Today is the last day of my unemployment sabbatical. It's been a wonderful 13 months and 2 weeks. Tomorrow morning marks a new day, and I imagine a new chapter in my life.
I think if I were to characterize my time off, I could describe it simply with the word "alone." The last few years, God has been teaching me what it means to be stripped of my dependence on people: what they think, the power they have to extend opportunity to me or not, their validation or love of me, and the list goes on. And this last year has completed something in my ability to be comfortable in being alone.
I think I have seen aloneness as a season or phase in my life currently, and perhaps it is. But I wonder if aloneness is just what we will always feel in some way in this lifetime. It is the aloneness of only seeing reality in part right now, of only being able to know the perfect intimacy of God in part, of experiencing every good thing in part or in instances. I see in myself and in so many around me the urge to put an end to their "aloneness" in another person. But we have all felt alone even in the presence of those closest to us at times.
I'm trying to embrace (and not fearfully run from) being alone right now. Some days it is a wonderful, freeing feeling. Others it can feel like an indefinite loneliness, and I can only find solace in letting God remind me that he sees and remembers me. Either way, I'm doing everything I can to hold onto hope that one day the partial good stuff we experience now will be a full, no-holds-barred, nothing-lacking kind of good, that I'm promised does not disappoint.
1 comment:
hey, i came across your blog through "The Margins" and i wanted to tell you what an encouragement your thoughts are to someone who is a few steps behind (in finding a job and age-wise). sometimes it's just good being reminded that doubts and fears are part of being human. i hope that things are well, and i can't wait to read more! :)
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