The waiting leaves me restless, itching for something substantial to hold onto, wasting my summer watching Netflix because it's easier to get caught up in a silly TV show about beautiful people and their fake lives than to get caught up in my own.
Fear keeps me from opening up my heart to fully love and live right where I am. I fear that there is something more that I should be doing. I fear what that might be. I fear, perhaps most of all, that it will keep us here. I fear stepping out of the comfortable (even if the comfortable is slightly miserable).
Recently I re-read Kisses from Katie, the story of an ordinary young woman who stepped out of the comfortable to follow God's will for her life and is accomplishing truly amazing things in Uganda. (I read it a few years ago, and wrote about my thoughts on it here.) I am a different person than I was three years ago when I first read it, but I was no less convicted. If anything, this time when I read it, my perspective was less sentimental and more realistic. I saw how ordinary and imperfect Katie is, how all she accomplished was simply a result of her openness to God and letting Him work through her to reach other people. I want to be that open, that trusting.
The funny thing is that I think I would be willing to drop everything and follow Him, but I can't for the life of me figure out where He wants me to go. Which is why I have the sinking feeling that perhaps, at least for awhile longer, He wants me to stay right where I am. Which scares me more than a disease-ridden Third World country. The fear paralyzes me so that all I can do is click "Watch Next Episode" on Netflix.
Praise the Lord for the priest at Mass this past week. He reinforced the message I received reading Katie's story by encouraging us to make Christ the center of our lives and let God interrupt our plans. He reminded us that in our dark world, we the Christ-followers must be the light--of love, patience, peace. When he led us in song at the end of his homily, I felt the Spirit moving in me.
My heart knew the answers I was looking for: that the restlessness comes from not being present in the moment. Yes, maybe God wants me to go on and do great things, but how can I trust in the big things if I can't trust in the little things?
A big lesson Katie learned in Uganda faced with seemingly unending poverty, hunger, and sickness was that all she could do was help the one in front of her, and trust that God would take care of the rest until she or someone else came to help them too. Her actions created a ripple effect that inspired many more people to reach out and help those in need in Uganda. God is using her as a voice to cry out in the wilderness, to open the eyes of the body of Christ to the need, to call those of us who make up Christ's hands and feet to action. All she did was help the person in front of her.
I can do that at work. I can keep my focus on the customer in front of me and patiently serve them to the best of my ability without being overwhelmed by the long line of caffeine-hungry people behind them. I can be positive at work and let the little annoyances go (even if in the last five minutes of a long shift I have to deal with a difficult customer who continues to test my patience and ask a lot more of me than I have the energy to give). I can listen to people even when I have less than zero interest in what they are saying--sometimes people just need to talk. I can bite my tongue against complaints and decisions I disagree with. I can love one person at a time. I can be a light.
Over the years, this blog has carried this theme, of how to love God while being a barista. You would think that the message would have sunk in by now, but I tend to need constant reminders.
When I stepped down from management nine months ago, I experienced great relief and necessary detox from the stress of the previous two and a half years. I rediscovered my love for both coffee and people, but eventually, when the people became too difficult to handle, I turned my focus to the coffee. However, I found that if I wanted to pursue coffee as a career and succeed, it would have to become in some ways a god. But I already have a God, and I love Him. A lot.
I never imagined that I would still be here after so long, that I would still need these reminders, but here I am. Imperfect. Afraid. I let the fear in, and it began to consume me, but by His grace I have been saved once again from myself.
Maybe God wants me to go out into the world and do great things, but I will never have the strength if I haven't fully abandoned myself to Him, if I don't fully trust Him in everything. I will never be able to follow Him along great distances in the future if I can't follow Him right now.
Here I am, Lord.
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I love this. I can relate to being in that time of waiting and wanting something big, but being caught up in the little and striving to find the mission in that, too.
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