limited

I’m sitting here waiting for my family’s slow computer to print out songs for worship team tomorrow. I feel bad, but my mind is definitely not on worship right now.

This week was full of love gushes and realizations of sadness.

Like when the groom took me by the hands and gave me a genuine, deep, sincere “Thank you.” And his gratitude was not just for dancing with him, or for helping his new wife with the wedding. But a deeper thank you, a thank you too deep for any other words.

Or when I crimped the bride’s hair and helped her apply makeup, knowing times like this may never really come around again.

Or praying with her before she walked down the aisle.

Or watching her cry as she danced with her father one last time.

Or writing and giving my toast. There was so much to say. I could have kept those people there for an hour bawling my eyes out.

Or dancing with her with glow sticks flying around and attached to our bodies that were moving in a manner my mom wouldn’t have approved of had she been present.

My realizations are sad because this was a week of lasts. Liz won’t be so readily available like she used to be. She won’t be there when I wake up, or there to show me random websites and youtube videos before I go to bed.

I’ll stop before I just re-give my toast. I take pride in the fact that I did not cry.

But I still may. I can’t make any promises.

It was the best night I’d had in a long time, and God showed me some interesting things this week. Not huge, life-altering things. But little, funny ones. Ones that I needed. Like dancing and I were made for each other. And that when you don’t worry about things going right, they end up going even better.

But, my glow sticks from the reception are fading. My bag still needs to be unpacked. And I need to get back into running and stop eating chocolate covered pretzels. I have piano lessons to teach, a youth group to help out at, and some piano to practice. Life is going on, and it doesn’t care that I need some time to process it all. Even eight hours in the car didn’t give me enough time to think.

Life is changing quickly for a lot of my friends, and mine is staying the same. It’s not that I’m jealous. My heart is so full of happiness right now I think it might pop. But when the music stops and the cake is gone and the cute groomsmen go home, I’m where I was a week ago while my friends are zooming right along by.

Remember the children of Israel that had to follow the cloud by day/fire by night? It says in the Bible that the cloud would sometimes stay in the same spot for months, or even years. I’m ready for my cloud to get a move on.

Oh, I can hear the crowd of well-meaning friends saying it already! Jeremiah 29:11! Plans to prosper you and not to harm you! A hope and a future, Whitney!

Yes, yes. I know.

But I get a better picture when I put that verse in context. “When seventy years have been completed…” is when these great plans will take place.

Seventy years. That’s the depressing part.

But listen to the verses after the popular one. They make my heart skip:
“ You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the Lord”

And that’s what it’s about. Finding Him. Whether I’m farther behind everyone in the “plan” of life, or at the head of the game, if I’m not searching for Him, with my whole heart, I might as well be sitting on my couch eating twinkies and watching Boy Meets World episodes.

I hear Him asking me to seek His face, to search for Him when I want to strive for other things. And I will.

But I still would love for that dang cloud to move.