...into another week.
It's not as easy as it sounds. Not with all that weighs me down. I carry with me all the stuff I need to get done (years of frustration, laziness, promises, disappointments, bad decisions and more). That fills a great big suitcase. I have another suitcase full of stuff I wish I had done, plan to do when I get the chance or when I lose weight or when I have the money, etc and all the things I know I will NEVER do but really should.
Those never far away, I slip on my backpack full of worry, about kids and career and pleasing God and, yes, pleasing the whole wide world.
An overcoat of shame comes next. Lined with guilt and embarrassment for my many mistakes, my bad choices, all the things I procrastinated on that have come back to roost.
I clomp along in the over-sized shoes of looking at other's kids and careers and talent and yes, even blessings from on high and wondering why can't I have those things? I struggle along further, wriggling into this funky, awful, ill-fitting and itchy hand-made hat of fear - fear of health problems, fear of loss, fear of being found out as a fraud - crammed down onto my head, almost covering my eyes.
All this I put on usually even before my feet hit the floor in the morning. In short, I am a mess.
That is how I report to work each and every day and every day when I enter the lobby of my life, often having picked up a few extra issues like remembering I am way behind on something vital or that I don't have enough money to pay all my bills glom onto me like old used gum or TP stuck to my shoe. And every day, first thing, the invisible voice behind the smoked glass in the reception area tells me - "'Morning, Jones, the Boss wants to see you."
I schlep onto the elevator and press the button to take me to the top, and then a litter higher still. The ride up is filled with the Muzak of my misery. "You're no good, you're no good, you're no good, baby, you're no good" sung in perfect pop vocal choral harmony with an snappy beat, easy to dance to. Then the bell dings and I have arrived.
The doors whoosh open. The day streams in to meet me. There is no marble hallway in this building. No high-haired secretary to usher me inside.No humongous desk dominated by a black swivel chair. There is only me and the Boss and this day stretched out before me - vast and deep and as-yet, undefined.
It's as if my toes rest on the threshold of the sky.
And from inside the unknown, the question - Well, what are you going to do?
Hang back? Proceed with caution? Step out boldly in faith?
Today I chose none of the above. Today, even half-blinded by fear and nearly completely encumbered by all my baggage, I think that I will throw myself across the brink, not just into the day, but into the Hands of God.
Here we go... The Lord is my shepherd and I trust him to catch me.
amen.
