The Rear View Mirror

I wrote a post last week about things that change the older I get. Today, I’m going to expound upon one of the things I listed; “The older I get, the more I realize that I am not running the show.” 

I would like to think this is how I feel. This is how I should feel. The more I mature, the more I should see God working in my life and trust Him with my live. The More i should realize he is “running the show” and I should one, stop worrying about things and two, not fret when things don’t go my way.

I decided to pick a “word of the year” this year along with most of blog land. My word is TRUST, because this year I want to work on being more trusting. A big part of that is trusting God.

I am trying to trust God when things don’t go the way I planned. I am trying to trust God when big decisions come my way. I am trying to trust God when it comes to my future. But it isn’t proving very easy.

For 24 years of my life I’ve been a worrier. I worry about what to wear, what to say, about school and work, about packing for a trip, or cleaning and preparing for guests. I basically worry myself to the point of headache over anything outside of normal everyday life. And yet I will still try to tackle it myself without God’s (or any one’s) help. It’s a hard habit to break.

I want to give my worries over to God, and I want that to be my first  reaction. As soon as something potentially worrisome comes up, I try to pray about it and take the weight from my shoulders and put it on His. God encourages this. Psalm 55:22 says “Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you…” (ESV).

So yes, “The older I get, the surer I am that I’m not running the show.” Consciously, I know that God runs the show, and as I get older, it gets easier to look back and see how God has worked in my life. I love the quote “It’s sometimes easier to see God through the rear view mirror than the windshield.” I am not sure who said it first, but there is a lot of truth to it.

Once upon a time, I was about to marry Pearson. I was working full time in my first post-college job for a company in Georgia. Pearson had just found out that he had been accepted to grad school at The Ohio State University and we decided we would move to Columbus after we got married. I started looking for a job here. I put up profiles on Monster.com, LinkedIn, and other places. I updated my resume to the best it could be, and I searched for anything remotely in my field.

Three months later, I still had zero bites. I was starting to get worried. I had little experience, the economy was in a recession, and nobody seemed to want to interview me if I couldn’t be there physically. It was tough since I was in Georgia and wouldn’t be able to see anyone in my new job till we moved there. I was so scared. What if I couldn’t get a job? There is no way we could both live off of Pearson’s school stipend. We couldn’t rely much on family or friends to help until I found something since we wouldn’t be living anywhere near them. What were we going to do?

The shirt I made after Pearson got into OSU

Then, one day, my manager called me into his office. He informed me that he didn’t want to lose me and he talked to the president of the company. They were going to let me work remote from Ohio. Every day! This meant that I could stop worrying about finding a job. It meant I wouldn’t have to start fresh with a company in a new place where I knew nobody. It meant I could work in my pajamas every day. And lastly, it meant I was valuable to the company! They wanted me!

What I couldn’t get out of my head, though, was “What if I had landed a job in Columbus?” I probably would have told my manager no and then go blindly into this job knowing I could have kept my old one. Maybe the new job would be awful. Who knows? Or I would have had to tell my new job never mind. Talk about an awkward conversation. Looking back, I can see God’s hand in not allowing me to land a job. At the time I couldn’t see it, but boy do I now.

There are so many other stories like this in my life. When I was a Freshman in college, I didn’t make the choir. I was crushed. But since I didn’t make choir, I was able to do other things like play on the women’s Ultimate Frisbee team. I met a lot of awesome people and was blessed in so many ways by that opportunity. Similarly, I didn’t get into asocial club my Freshman year either (I tried again and got it Sophomore year). But I met a bunch of my best friends that year. I am willing to bet that if I had gotten into a club, I wouldn’t have been a part of “our group” that made up most of our wedding party later. And lastly, if Pearson and I never broke up, I might still not know the many life lessons that I learned during those 2 weeks!

See? God does run the show. Now if only I could see that in the here and now. I mean I may not always know the reasons, but I should use these examples as a means to relax and trust that God has everything under control.

How do you see God’s hand when you look back on your life?
Thanks for reading!

Charlene M.