Try not to read the tea leaves of your life (you will get it wrong)

When I was younger, I thought that 25 was the pinnacle of adulthood. I imagined myself abroad in an apartment all my own, maybe Vancouver or Paris. When I got a little older, I imagined myself  in a small town, walking to work and to church on Sundays, a close-knit community around me for support.

As I near 25, I am working a part-time corporate job in New York City, my hometown. Though I left for college, I have returned and stayed. It was not my intention to stay, but the door for leaving has yet to present itself to me. I do walk to church these days, but the community I have is spread throughout the city and is not as close knit as I desire. I do not live on my own or even with an adorable cat, but with family. It isn’t luxurious but it does work. Timelines are harder to be rid of than I’d have thought. Life (and God) does not abide by arbitrary timelines, despite our efforts and protests and desires. 

When I was 22, I couldn’t have predicted any version of the life I’m living now–both the good and the bad days are ones I couldn’t have imagined. Perhaps the thing about predictions is that we so often get them wrong. 

Related Post: the age of milestones, or not.

It can be a sort of comfort. If your life is not what you had imagined it to be, then you can be pleasantly surprised. And I have been. The people who have stayed with me on the path that God has carved for me I didn’t predict. Yet I am thankful. For the laughter, for the vulnerability, for the encouragement, for those whose belief in me far surpassed my faith in myself. 

As summer rolls in after the many rains that have come this year, it’s a gift to know that the season shifts. It may be long and brutal and dark, but it comes to an end eventually.

At 16, I couldn’t have imagined the history I have with God now. The dreams, the whispers to my heart, the way my heart has leapt as He speaks. I am still trying to root myself deeper in Jesus, some days failing, other days making progress. What I called Fate or circumstance is much more real, much closer (though that doesn’t always feel true), and I still pray for the tangibility of God. 

Related Post: Dreams, Grief, and Fruit

Seeing clouds assemble together in the sky we know means rain, but our own lives are less quick to interpret, and I recall many a time I have gotten it wrong. I remember being at a friend’s wedding a few years ago aghast at how wrong I had gotten it. An unexpected door opened and the door I was so sure of shut without warning. The devastation of getting it wrong brings despair. I felt called to go deeper, but I refused. Sometimes an unexpected open door season feels like betrayal. Your dreams have been burnt to a crisp and nothing lies the way of ashes. 

Life offers many choices, but there are times where the only choice is to go forward.

Nearing 25 feels like this. I can’t go backward. I can’t undo what is already done. What’s left to do is grieve what I haven’t processed and leave to the hands of God to redeem. Some kinds of redemption only come in the form of heaven, I suppose.

A few years ago I had a dream that reminded me of Joel 2:25 – “I will restore the years the locusts have stolen…” At the time, it sounded like a lovely promise but looking back on it, I suppose I needed to go through a few years of locusts being stolen before I could enter into redemption.

Redemption hasn’t come in the way or in the time that I’d like. 

I heard this quote a long time ago that essentially said life is just as much what happens to you as much as it is what you choose. It’s only in our fend-for-yourself kind of world that we forget how often and how easily life happens. The old proverb is right – man plans and God laughs. He doesn’t laugh cruelly, even if some days feel quite dark and the bad things start to linger. Reading the tea leaves and God do not mix.

Some days I feel alive and see God everywhere. Others I can’t imagine how God will work it all out for the good, though He promises it. I wonder how God will use the first 25 years of my life for the sake of the next portion.

Signing off,

Gigi