These Times

I just realized that I’m never going to figure it out. It’s a strangely freeing thing to discover.

Maybe I’ve learned this little nugget before. Though if I have, I must have lost it somewhere along the way.

I think I can identify a pivot point in my life: five years ago, almost exactly, the night I decided to start doing something about my interest in a girl. She was my first serious romantic interest. Or at least the first I allowed myself to do something about. I clearly remember that night. It was like God just said to me, “You want to do this? Then do it. What’s keeping you back?”

For some reason, I’d never really thought about life that way before. I always thought I needed permission to do what I wanted. And yet, here I was, a sophomore in college, and I began to realize for the first time that in life, you just have to make decisions and then act on them. There is no magic path paved in gold.

I began to feel like I had finally figured life out. Or if not, the final answer was just around the next bend. All the pieces would fall into place any day now. This all happened deep inside. It was never a conscious realization, but more of an emotional shift in how I saw life. But I knew life was going to make sense soon.

And when that love interest didn’t work out, I dealt with it. It hurt—I wouldn’t dare claim otherwise—but it was OK, I still had enough of life figured out. This was the one piece left, and it would make sense soon.

Except that a year later, “soon” was still around the next bend. My life fell into a pattern of months of raised hope followed by months of confusion and sorrow when that hope didn’t work out. Often in the realm of relationships, but not always.

Tonight I find myself at the end of one of those periods of sorrow. I hope it’s the end, anyway. Because I think that pattern is being broken. You can only have your hopes taken out from under your feet so many times before you start to question their foundations.

Life doesn’t make sense. I thought all this time that there was some answer, some thing that would just fall into place and the pieces would snap together.

But it’s not there. I am not going to figure it out. Life isn’t going to make sense. It’s not supposed to make sense. I’m still just a kid. I still need my Father’s hand to hold on to, to show me where to go. I still need my father to understand life for me. Because I am never going to.

And I’m okay with that. I am very okay with that.

It’s these times you do the right thing
It’s these times you never learn
It’s these time that you deny Me
And ignore everything I’ve done
It’s these times you crucify Me
It’s these times you’re still my son
And it’s these times I love you
And it’s these times I love you
And it’s these times I love you
It’s these times

I love you, too, Dad.