You’re sitting at a stoplight, waiting for the light to turn green. Cars are whizzing by in an almost continuous cycle, one after another.
This is how I am currently feeling. Like many of my fellow senior (and especially jobless) friends, I have begun to feel that I am behind. Delayed. Waiting. While everyone else around us is moving forward.
Last night, I was waiting at a red light and started zoning out with my thoughts. I thought about the friends who have jobs/post-grad plans. The friends who are engaged or married. The friends who are on the track of knowing what they are doing after graduation.
As I see these cars continually drive by, I realize I am not one of them. To make it worse, I am just sitting, waiting, wondering when my light will eventually turn green.
I was talking with a friend awhile back about the number of my friends who have gotten engaged or married in the past year. (Since January 2014, I have had 5 friends get married and have at least 5 weddings from now until the end of 2015). They asked if it was weird for me and I remember saying something along the lines of, “I feel like I’m on a train miles behind my friends.” To which my friend responded, “You’re not behind. You’re just on a different track.”
This comment was extremely comforting, and I think it relates to the job search as well. It’s easy to feel lost or behind those that seem to have their life figured out, when in reality we can’t be behind in a race we aren’t in. Life is not a race. There’s no “winner” in life (unless you’re talking about the board game), so why should we allow ourselves to feel like we’re losing?
For those of you who don’t have a job/plans for after graduation yet, it’s okay. I’m right there with you. We are not going to be left behind. Our ride may look a little different, but we are simply taking a different route to get there. Whatever the process looks like for you, that is your story. And that’s a beautiful thing.
In theory, it would be nice if we could drive whenever or wherever we want to not wait at stoplights. Yet without the stoplights, it would be chaos. Cars would drive based on their own accord and crash into each other. While sometimes it’s incredibly frustrating waiting at the stoplight, we can trust that it is keeping our roads safe and controlled.
It’s the same in life. I sometimes really question what God is doing or when He will let me in on the next steps or plans for my life. I could just take action and do my own thing, which seems freeing; yet, in reality it would cause me pain, confusion and actually a loss of control for my own life. God is not trying to cause us pain in the times of waiting; he is simply guiding and orchestrating much more than our own self. He is always at work, always working things together according to His plan and His timing. We trust in a stoplight, so why should it be this difficult trusting in God?
Because before we know it, the light will turn green and it will be our time to move forward.
“Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end.” (Ecclesiastes 3:11)
The Beauty In Our Brokenness 