Supposed To Be

Life happens.  If you follow me on Twitter, you know I’ve been saying it all week, “I’m sorry I can’t blog.  Life happened.”  And it happens.  And it continues to happen.

I wish I was one of those writers that could work ahead to schedule posts.  But there’s always this cycle of playing catch-up, falling into an almost-comfortable groove, and then—wait for it—life happens. Perhaps “life” has been happening all along and I just lose my ability to deal with my present struggles or maybe I am “blessed” with the trials that strengthen my faith.  Whatever the case, there are times I just stop.  I need to stop to spend time with my Lover (God), sit with a friend, or just take a mental health week.

I am accepting the fact that some days or even weeks, Backseat Writer (and Backseat Reader) will just stop (or maybe yield is a better word).  And I’m trying to be OK with that.  I want to conduct myself like a “normal” person and be like all the other great bloggers I see—who post regularly, even daily!  I just don’t think that’s me or who I can be right now—not all the time.  At the same time, I constantly remind myself, “This is supposed to be fun!” Don’t you just love that term—“supposed to be”?

This isn’t how life was “supposed to be.”

I thought God was “supposed to be” loving.

My parent’s marriage was “supposed to be” forever.

I am “supposed to be” this, that, or the other thing.  But I’m not; I’m not even close.

What was supposed to be is not, because life happens.  Yet God still loves, whether or not, I see it (I am “supposed” to know His character from reading the Bible.)  Somehow He’s taking all these “life happens,” “supposed to be’s,” shortcomings, heartaches, failures, trials, and tragedies and weaving them together for the good of those who love Him.

Remember the story of Joseph and his amazing Technicolor dream coat?  Joseph couldn’t imagine that being sold as a slave by his brothers would result in a leadership position as second-in-charge of Egypt; even then he was thrown in prison and forgotten first.  He was “supposed to be” his father’s favorite son.  He was “supposed to be” rescued by his cellmates, great dream interpreter that he was, but life happened.  Yet in the end, God used it for good.

When I’ve gone from Dad’s favorite to slave in one day, when I rot in “prison” for a crime I did not commit, I scream, “God, I thought you were SUPPOSED TO BE loving.  This wasn’t SUPPOSED TO BE my life.”  Like Joseph, I wait and I wait and I wait upon the Lord…and it becomes unbearable, so I plead my case again and again to the silent sky.

Hannah said, “God, please, I know I’m SUPPOSED TO BE a mother.”

Elijah said, “God, please, I am SUPPOSED TO BE one of your prophets, now I want to die.”

Job said, “God, please, why?  Why!?  Life isn’t supposed to be this way.  I made a good life for myself, my family; my God…it wasn’t SUPPOSED TO BE like this.”

Sometimes God provides a baby to a childless woman, rest to a wearied prophet, and a whirl wind of questions to a man of faith, who is eventually blessed beyond imagination.  All the while, I imagine they were all thinking about what was “supposed to be” and they “supposed” to know the mind of God, unfathomable to my finite understanding.

I, too, shake my fist; tell God what is “supposed to be,” and wait for Him to work.  Then I humble myself, put my hand over my mouth, for I cannot contend with God.  He who makes life itself happen, who very intricately wove the tiny fibers of my body together, sees my beginning and my end.  He knows I wait, I cry, I falter, I fall, I get up, I scream, I wait longer.  He knows.  He sees. He cares.  Only God knows what is supposed to be; only God knows why life happens.

Finally, I gather up my “supposed to be’s” and offer them with trembling hands to God.  Suddenly, I am where I am supposed to be—trusting God even when it doesn’t make sense, clinging to a scrap of faith when the world says, “Curse God and die.”  What else can I do?  After all, life happens.  Thank God for knowing who I’m supposed to be when it does because I can’t even plan ahead for when life does happen. And it happens all the time.