In my quest to accomplish some of my goals and turn my dreams into reality, I’m currently in a position where things ahead seem quite bleak. There is little I can do to make progress on my own, and I can’t really see much farther up the path.
As I lie restless in bed, pondering my situation and trying to pray, I find myself meditating on the picture described by Minnie Louise Haskins in her poem, “The Gate of the Year”: Put your hand into the hand of God, and He will be more to you than a light and better than a known way.
I try to visualize myself putting my hand into God’s and allowing Him to lead me. I ask Him again and again for peace, but I eventually hear His quiet voice coming through my muddled thoughts: How can you put your hand into Mine while your hands are full?
That’s when I realize that I’m holding on to all of my own plans a bit too tightly. I have a time frame in which I want things to happen and a certain way I want them to pan out, and I’ve felt this was the only way I could be happy. But I’m constantly feeling frustrated, as one thing after another seems to go contrary to my plans.
Having goals and making plans is a good thing, of course, but it should be a work of cooperation with God rather than merely our own self-efforts. Trying to forge ahead in my own steam hasn’t been working. I need to trust, to believe that as God has guided my goal-setting, He will help me accomplish them in His time. A bit of patience would also help!
The road ahead is still unclear. I can’t be sure of what the future holds, but I know that with my empty hand in God’s, He’ll lead the way and be the light that I need. I visualize myself letting go, and as I do so, peace comes. I fall asleep, secure in the knowledge that God will work things out.