The song “It Is Well” is one I grew up listening to. As a hymn, then the updated version by Bethel. The words wash over me, allowing my heart to feel at peace and open to whatever the Lord may lay on it. But that is only when I willingly choose to be receptive to Him. How often is that? Not often enough. The reality is, my reality is,
I despise unknowns.
I lack trust.
I hate feeling adrift, blinded, without a plan.
I am at a time in my life where the environment I have grown used to, college, is coming to a close and I have to take a new step out into the world. To decide who I am, what I will do, who I will become. It’s terrifying. I haven’t given these things up to God. I haven’t let go. Because some completely ignorant human part of me believes He will mess them up. He will put me on a path I don’t want for myself. Imagine feeling like you know better than the Creator of the universe? It sounds foolish, but it happens more often than I’d like to admit. So I wonder, as I sit here, what does it take to truly feel okay without control? To know deep down, in your very soul, that it is well? That whatever worries you have will be taken care even as they are out of your hands? I can’t imagine how much better, lighter I would feel if I could simply accomplish this. In this moment it would be a lie if I said that whatever happens in the next few months, whatever God has in store for me, is something I am completely at peace with.
I am nervous.
I am doubtful.
But I am recognizing these things within myself. I am working on them. It isn’t as if the Lord doesn’t know the way my heart works. The way I need, or at least feel like I need, to control my life. To have a well thought-out plan. But that isn’t how faith works. We all have heard that faith is believing in something you cannot always see. This doesn’t just apply to a physical being, something that takes form and shape before our very eyes, but in a pathway, a destination. The Lord is requiring my faith in His abilities. In His vast love for me and how He will unfurl the rest of my life.
It’s stressful. It’s scary.
But He is sure. He is steadfast.
And so I strive to know in my soul that I am well. That whatever may come is well with my soul. Through it all.
