Beginning Again

I have a dear friend who just had a miscarriage.

She has a darling almost-three-year-old daughter, and she'd been trying for a little longer than she'd preferred to get pregnant with their second, and then—unexpectedly, as it always is—fourteen weeks into her pregnancy, there was no heartbeat.

In the middle of this horrific event, she shared something with me: "Of course, I'm really sad about more than just this, but one thing I'm sad about is that now I feel like I'm behind."

Pretty much all of us—if we're honest—feel at least a step behind in the day-to-day of life. Behind starting dinner. Behind on school permission slips. Behind on gym visits. Behind on doing laundry. Behind checking email. Behind on work deadlines.

We wake up and we're already behind.

So there's the right-under-the-surface frenzy of feeling like life is always one step ahead, and we are always lagging or lacking in some way. But then there's also the deeper and perhaps even more toxic brand of "behind."

A Toxic Type of Feeling Behind

I'm behind on life. I'm behind on getting married. I'm behind on starting a family. I'm behind on having a second child. I'm behind on my career. I'm behind on buying a house. Life milestones are supposed to be arriving—they're arriving for everyone else—but I can't keep up with where I'm supposed to be, where I thought I'd be.

Sound familiar?

If we decide to stay home with our kids, then we feel behind on our career. If we decide to pursue our career, then we feel behind on starting a family. If we prioritize our education, then we feel behind on getting married. If we marry young, then we feel behind on the personal enrichment others have had the time and space to pursue.

But what happens, unfortunately, when we ask our desires to arrive in certain ways, is that we end up squeezing the neck of life. We end up grasping for control. And this always ends up becoming a void in which we are drowning.

I borrowed that line, "a void in which we are drowning," from a beautiful passage of Scripture in Psalm 18:

When You're Forcing a Fantasy

When we try to outrun the timeline of our own lives, we end up drowning in the voids of comparison, control or contempt. We end up trying to take the wheel, which never, ever works.

My husband is in the Navy, which means we move around. Because of this nomadic lifestyle, I have been practically desperate at times for a home. Not just a house, but a homestead, roots, the sense that we are spreading out and settling in for the long haul.

I want a home where my grandchildren will visit someday. I want a home with height marks on the wall, and little handprints in the cement.

But, we don't have that kind of life.

Some of my friends do. One in particular has a gorgeous ranch-style home with stone and beams, two fireplaces and a guesthouse. I envy her stability, not to mention her home, and when I look at her life, those gnarly toxic voices in my head whisper: You're behind on creating that kind of life for your kids. They're missing out on memories because you don't have this.

No matter how much my other friends have this sense of long-term stability, the more I try to wring it out of my life, the less and less it arrives.

All I do by trying to force the fantasy is make myself and my husband crazy, and I miss what's happening right under my nose in the glorious impermanence of our life today.

1. Stand still and just be loved.

Everything I throw into the void—new pillows, Pinterest boards, and home furnishing catalogs—is consumed. The only way out is to take Christ's hand, the one He is always extending to me, offering me the way into the wide-open field.

Other biblical translations for Psalm 18:16-19 substitute "wide-open field" for "broad place," "expanse" and "spacious place." A sense of breathing room. Spaciousness instead of the squeeze.

The problem is, Christ so very rarely offers us the solution we believed would make everything feel better. Usually, the breathing room isn't finding a husband, or the perfect house, or the next child, or the promotion.

Usually the breathing room arrives because we finally, in our fleshy exposed humanity, let go of the striving and allow Him to love us—fully, deeply, inexplicably—right where we are.

2. Begin again.

Over and over again, when I have found myself drowning in the void, God has offered me a lifeline in the form of one salvific sentence.

Hundreds of years ago, an Italian monk wrote four words that have changed my perspective. Saint Benedict said, "Always we begin again."

I like sweeping fantasies and the larger-than-life illusions in my head. This monk-wisdom flies in the face of my own wishing-it-were-different. Saint Benedict reminds us that we have today. And we can begin again.

We can always begin again: with our kids, with ourselves, with our spouses, with our jobs, with our countertops, with our prayers, with our unmet desires, with our disappointments. If we get our heads out of the sky (or the sand) and put one foot in front of the other, we can begin again.

The new year offers us the alluring temptation to try to resolve our way into catching up on all the life milestones we feel behind in.

• I will change my marital status.

• I will change my marriage.

• I will change my family.

• I will change my job.

• I will change my kitchen.

• I will, I will, I will ...

Of course there's nothing wrong with writing down a few goals or turning over a new leaf. There's nothing wrong with taking a good look at our lives and assessing what might need some adjustments. But here's the one New Year's resolution that's helped me more than anything: begin again.

That's it.

We follow Christ's lead and compassionately offer ourselves a new beginning. Moment by moment. Day by day.

3. Remember to breathe.

My dear friend wants another baby. I want to know where my kids are going to grow up. You want something, too. And it's okay. These are desires of our hearts. They are soul-longings. They are good things.

The problem isn't desire. The problem is what we do with our desire when we feel like we're behind in satisfying it.

Christ reaches down, as we are drowning in our various and individual voids, and offers us breathing room. If we will stop our striving and writhing, and take His hand, we will be saved.

And like the psalmist, we'll look around, finally breathing, surprised to be so loved.

We're never behind when it comes to being loved. All we have to do is stand right where we are and let God's love completely shower us. And then do it again tomorrow. Less like a resolution, and more like a ritual.

We don't resolve to feel loved. We return to it. Every day. Every moment.

So, as we anticipate a new year, let's agree to honor our desires by surrendering them over and over again to the God who holds our every tear, our every hope and our every groan.

And then let's wake up and surrender it all over again tomorrow. Beginning again, and again and again.

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