The Story I Was Trying to Force God to Write

I don't think I realized how attached I had become to a particular ending.

If someone had asked me whether I wanted God's will, I would've answered yes without hesitation. I truly meant it. I still do. But underneath that sincere desire was another, quieter one. I wanted God's will... as long as it looked something like the story I had already written in my mind.

I don't think I noticed myself doing it. It happened so gradually that it almost felt like faith. I prayed. I discerned. I cried. I surrendered. Then, almost without realizing it, I would pick everything back up again and start imagining how God might bring everything together. Maybe this would happen first. Maybe that conversation would lead to another one. Maybe this heartbreak was simply the beginning of a redemption story.

The strange thing about hope is that it can slowly become attached to a script.

Not hope in God.

Hope in an outcome.

I don't think that's the same thing.

As painful as this has all been, I'm beginning to see that one of the greatest gifts God has given me has been silence. Not because silence is comfortable. Quite the opposite. Silence has been exposing all the places where I wanted certainty more than trust. Every unanswered question became a mirror. Every delay revealed another place where I was still trying to manage the future instead of receiving the present.

I've noticed that my imagination is incredibly persuasive. It fills empty spaces with stories, and the stories always feel convincing while I'm inside them. Sometimes they end beautifully. Sometimes they end tragically. But almost every time, they end without God's permission. They are conclusions I write because I cannot tolerate not knowing.

Maybe that's why the Lord has been so patient with me.

He hasn't rushed to answer every question.

He's been teaching me to live without one.

That sounds almost impossible when I write it down.

And yet... I think that's exactly what's been happening.

I still don't know what tomorrow holds. I don't know what God will do with the man I married. I don't know what my life will look like five years from now. I don't know which prayers will be answered exactly as I hope and which ones will be answered in ways I never expected.

For a long time, that uncertainty felt like punishment.

Today, it feels more like an invitation.

An invitation to trust Someone who can see the entire story while I can barely see the sentence I'm living.

I don't think surrender is the moment we stop having desires.

I think surrender is the moment we stop insisting that God fulfill them according to our timeline.

That doesn't make the waiting easy.

It simply makes it holy.

Maybe that's why Scripture so often reminds us that God's ways are not our ways. I used to read those words almost as a warning. Now I read them as a comfort. If His ways are higher than mine, then perhaps I can finally stop trying to climb into His chair.

He has never asked me to write the ending.

Only to be faithful on the page I'm currently living.

And perhaps that's enough.

Actually...

I'm beginning to believe it's more than enough.

💜