A Wrinkle in My Timeline

July 5, 2022

I dreamed (didn’t you?) of how my timeline was supposed to go. I’d go to college, get a job when I graduated, and work until I was sixty-five. Then I’d relax for the next, say, fifteen years and die while napping in my recliner. It seemed like a sensible plan.

There were two obvious problems with that plan. First, nobody’s life goes according to our own plan. Second, we’re not in charge, God is.

Most of us would plan a simple, rather plain life. We’d add interesting parts as we felt ready. I wouldn’t call that ‘abundant.’

It takes good and bad things happening along the way to provide fullness to life. Maybe we don’t get the job we aimed our college degree at. We have periods of unemployment. Sickness stops by. We meet someone who we share the rest of our lives with. Opportunities pop up that we didn’t imagine.

I’ve lived a life with a lot of ups and downs. I’ve worked jobs beneath my abilities, and other jobs in which I was in way over my head. At times I felt lost, and at other times I felt I was exactly where I wanted to be. I’ve been content to go wherever God was leading (most of the time). Some days, months, years I have felt friendless, but most of the time I have recognized the incredible love of friends and family. My lifeline through all this has been God, who never lets me go.

Jesus said, in the second half of John 10:10, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”

I’m assuming I have many decades still ahead. I’m going to enjoy the ride.