Show Me What I Don’t See

“I just feel like my word for the year is rejection”

I sat across the table from a friend at lunch. I wasn’t sad, or frustrated. I think I was just disoriented. Like I’ve lost connection to a GPS and no longer sure of the road I’m on. I received news that the grad program I applied to for the summer was full. But this didn’t sting. At this point, I was used to hearing “thanks, but no thanks”.

The last two months I’ve listened to people talk about their Word of the Year.

joy.
courage.
delight.

Those words sound so pretty, don’t they? Like they belong on a framed floral print or etched onto the cover of a notebook. While I’m sure the process isn’t as pretty as the words, it brings an abundant amount of hope to a year. So why does my word feel like rejection two months in? Can you imagine purchasing a brand new notebook with the word R E J E C T I O N etched across the front in pink, bubbly letters?

My friend, in her infinite wit and wisdom responded with “I don’t think your word is rejection, I think it’s redirection.” I felt it like a kick to the stomach. The word floated up to my throat. Redirection. She’s not wrong. My whole life has continued to be redirected since the start of this year.

We may only be two months in, but I can’t help but notice my answer to most things is “I don’t know”. That phrase has almost become a theme. Like a tagline to the word “redirection”. I’ve never walked into a season knowing so little. Yet there seems to be a settled peace and feeling of trust that I’ve never experienced before. Yet I just can’t seem to shake that feeling of a GPS that is consistently recalculating. Each time I get a mile in one direction, I feel myself taking a different route than I had planned. And asking the questions:

What does tomorrow hold?
Or next week?
Or next year?
I just don’t know.

But I think my call in this season is to be ok in the “I don’t know”. To settle in to the idea that I don’t have to know every little detail and how it will plan out. This is still so difficult for me to do. It’s probably difficult for any of us to do. Who doesn’t love certainty? Sure, many of us thrive in change, but I think if we love change, it’s because we know there is certainty within that change.

I spoke with a friend this morning who challenged me to write out the stories I’m creating in my mind to fill in for the “I don’t know” moments. She told me to pray:

God, here is how I am perceiving things.
Show me what I don’t see.

Because while the grad school redirection didn’t sting, there have been others that cut a little deeper. Things that perhaps I just can’t see the big picture. And maybe it’s important to see the big picture before I write the story of what is really going on.

It’s not the year of rejection. It’s the year of asking God to show me what I don’t see. To give me clear vision as I continue to recalculate and redirect. To teach me to trust when I want to embrace all skepticism telling myself that surely it won’t work out. And to know that “I don’t know” does not mean “no”, but that maybe we don’t get to see the full story quite yet. And in the meantime just ask that He continues to reveal what we don’t see.