And Yet

It's been ten days since I've written anything here.

My completely arbitrary goal when I started this blog was to write at least once a week. Nobody assigned me that goal. Nobody is grading me. There is no Living in the And corporate office preparing a performance improvement plan because I missed my self-imposed deadline by three days.

And yet, I've been feeling strangely guilty about it.

The problem isn't that I haven't had time to write. I haven't known what to say.

Nothing happened.

That's not entirely true, of course. Life happened. Work happened. Rehearsals happened. Family happened. My back hurt. Bills got paid. Emails got answered. Prayers got prayed. Job applications got submitted. Laundry got done. Morning came. Night came. And somewhere in there I apparently ate enough food to remain alive.

Life happened. But there hasn't been a thing.

No breakthrough. No revelation. No miraculous answer to prayer. No exciting announcement I've been sitting on. No great tragedy from which I've emerged wiser and stronger with a beautiful lesson to share.

I'm just... still here.

Still doing the things I don't particularly want to be doing. Still applying for jobs I've convinced myself I'm absolutely perfect for and hearing absolutely nothing in return. Still praying. Still waiting. Still trying to figure out what exactly I'm waiting for.

And yet...

I keep going.

I think we like telling stories once we know what they meant. It's much easier that way. I didn't understand it at the time, but God was preparing me for... Little did I know that three weeks later... That closed door was actually leading me toward...

Those are good stories. I love those stories. I've told those stories.

The problem is that right now I'm smack dab in the middle of one, and I have absolutely no idea what it means. There is no hindsight yet. There isn't even much sight. There's just... here.

And I think an awful lot of life happens here—between the plot points. Between the prayer and the answer. Between knowing something needs to change and knowing what that change is supposed to be. Between asking God for direction and recognizing which direction He's pointing.

Between once upon a time and happily ever after is a whole lot of Tuesday afternoon. And Wednesday morning. And Thursday.

And putting your pants back on and going to work again.

Maybe that's what I've been struggling with lately. I want the plot to move. Not because I expect God to swoop in and fix everything. I'm really not asking for that.

I'm not praying for some giant miracle. I'm not asking Him to drop the perfect job into my lap, eliminate every problem, heal every hurt, settle every worry, remove every obstacle, and hand me a color-coded itinerary for the next chapter of my life.

Although, for the record, I would absolutely accept the itinerary.

I'm not asking for everything to change.

I'm just asking for some of it to lighten.

For my mind to calm down a little. For the thoughts to stop spinning quite so fast. For my body to hurt a little less—or for me to be able to endure it a little more. For the worry to loosen its grip. For the angst to quiet down.

For life to stop shouting long enough for me to hear the whisper:

"Be still, and know that I am God."

I know that He is.

That's the thing. My faith isn't shaken. At all. Full stop.

I know God is mindful of me. I know He is aware of me. I know He hears my prayers. I know I am His. I know He's here. I don't need Him to prove any of that to me.

I just wish He'd throw me a clue every once in a while. Something. A breadcrumb. A Post-it note. A heavenly carrier pigeon. "Hey, Jere. You're going the right way. Keep walking."

Because it feels a little loud right now. And hectic. And heavy. And when life gets this loud, "be still" sounds so simple until you actually try to do it.

How do you be still when your mind won't stop? How do you be still when your body hurts? How do you be still when you're trying desperately to change something you know isn't working? How do you be still while also submitting the next application, answering the next email, solving the next problem, showing up for the next person, paying the next bill, getting through the next day?

Maybe I've always thought stillness meant the absence of all of that.

Maybe it doesn't.

Maybe "be still" isn't an instruction to stop moving. Maybe it's an invitation to stop believing that I'm the one who has to make everything move.

I'm not sure.

That's the danger of writing from the middle. I don't know what any of this means yet.

Maybe that's why I'm writing it now instead of six months from now when I can tell you what it meant.

There's something brave about documenting a season before you know whether it turns out okay. Not inspirational-poster brave. Not LIVE LAUGH LOVE brave. Just deeply human.

To say: This is where I am. I don't particularly like it here. I don't know how long I'm going to be here. I don't know what's coming next. But I'm here.

And maybe that's enough for today.

Which brings me back to this blog.

Every once in a while I've written something that has really resonated with people. People share it. They comment. They send me messages. And for a minute I think, Oh! Maybe I'm onto something here.

More often than not? Three or four likes. Maybe a comment. Sometimes nothing.

And I've had to ask myself a question: Does anybody actually care what I have to say? Am I just some blow-hard on the internet who thinks his internal monologue deserves its own website?

Entirely possible.

But here's the weird part.

I keep writing.

Even when nobody responds. Even when there isn't a great story to tell. Even when I don't have a lesson. Even when I can't tie everything together with a beautiful little spiritual bow. Even when I don't know what any of it means.

And yet, I keep writing.

Which sounds suspiciously like the rest of my life right now.

I keep applying. I keep praying. I keep showing up. I keep trying. I keep hoping—even when hope looks a whole lot less like optimism and a whole lot more like simply refusing to declare the story over.

Maybe that's what faith looks like in the middle.

Not certainty about what happens next.

Certainty about Who is still there while I wait.

I don't know where this season is going. I don't know whether the next plot point is around the corner or fifty pages away. I'd prefer around the corner, for the record.

I'm tired. I'm frustrated. I'm hurting. I'm restless. And yes, I'm probably having some kind of midlife crisis, although I still don't entirely know what that means. I haven't bought a Corvette or gotten an earring, so I think we're still within acceptable parameters.

But beneath all of that noise, there is something I know.

God is here.

And maybe my job right now isn't to figure out what He's doing. Maybe it's not even to figure out what I'm doing. Maybe my job is simply to keep moving when it's time to move, be still when I can be still, and trust that somewhere beyond what I can currently see, the story is still being written.

Tomorrow morning, I'll put my pants back on and go to work. I'll teach. I'll answer emails. I'll probably apply for another job. I'll pray. I'll come home. I'll take my pants back off.

And I'll keep going.

Not because I've figured anything out. Not because everything is suddenly okay. Not because I found the lesson buried underneath all of this.

But because I'm still here.

He's still here.

The story isn't over.

And yet...