On The Edge of Everything

I’ve never been where I am right now before. I know that’s a bit cliched to say that, but I want to try to unpack these thoughts a little more since the topic came out in conversation with my new friend Ragan tonight. Let me try to define it a little less broadly (for once, says the king of generalization.)

I am prone to analyzation, cold hard facts, sizing up situations, running scenarios, and thinking so much before I make a move or decision that I may very well be one of the least impulsive people you’ll ever come in contact with. Now, this sets up a front which very well may look like wisdom from the outside because more often than not, I don’t make any huge, life-changing bad decisions. I don’t really give myself leeway to allow that to happen. What this means for my journey up to this point is that i’ve never had to make too many “leaps of faith.” I do enough research, I gather enough data (yes, I really think this way… scary that i’m an artist, no?), and by the time the decision is to be made, I already think I know a lot of the outcome already.

All of that changed about four months ago. On April 20, a very typical sunny South Carolina Wednesday, I resigned from my salaried job, cleaned out my office, turned in my keys, and drove out of the parking lot into…

Nothing. Blackness. Uncertainty.

It was the strangest feeling. I don’t think i’ve really embraced what was going on until very recently. I went straight into “getting things done” mode. I wasn’t even 50 feet out of the parking lot before my cell phone was out and I was tracking down contacts, explaining the situation, and trying to find freelance work. I bought a vehicle, a very nice design machine, and a PDA smart phone in the span of a week. I started working, making contacts, following up, meeting after meeting after meeting. I doubt I gave myself enough time or space (or mercy… i’m my own worst critic) to be quiet and listen and question. And here I am, 4 months later, wondering what someone did with my summer, because I don’t really recall much of it.

Welcome to my nothing. I’m not depressed, i’m just waiting. And waiting. And etc. You know the drill. I don’t wait well. I want to feel the wind blow so that I can find some direction and follow it, but the wind has been still for 147 days. And up until very recently, I haven’t felt so much as a gust. I think i’ve tried my best to manufacture it, but i’m still here. Still waiting. Still listening, probably more intently than I ever have.

To put it extremely simply, i’ve never been so ready to GO in my entire life. I’ve never been waiting for the right move with as much healthy tension as I am right now. A door, a window, a sliver of light to crawl through. Some job or opportunity. Some gust of wind that picks up enough speed to lift the back of my feet off the ground and clearly tell me, “It’s time for you to go. Go now.” and for me not to have to think, just to respond by going.

I’m not one to question the mind of God or His intentions toward/for me. I trust. Even if my particular brand of trust is short on holy patience, I trust. And therein lies a great deal of my frustrations because I say i’m ready to go and if You’d only say the word (booming voice from heaven, flaming shrubbery, talking animals… take your pick) I wouldn’t just step out on faith, i’d LEAP and not think twice about where my feet are going to land or what happens when I get there. It’s the waiting for the greenlight that’s getting to me.

And He knows that, too. He put that restlessness for obedience in me and is testing and refining and nurturing it through these months of uncertainty. I just want to think that i’m ready. I want it to be time. I want to go and i’m not supposed to yet. Soon, Lord? Please, Lord?