The other night I was dropping off a friend and we sat in my car and talked for what seemed like hours. When my non-kegal-exercised bladder protested, we went inside and proceed to talk more, comfortable sitting on her couch with the lamps shining brightly in the dark room. She was pouring out from her heart and although the flowing never ceased, I had to leave finally because our lives are, however much we hate it, run by that darn clock. I left with my head full and my heart challenged. She is what I thought I was suppose to be, in some other universe and she to me as well. I never saw myself as someone to get married young and have a baby. I seemed to have the gift of being single down so well in high school it didn’t occur to me that God may have other plans. She always knew she would be married young have have toddlers by this time in her life. But that didn’t happen for her. Yet, the joy in her eyes as she speaks of her relationship with God isn’t diminished at all by that. Hearing her beautiful heart was like music. We marveled at each other, each so happy by our paths in life however different they are from what we wanted. What we thought we wanted.
I was in a wedding when I was sixteen and the bride was in her mid 30’s. She had lived a long life of serving God and others during the time before she met her future husband and she was extremely joyful because she had longed so long for it. That was how I saw my future. I met it with a stiff upper lip and firm resolution. Single for years. Hating it, but enduring it because it was what I was called to do. and it would have been fun too. Traveling, living overseas, staying up all night then sleeping to noon… wait- that slipped into “in my dreams”. But the single life is not without its perks. I looked forward to all my years of careless, reckless abandon as much as I dreaded them too.
But God had other plans, bless him. I now hold my precious baby and can’t imagine a life other than this one. His smell, his normal baby smell is so sweet to me. I call him my endorphins, and he is that indeed. Why is it that God’s paths are so different from what we think is right? I am so glad I’m not in control of my life- well, I’m glad that I don’t always choose to be in control of my life. Because his paths may be difficult, but they are sweet.