lost

There is this thing that happens every so often and when it does it makes me feel like I am the only person in the world to under or not understand it.

It starts off driving. Nice roads. Perfect falling snow. Fantastic destination. The destination is crucial. I get excited. I see myself there.

Tonight, I took off work because my soul just had to go hear Dr. Chopra in the flesh talk about his new book The Third Jesus at Politics & Prose a bookstore café in D.C.

I imagined myself there absurdly early. Sitting with tea reading the book and journaling away before he got there. I imagined myself with an incredible seat while all the others starting flocking in from work. I imagined my soul feeling so profound listening attentively to every wordling he muttered. Ha ha ha. Bobby was going snowboarding with a friend for the night, I was going to Dr. Deepak we would meet up and discuss everything! It would be so splendid. I would journal afterwards and think lovingly of my Lord.

It started off well, I was daydreaming at home and doing soup prep cutting. It felt so cozy and perfect I hated to leave. I cut the carrots and onions and the house smelled delicious. Duma was my bestest buddy and everytime I stirred the soup I felt like an old southern cook but pretended I had a giant cabin caldron.

Classically late, I threw on some pants and a coat, downed the last sip of my tea, and set out with a pink lady apple & old mix cds.

I was thinking to myself how I would tell Bobby he was crazy. He told me I would never make it leaving at five-that I would be stuck in traffic, but not me. The seas parted in every direction as I sang by.

But then, it started. I took the directions 50W when I should have followed my Memorial Bridge instinct and ended up on Key Bridge in Georgetown. Passing Paper Source I was tempted to drop in quickly but thought…Deepak! No, I must go on!!

I finally somehow brilliantly ended up at the George Washington circle exactly as I was supposed to! I thanked the stars above and continued the wrong way on New Hampshire. 2 detours later I was back on the correct New Hampshire. Who puts so many identical roads?

My doubt and faith inhaling and exhaling in circles, I made it to my final road: Connecticuit Ave. Yes! Only…what a wiley one he turned out to be! I ended up chasing him down for an hour until I was balling my eyes out.

I swear he was a phantom road, one second I was on him, the next 17th! BLAST! I street! I went down every street and one way to get back to my starting position until it happened again!!!

And all my energy to enjoy the ride was in full effort. I had the tunes, I had my window open with the freshly falling snow blowing on me and the heat burning holes in my toes, I kept reassuring myself…I would be there. I had to be. Deepak would not start without me, he would know I was missing. My chair was there!

An the tears fell harder and my eyes start burning from my yarn mittens wiping away all my tears so I could see the road. An I knew that if I would explain this to any other person that would laugh. I knew I was ridiculous but I just couldn’t make it. My keen senses failing, I called through my window asking driver after driver to lead me on.

If bob were there, I know he would be frantic over some random thing that would wiggle his butt skin. A taxi or a bus or some person he would call an idiot driver and say that most people on the road have no clue how to drive. While I would tell him, be nice your talking about people like me.

I would try to block him out and enjoy the ride until I couldn’t take his bickering any longer and tell him he was the jerk not the other people but, he would be the jerk that would get us there.

No matter how much I enjoyed my ride for the life of me I could not stay on Connecticut. Trickery.

There is this huge gap: Wanting your destination, seeing it, imagining it, expecting it and not being able to get there.

I feel like one of my students crying uncontrollably, “its not fair!”

Suddenly the whole cosmos were called into order. What is not working? What’s happening? How can I not get there? It feels bigger. It feels like my life. It feels unbearable.

And it is only a authors lecture but its so much more. Its where I want to be and I am not there.

I feel like my whole faith is tested that I truly am LOST.

I told bobby over the weekend that what I am working on right now is trusting God. So while I was driving, I kept trying to trust. But instead I was asking. Pleading. And begging for help. To find my way.

I need to trust. To feel safe. To know its not about my destination. Its not about getting what I want. Its about trusting God to take care of me. To provide for me as She and He always have.

This weekend I talked with Bobby about how I felt ungrateful for not thanking God enough. Not that I know what “enough” is or that gratitude could even be quantifiable since it either is or isn’t. I told Bobby, “I just want to be grateful. Grateful for all the things I recognize and all the unrecognizable ones too. Just consistently grateful. Trusting God to know my needs and fill them without me consciously thinking about them, just trusting that I don’t even have to ask or put in my two cents because I know that God just knows me. Like when my students ask me things and I say, trust me I am working on your behalf! I am trying to make it happen for you. I ask them to trust me. Because I am their caretaker.

Sometimes they will comment on something I have made them like cupcakes, asking for a specific flavor or different thing next time. I think, wait…was that a thank you or another request? And I wonder where the gratitude went but I know they trust me enough to speak openly to me and ask me for what they would like.

Maybe God is cool with us asking sometimes because it is impulsively on our hearts. But maybe She or He would also just like us to pause and feel how loved we are by realizing all the things that are happening every second to keep us safe, fulfilled, flourishing, and extravagantly delighted.

It made me wonder how much I miss.

Rob bell once talked about heaven wondering if it would be a place where we could finally see the things we missed.

How much love is offered that I don’t feel because I am too occupied with obsessing over my agenda.

Tonight, I didn’t make my destination. And I couldn’t understand why since I was sure I was supposed to be there.

But, I have to trust. Trust that God is trying. Trust that God knows. Trust that God will keep me afloat when I stop trying reminding me why I need to. Just t-r-u-s-t trust.