Now

I have yet to decide when I will begin my maternity leave, but I have been thinking about it a lot. First of all, what a fantastic blessing that I can collect money for a whole year for doing nothing except having been employed while I was pregnant. And how great that after this year off I can waltz right back to my job like I never left – I do not take it for granted that I have a whole lot of job security compared to pregnant women in different times and places.

All this thinking about the future has been complicated by a very busy present-time, with lots of important decisions to make here and now. Matt’s employment situation is up in the air – he still has a job, but how long he will be able to/should stay where he is is definitely in question. Also last week we were faced with big decisions about how involved to become with a family in crisis knowing it would be impossible to please everybody and that it could end up backfiring in the form of relationship carnage.

What I have noticed over the past crazy week is that

a)      Matt and I handle crisis differently but well, and I think our differences help us not fall apart at the same time. How/when/what we stress about is different, which can drive us nuts when it comes to the little things (“how can you not care that our whole kitchen smells like bananas!?”) but makes us stronger when push comes to shove.

b)      A lot of my “needs” are just wants that I hate having to cope without. So much sleep on a work night, a plan for dinner, a vacuumed carpet – when everything is smooth sailing these are the criteria by which I measure how together I’ve got it. This week I’ve remembered how easy it is to shove that all to the side when crisis means a middle of the night drive or chilling out with pulled-together leftovers and a show on Netflix instead of doing chores. It’s like the easier life is, the harder I make it by having a mile-long list of needs. Gonna work on that.

c)      Making the right decision is easier when you take it one choice at a time. I foil myself in two ways here – either I get way ahead of myself in decision making, which cripples me with anxiety because of all the implications and how could anybody handle that kind of responsibility, or I backtrack and question decisions that have already been made instead of simply moving forward with the situation as it is. With Matt’s work uncertainty, I keep falling into the trap of waffling whether to hope for certain resolutions or just give up, or of taking one development and trying to spin it out to anticipate what’s next. For better or worse, the decisions that will affect the outcome are not mine to make, and the rollercoaster ride of hoping/not hoping, or caring/not caring doesn’t help anything.

I’m having a hard time wrapping this all up because I keep saying something along the lines of “So moving forward I’m going to try to focus more on the immediate and less on the future implications of my choices.” But that sounds like a recipe for disaster – consequences are like the seat belts of life! If you don’t think about them, you might end up being launched through a windshield. I think what I mean is how much I’m realizing that the future is beyond my control, that I can still think and hope long-term, but I can’t get so caught up in it that I skip over what is going on right now. Now matters. The future will come, come what may, but now is already here.

Jesus said something like that…

…your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.

So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.