Whether arrived or getting there, “What made you wait so long?” can only give us remorse or pain if the answer is, “I’m not even sure.”
Tabula rasa. What is in your life is what you let in through all your senses, John Locke would suggest. While there is a beginning and an end to all of us, your life is a blank paper filled with what you write in it, describing things heard, seen, smelled, tasted, and felt. Unfortunately, experiences are not written with a pencil and thus, cannot be erased. It is why we must choose our journey wisely as we go.
Who you are and what you are capable of was your uniquely gifted package at conception. Traits- the non-negotiable of your innate makeup. What you do with you and where you take yourself is how those blank pages become filled with the life you put into the life you have been given.
The innocence of children, so pure and blissfully lucent until, one drop of darkness at a time, the world throws in journeys of fear, doubt, and hurt to taint their once limitless hopes, dreams, and aspirations. And yet, all negative aspects are just imaginary lines holding us back as adults from ever arriving to what we believed as children we could do or become.
It is in moments of learning to fear and doubt we question our abilities to stand against challenges. As children, we either learn or are inadvertently taught early to simply run the other direction- run away.
Just like my husband has tried to do with all our children, my Papa tried to protect me from or teach me about the existence of darkness. Still, when the world can come at you in quantum angles, darkness finds you. Even with the sun shining in your face, the shadow behind you is a reminder darkness awaits. It is then that moment where inner strength of the heart, mind, body, and spirit must fight off any darkness that has found itself within your realm.
It is as if darkness smiles as we make its bed and let it stay for a night or two. Before we know it, light has not been seen or found for some time. Darkness can accommodate itself to such a powerful degree that not only does it stay rent free, sadly, some of us work to keep its presence.
King Solomon asked for wisdom and was granted to become historically known for such gift. Even before becoming a parent or wife, I realize, in asking God for guidance, discernment, knowing right from wrong, has always been my desire to have down.
You want to hear God tell you EXACTLY what to do. At times my heart tells me, yes. You are in the right. Other times, I can only be thankful for the freedom to choose and hope to not disappoint.
Hearing the right message can be right before you, but like Jonah, we sometimes delay the outcome by running from what we are told to do.
I don’t know about others out there, but whenever I need to hear the message for me, it doesn’t always come clear. And yet, what I need to hear could simply be already around me.
I’m a rebel at heart, mind, and spirit. Thus, the body (sometimes, exhaustively) goes along. I resist my husband’s suggestions. I resist my own thoughts to immediately finish painting or write down thoughts entering into my mind resulting in lost time and opportunity. When tired and spent, I ignore my own thoughts on how to address a child’s behavior in class or my own children, for that matter. Still, unaccountably, I wonder why I am getting no lead as to what I should do next to better myself and my character. There it all is, always, being whispered in my ear from my heart, waiting for me to hear, but most importantly, do.
Being a derelict to one’s own growth is a choice. Words formulated all around can be heard. As soon as words begin to make sense of a message needed to be acted upon, immediately, two choices come to form: 1. adhere to the message and do what is suggested or 2. ignore the message and rather, find reason why to not follow its demands.
In the story of Jonah, chosen and directed to go to Nineveh, that saying, “You can run, but you can’t hide” is befitting because in the end of the story, Nineveh is where Jonah found himself doing exactly what he should have done before boarding a ship, facing a treacherous storm, jumping off, and finding himself inside a great fish.
How many out there have endured a storm they didn’t have to be in, found themself overboard, swallowed up into great darkness, only to have such given moment to realize, perhaps they should have just followed through with what they were supposed to do instead of running away in the first place?
Interestingly, we think that by dodging what is to be done, ignoring it, putting it aside, walking away from it, or simply pretending to know nothing consciously of the demand, there is this thought process always coming into deceitful fruition that it will go away. At that point, sadly, the situation only seems to get worse. All of a sudden, what may have been just an unwanted task to do becomes the ultimate task to be done.
How interesting- those whispers in our ears we listen to only because it is what we want to hear, not what we should be listening to.
How many of us are Jonah if not daily, but momentarily in our lives, having a destined purpose, we choose to ignore the Jiminy Cricket voice urging us to stay on course to follow through and do otherwise? It’s as if we would rather be listening to the voices pushing us into darkness rather than light simply because the direction of light seems impossible.
It seems we would rather do things our way that could take forty years with the risk of never arriving instead of facing our giants to overtake and thus, conquer.
We would rather complain, bicker, dwell within commiserating minds, fill ourselves with resentment and blame for our circumstance when nothing but our own actions have derailed us.
There is fear. There is doubt. There is unwillingness. There is laziness. There is, simply, no desire to be what we were individualistically tasked to be or do. Thus, many fall back instead of move forward.
Surely, if it doesn’t happen, it never was.
Sadly, if it doesn’t happen, it never was.
When obstacles are faced, we find blame to who we think put it there rather than understanding we possess and have been given everything to figure our way through or around to keep going.
Thankfully, Jonah accountably accepted the troubles not only he found himself facing, but also those with him caught up within his predicament due to his own dereliction.
The possibility of arriving to all possibilities had you possibly done the possible negatively thought or believed to be positively impossible. Selah.
What in you is bitter, afraid, or unwilling is the part that must be addressed to understand the very you running away from what you were meant to go through to get to, not OR get to. Yes. A shortcut may have been provided at some point. You may have missed that opportunity. Still, the destiny awaits.
This feeling inside that ultimately is the inner fight to go against the belief that you can is the very blockage of the urgency of what you need to seek and conquer.
That light in the direction of what is right may be blindingly bright, but is running into the dark a better option? Should we envision and ultimately request all to be comfortable and set in place as we walk right into every moment of life. Do we simply run away? Dare we? Can we?
I can only imagine Jonah would have unhesitatingly and with great excitement, gone to Nineveh had he heard it was a place to welcome him with peace, love, and honor. He expressed foreknowledge of the contrary. He perhaps even wondered why no one else would have to endure the same duty or task.
When found or arrived to do the most difficult or challenging task, why do we somehow think we are the fallen victims and not the sought out victors? Why not instead feel honored to be chosen to overcome or accomplish the greatest of all tasks? Why do we think to escape rather than to conquer?
Whether it be a job, a new career, a shift in thinking, a new environment, a new belonging, a newness of you, we weigh out comfort, ease, and familiarity against challenge, hard work, and demands for change.
Who dare say, “Here I am. Send me.” without question?
Understandably, comfort and ease is desired by many, if not, all of us. That room we keep walking into may not be the best we’ve ever thought ourselves to deserve, but it is one we can walk into with confidence we can find ourselves about. For some of us, even in complete darkness, the room has its familiarity.
While complacency to who we are today gives us comfort, it is the very reason why many of us are still immobile from yesterday. Our potential awaits with tomorrow and all most of us do when today arrives is run- run away.
We have found comfort and great familiarity with our normal surroundings. If we are content with such, it should not be to anyone else’s business why we are still there. If you have arrived, rejoice.
However, we each have a given destiny. There are those still pushing, those who may not know it, but are meant to receive great merit for their actions. One, like Jonah, that books will be speaking about for generational entities to follow after having left this world. If not having arrived, but still moving in light of direction, rejoice. No matter the fear. No matter the doubt. No matter the obstacles. Rejoice.
Sometimes (or, is this all the time?), a test of character is simply in the matter of doing. What may be a simple task could be one written to be spoken about for centuries. Do we doubt or fear to be that one worthy in history? Was Jonah’s task too difficult? Did he not eventually seek and conquer? Do people not speak of him today?
And, even if no one was to ever hear of your name spoken in this world, could you not leave this world with the satisfaction of obedience to utter such last words as, “It is finished”?
We must reflect and request of ourself the ultimate truth by asking, “Have we arrived to a point where we can applaud others to do the same?” If not, is there silent truth in you to know you have not arrived to your own destination? Have you, like Jonah, found yourself stuck in darkness? Should you not understand, in darkness is where you are given greatest urgency to seek and find light once again?
Dare to do something in your life where you no longer have time to look at someone else’s. Get in or back into your own race you were meant for and run. Run your race toward your own destiny. Your breath, your lane, your arrival will be the only focal point for you to exert time and energy.
I understand why my husband works hard to get us to the next level as he has already done so well to get us going. Seeing himself as the forerunner, my partner as the essential worker of our family frontline, there is this accountability he upholds. Not for himself, but for our next generations to follow. I don’t have to even open my eyes. Although he explains over and over his plans for our future, he doesn’t have to spell out his concerns, either. I feel his words when planning, calculating of numbers, and even between his high-fives and jumps for envisioned glories to come. I feel him.
He has this understanding that he will have to endure discomfort now to get to that promised land. Perhaps he will have to accept the role of Moses who did not get to reap all the harvest of his duties, but even so, I see him not stopping to such possible reluctance. I see him work even harder to make certain that waters will be parted and crossed so all will walk through unharmed by his very guidance and belief. There is a Joshua or a Caleb who will see to it that the promised land gets reached for many to fruitfully dwell in whether my husband arrives besides all or not.
While Jonah and Joshua arrived to their destinies, not all of our fate were meant to end with us. Some of us were simply destined to start the right path for generations to follow. Who dare start even in hardest times?
If not me, then who?
If not you, then who?
As a mother, as a wife, as a teacher, I have had my heart, mind, body, and spirit fed to run the other way when tasked to do sometimes the unimaginable or undesirable. A mother facing tough times? Check. A wife facing tough times? Check. A teacher facing tough times? Check. And yet, I laugh. I am grateful for the grown discernment given me to better understand each day of my own course to follow the light unto my path.
When you are surrounded by those who give you no excuse but to succeed, you become one with no excuses to find for yourself to have. You rejoice in what you are to do and you move forward, pushing through, nonetheless. There is strength to be found even in the weakness that may have quietly tried to instill in you. When you come to realize such immobility gets you nowhere or running the wrong direction gets you farther from your destiny, the only disappointing find at the end of such road is lost time or opportunity to have conquered the task or challenge the first time.
Being a mother has forced me to be a conquerer. Being a wife has forced me to be a conquerer. Being a teacher has forced me to be a conquerer. I tell myself, they are all watching me. Seeing what I will do, how I will handle my challenges. For them, I conquer.
Someone else well may have been given what could have been your light as you run to darkness. Imagine. If Jonah had not fulfilled his destiny, another name would have simply replaced his very own.
Time waits for no one. When storms come, see it as a sign to rethink and replan. Jonah sensed the storm causing all those around him to be at risk at sinking was due to his running from himself and his destiny. Your own actions sometimes get you swallowed up into darkness. Interestingly enough, it is the fight to get out of the darkness that brings you right back to where you were supposed to have gone. Interestingly furthermore, the understanding of your destiny becomes clearer once the light of your path correctly repositions.
That storm you may have found yourself in? It’s simply time to turn you around into the right direction.
I see and know now that those who do not rejoice from redirect or reprimand are those who slow the process of receiving ultimate power of guidance to their correct path.
Within arriving at the level of greatest servitude is the promotion to finally take in the joy and the pain, the laughter and the tears, the victories with the losses, and the new beginnings while closing some old ones.
The ears have heard. We see, smell, taste, and feel what we arrive to.
Determination grows exponentially at the moment of choice. Resilience hardens at greatest capacity even at breaking point. Focus is keen to those whose eyes are onto their destiny.
Stop. Look. Listen.
Go. Make history.
