God'sTime, Not Mine

Trusting in God is probably the weakest aspect of my relationship with Him.  Despite all the evidence to the contrary, I can find myself lost in the worry about my future and in potential despair of ever finding a way to serve God and support myself.  I want to trust Him....He has never let me down...but it would be so much easier if we could just have an agenda planning session once a week.  Maybe after Mass on Sunday.

We would sit at my kitchen table, sharing coffee and some pastry.  God the Father would lay before me His plan for me for say, the upcoming week.  I would review it carefully and make some suggestions.  He would consider those, perhaps make some changes to the plan that incorporate those suggestions, and we would smile at each other.  Both on the same page, I would then turn my will and my life over to His care, in complete confidence.

And of course I know it does not work that way....and of COURSE I understand that His plan for me is always going to be better than my plan for me and YES, I get it - God does know what Happiness Is for Leslie.

But still....

Lack of trust in my Higher Power is hardly a character defect particular to me.  Most human creatures have this same defect and while I hear us say out loud that we trust Him and know He has our back, I also know that often, when we speak those words, we are doing the equivalent of whistling in the dark as we walk past the graveyard.  We are warding off our fears.

Sometimes we are not even subtle about it.  I have said a variation on this:

I know that God has someone in mind for me and if I just do His Will and work on me, He will put that person in my life and I will fall in love with Mr. Right.  We will live happily ever after....I know this...because I trust God.


Of course, we do not want to entertain the idea that God's Will for us may be for us to remain celibate and single...no, that could not possibly be right.  Even when we SAY we believe this we usually qualify it to make ourselves feel better....or we try to comfort someone by saying, "Oh I know....the minute you just put that part of your life into God's Hands you will feel better...because He will put the right person there...."

Maybe.

Maybe not.

Maybe, and I have written about this before, trusting God is being willing to accept that His Will for me may not look even remotely like what I dream my life should be ....  it may be that, instead of what I want, I get to live a life that is what HE wants me to live and therein find my own happiness.

For example?

I have been trying to get a job closer to home for the past two years.  I have interviewed over and over and over again.  Over and over and over again I have been turned down for jobs I am immensely qualified for that pay good salaries and allow me to live in relative splendor in terms of financial security.

I kept trying, but I had pretty much given up.  I surrendered to the idea that God had something else in mind for me and I achieved the inner calm I needed to protect my sobriety and deepen my relationship with my Higher Power.

In the past six months things have changed.

A job opening appeared at my Parish.  It pays about 1/2 of what I make now but it is 10 minutes from home and it is working with Catholic Curriculum for children.

I applied for it...just for fun.

My boss reneged on her promise of letting me work flex hours.  I was told I would have to go to a regular 8 to 5 schedule and there was no recourse for me to appeal this decision.

I looked at the possibility of retirement and got the numbers.  I knew it would mean a pretty meager existence but I also knew I could not live my life and travel two hundred miles in a day to my job working the hours they now demanded I work.

I was offered the position at my parish.

I added the gross amounts from pension and my salary together - and I will be making about 50.00 dollars more a month.

Today, I understand what God wanted me to do all those months and what He was preparing for me.  I will say that, for the first time in my life, I surrendered faster.  The fight was shorter, and it did not hurt as much.

Today, I believe that God knows what happiness looks like for me.

I can forgo the Agenda Planning Session.

Jesus, I trust in You.