There’s a Rush song—”Ghost of a Chance”—that discusses the various twists and turns of life, all the different avenues our choices have taken us. It’s a song that makes me think about the strange avenues I’ve walked down, the many bizarre paths that, somehow, led to a moment a decade ago when I sat across from the love of my life in a Chinese restaurant. And while November always makes me think about that long-ago-but-yesterday time, it’s not just the big anniversary year that turns my thoughts back then.
I’ve hinted here and there in these writings that we’re going through one of those transition points in our life. I finished seminary in the spring, we moved, started new jobs, and, ever since, have been unsure what the next ten years of our life together may hold in store.
Lots of people find times like this exciting. I don’t. I hate, despise even, these sorts of times. It’s as if I’ve rushed across town, fighting ten kinds of traffic, just to get somewhere on time to find the person behind the desk asking me to sign in and take a seat. Oh, and no, they have no idea how long my wait will be.
It’s in these times that all the doors taken and those left closed (or those locked tight) come to mind. I begin to wonder if I did the right thing here. Did I make the right choice? Should I have taken that path instead of this one? Am I lost or, if I’ve taken some sort of wrong turn, can I find my way back?
These thoughts have plagued me for months. Now, here in November, I find myself trying to be thankful for the people, places, and things in my life. And, you guessed it; I’m having a little trouble being thankful for the waiting room within which we’ve found ourselves. I’m struggling to say thank you for this blind alley, the one that either leads nowhere or, when we finally make our way back to the road, will turn out to be miles away from where
we want to be. Is there anything to be thankful for? If I’m lost and wandering, doomed to stumble around for another thirty-odd years in the wilderness, is that really something for which to be grateful?
The irony of the moment, of this time of year, is that even as I think about where I am, how I have no idea what’s next and struggle with hope that something is coming, I look over and see the girl I had to work up the courage to ask to lunch and then to dinner. And I remember a job—like now—that I wasn’t thrilled with, long years of night school ahead, and no real plan for the next year, much less years, of my life.
And I remember that I had no idea that my whole life, my whole world was about to change.
One-who-will-be, thank you that I don’t know what tomorrow brings.