when strivings cease

Maybe it's because I've been sick lately (nothing bad, heaven knows it could be worse for Pete's sale). Which usually causes me to do a lot of unintentional navel gazing and feeling sorry for myself, because I am very rarely sick, and as a lifelong workaholic I have a hard time resting..so I don't seem to get over whatever I've got for a long time. Or maybe it's being 31 (thirty one!) and thinking about starting a family and all that comes with that. Or maybe it's the fact that this year is the 20

year anniversary of my dad's death. Or a combo. Regardless I've been thinking too much lately. Reflecting on identity a lot, and on striving. I realized today suddenly while I was sitting at my desk at work that I have spent my whole life STRIVING. For something. And I've not really accomplished anything I set out for. I've always put myself in these groups or types in my head and I never actually end up in said groups despite trying. 

When I was young, I wanted to dance. I took classes, lots of them, and I did the performances and bought the shoes and I tried. I loved it. Most of all I loved the girls I danced with and I wanted to fit IN to their world, their parties, their sleepovers, their world of tanned long legs and flowing hair and grace and trips to get smoothies and stories of school dances. Their natural talent and upper middle class lifestyles and on the outside looking in, everything was so easy for them. They had dads, kind step-dads, they had cars and credit cards and solos in "The Nutcracker". I had homeschool (which I loved, don't get me wrong, but you can't exist in 2 worlds especially in high school) and grief and a controlling step-dad who I just wanted to make everything better but made everything worse, and short legs and glasses and extra weight that didn't go away no matter how much I danced. I have, in short, never "fit in". 

Then I wanted to become a doctor. And I took a lot of classes and I tried not hard enough and mostly I worked to pay for the classes and I didn't study enough. I had big plans, what I felt was a big calling, but didn't know what I was doing. 

Then I wanted to be a paramedic. I had maxed out on student loans (despite not having a degree) so I payed for the school out of pocket. I was working 2 jobs still and driven by a lot of coffee and passion and again, what I thought was a calling. I made it through school and internship and fell in love with the EMS life. Again I saw myself in a certain group, and I felt, finally, this is where I belong. I passed my national boards and got my fancy EMT-P sleeve patch and a sleek black pant suit and I went on interviews. And more interviews. And I watched over and over again as people with less experience and lesser connections than I got the jobs I wanted so badly. After 2 years of applying, facing recertification and unable to pay for the fees and refresher courses, I let another dream go by, feeling an ache to my toes every time an ambulance passed me on the street. 

You know what they say--everybody wants to be "somebody". Something big. I was addicted to this idea more than anything I think, wanting that. 

And through all these years I dealt with my father and my grandparents death, I helped my mother get out of a debilitating emotionally abusive marriage and lost the concept I wanted most of all--the happiness and security of a family, loosing in the divorce my step-brother who was one of my very best friends (he hasn't spoken to me to this day). I moved in with my mother and we struggled financially and butted heads like any adult daughter living with her mother would, at least I think they would. I hope. I didn't like myself for a lot of days. 

In the midst of the crazy God made good things happen even when I couldn't see them. I started a long distance relationship with the man who is now my husband. It was full of tears and joy and letters and flights scraped together at the last minute, short visits and bawling in airports, showing each other our cities and families and friends, shared journals...and finally a marathon drive in a moving van when he came to live in my town, followed eventually by a proposal and beautiful wedding. We've been married for 9 months now, and I still can't believe it some days, that he is mine, that God made him for me and I get to keep him forever. So now I am a wife. A group that I never thought I would be in or really strived to be in, coincidentally. So maybe that is the secret, to belong--stop trying?

When I was in dance in high school my dance teacher told me something that has stuck with me and I think of nearly every day. When she told me originally my 17 year old brain kind of let it go in one ear and out the other but now I feel like it reflects my whole life up to this point, in an ironic way. :-)

We were doing grand jete's across the floor, going from corner to corner, practicing traveling and extending our lines, and I would start out strong, doing the given combination well from the starting point to the middle of the floor but as I neared the corner I would usually mess something up in the footwork and kind of give up before I reached the corner, finishing the combination half heartedly. I don't know why, why I couldn't move past a mistake and keep going. And my teacher told me, "Mary, just once I would like to see you finish something. Go the whole way and do it all the way through." I can hear those words echoing in my infected ear drums like it was yesterday. I wish I could go back and tell that distracted 17 year old, "listen to her! Finish strong! Accomplish something you set out to do, even if it's just a jazz combination." Would my life look different if I had listened? 

And yet I strongly believe that everything happens for a reason. I have a notebook that says "where you are is where you are supposed to be". I believe that every day is a divine appointment. I know I don't have to be on an ambulance or somewhere special to serve God. Logically I know all this. 

So why am I still struggling? Striving? Pride. When will I push past this pride and believe, and not just believe but know in my heart, where my truest identity lies? 

Psalm 46:10 says "Cease STRIVING and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, exalted among the earth." I don't think I'm properly exalting God when I'm striving. I know how I should be but I keep getting in the way. How long does it take for head information to reach your heart? Lazieness? I may be a workaholic but I think in some ways I am lazy. I do just enough to get by but I can't push through to the next level. When it matters. And I think my heart is the same way. 

The song "In Christ Alone" says 'what heights of love, what depths of peace, when fears subside, when strivings cease!' I get there, sometimes. A lot of times. But I want to be there all the time. No matter what happens. Life is a roller coaster and my faith journey has been too. I wish I could say that it hasn't been. And yes I know I'm not the only one. I know that in Jesus I am enough. TO Jesus I am enough. My true identity. I know all this. But it's knowing it 24/7, and embracing it deeply, that is the problem. I had really thought I'd have this all figured out at 31, but it seems I was wrong :-)