ankle on the gravel path. Deep shadows caused by the moonlight confused my eyes, and so I stopped looking where I ran. Trusting my feet would carry me, I ran. Spikes of fear nipped at my heels (Are there cougars in Austria? Do poisonous snakes reside around here? Eep! What was that noise?).

Throughout the run, the moon glowed above. Constant. Cool. Just enough to see. Sure, I couldn’t see far ahead on the trail but the immediate future steps were accounted for.

And it hit me.

“Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.

I have taken an oath and confirmed it,

That I will follow your righteous laws.

I have suffered much;

Preserve my life, Lord, according to your word…

Though I constantly take my life in my hands,

I will not forget your law.”

Psalm 119:105-107, 109.

God has promised to preserve my life even as I try taking my life into my hands again, and he even offers a lamp to see a bit of the path ahead. The lamp section I’m very familiar with, but “though I constantly take my life in my hands” seemed fresh and new. Well, seeing it in the Bible was new because…

I’m all about taking my life into my own hands.

It seems easier to trust me with my life. If something goes wrong, I can blame me and I understand my own reasoning. But God? I don’t understand him.

I’m still mapless, and I definitely feel the lack but I’m not completely alone in this. You all are missing maps, too. And I’m not so keen about the whole “lamp for my feet” especially because the light doesn’t show me enough of the path ahead.

But I guess it is nice that the lamp is close to me.

I still don’t get it. This whole living life by righteous laws when those doing really bad things seem to be living such great lives. *cue whiny voice* I want a great life.

To the Map Holder and Lamp Lender,

I’m fisting my life plan, turning it to dust in my hand by the tightness of my grip. I don’t know how to live looking for your plan and not scrawling a new map of my own. It feels safer to hold my own life, but my fingers ache and my nails dig into my palms.

When I shout at the skies, my yells echo back to me. Do you even hear me?

My fist is in the air again, demanding answers, direction, anything…a sign of your presence. Do you even care?

And so I comfort my heart with memories of your faithfulness, hoping and trusting that you’ll be faithful again. It’s not much, but it’s what I have to offer.