A Resolution

And here starts the countdown.  23 days, 22 days, 21 days...ticking away the days left of my childhood and with each day I draw closer to "on my own". 

I'm a worrier by nature; sin nature.  My mind prefers anything but the present.  It likes most to rush forward, always forward, into the unknown and the unseen.  Never the here and the now.  Always the what if? and the how? and the when?.  Never am I satisfied with simply living right here. Right now.

This worrying and fretting and looking too far forward, instead of right in front of me, has never seemed like too much to handle.  The future has never seemed to have so many unknown factors in it to account for and so many unfilled blank spaces.  I usually seem to have, or at least think I have, a pretty good idea about what's coming next.  I usually have at least a general outline of what the future holds.  Or so I've thought.

But now something new, (and yet quite familiar);  I can't handle the future on my own. 

Suddenly there's too many, way too many, variables to account for.  Too many unanswered questions.  Too much blank space.  And I'm wondering if, maybe I can't see the future after all.  Maybe I'm stuck in time just like everyone else after all...

But that doesn't stop me from squinting and straining and aching to see ahead anyways.  I've been clamoring and running around and emailing and calling, and generally just losing my mind, in order to prepare for a future that is coming suddenly much too fast.  I thought I knew what was coming, and that I was ready, but I now know that I am not.

I've begun doing art projects with my little sisters.  One each day before I leave for college and adulthood and the great unknown.  We've done three so far.  Three hours of memory, now hidden and stored away for another time. I've enjoyed these projects and these conversations and these laughs we've had.  But suddenly I don't have the heart to do another.  I'm suddenly heart sick and tired and lonely.  And I just don't want to count down another day; another art project; another hour. 

Maybe this is why I am told to live in the here and the now and to leave tomorrow's worries to itself.  Maybe the reason for this is because God knows what I have refused to know all along; that I can't handle the future on my own.  That the very weight of it all is enough to make me faint.  To make me sick at heart. To steal the joy of the here and now and replace it with worries and fears.

Because the future is a heavy load that only God Himself has the strength to hold.  It's heavy and huge and unwieldy.  And we don't even know what it's made of.

So I've made a decision.  I will let go of my burden, and to hand it over to Him who's strength is unmatchable. I refuse to play God anymore and to pretend that I can handle the future on my own.  I will live right here, and right now.  I will breath deep, and laugh hard, and make one more art project. Just one more.

And as I draw closer and closer to "on my own", I'm realizing, again, that I won't really be on my own.  He'll go with me, even there.  Even to the ends of the earth.  He's made me that promise and I'm holding Him to it.

For now, I will chose to be satisfied with the knowledge of just the next step.  I don't need to know the path, or even the destination.  Just the next place to put my foot.  Left; right.  Left; right.

And I'll feel the sand rough and warm between my toes.