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I’ve started over three times. My mind is tossing and turning and I’m angrily deleting and staring at the fifteen scarves at the foot of my bed. Why did I bring home more scarves than pairs of socks? Every morning I stare at my options and think, why do I have so many scarves?

I’ve been itching to write again but new ideas pop in and out. They’re good ideas, but not complete ones. I think of something good to say and store it in the filing cabinet of my brain entitled “Good Blog Ideas That Will Be Really Cool And Deep And Inspiring.” Well I’m going through the filing cabinet and all I’m seeing are general themes, good one-liners, lessons learned, and a few secrets that I thought maybe I’d be bold enough to put on here.

I’m currently going through them like a crazy editor and shredding it all. No, no, no. None of it’s good enough. It’s not complete, it’s not ready. I feel like I’m stuck in the kitchen with a huge meal to prepare but the meat is thawing, the water is on the stove, the casserole is in the oven, the toast is in the toaster, the pizza is heating in the microwave, and I’m sitting here, waiting for something to ding already. Or the water to boil, so I can throw the veggies in and complete my odd meat/casserole/toast/pizza/veggie dinner. Yum.

Being a chef, hey that’s another good idea! Filing that away into the filing cabinet of my brain entitled “Cool Jobs I will Have Before I Die,” along with counselor, Spanish-speaker, hair stylist, Broadway star, missionary, worship leader, Olympic swimmer, Olympic runner, Olympic ice skater, and a receptionist. Unfortunately, most of these jobs consist of multiple years of schooling, while my bank account consists of a good amount of money that is waiting to be spent when my poor old Chevy Cavalier sputters her last.

But I’m praying that Mercedes (my cavalier) will last forever, because I’m not ready to give her up yet. And I plead the blood of Jesus over that car and am having faith that it will last like the Israelites’ sandals, and I’ll be on some commercial someday for the longest-lasting car. Giving all glory to God, of course. Now that I have my stereo I could drive this thing forever. Plus the two doors give me an excuse not to have kids. Win-win.

Off topic.

(I’m joking about the not having kids. Although not entirely. But mostly.)

For New Year’s Eve, my friends and I are having a countdown to every hour. Why not celebrate with every time zone?

I have about ten books I got for Christmas. I have no idea which one to pick up first. But C.S. Lewis has been a buddy of mine in the past, so I thought I’d start with him. No idea who I’ll befriend after that.

Tonight we went to Family Video and got four movies. It was hard enough to narrow it down to four movies.

I’m kind of overwhelmed by life’s choices. And the fact that in a year and a half I’ll have to make a choice about what to start doing with my life completely terrifies me. My friends have it easy—they can just follow their men if they don’t know what to do. And with me cracking all these jokes (some of them kind of serious…kind of) about never having kids, my chances aren’t getting any better. Christian men don’t like that, you know. They like women that are willing to bear their fruit. Well, you’ll see what you’ve gotten yourselves into when that baby rips through your wife’s…everything…to get into this world, and then screams you awake every night to the point of exhaustion and irritability you never knew, leaving you looking at your frazzled bride one day and wondering what has done this to her, finally realizing that I was right, that random girl whose blog you creeped on that one time. You should have married me. Well, it’s too late. I’m…waiting for the water to boil in my metaphoric kitchen of life. Buuuut with my reproductive organs intact.

(I would like to interrupt the regular broadcasting to inform you that the baby I nannied was sick today and screaming the whole morning. I’m normally NOT this anti-reproduction. Promise. Just blowing off the steam from the stupid pot on my stupid stove in my stupid metaphorical kitchen that WON’T BOIL.)

Look, it's me with a baby. Ignore my unsure face, I am enjoying every second of it.
Back to my decisions. Guys, I brought every pair of shoes home because I couldn’t decide which ones to take. Something is wrong with me; how am I going to handle the real world?! How am I going to get a house? Choose which country to flee to (because every Christian girl that doesn’t get married out of college flees to a different country. For some reason, people don’t wonder why missionary girls are single. It’s just that unspoken knowing. Ohh yes, dear little Elizabeth Serving the Lord in India. What a sweetheart. She’s too good for a man. I don’t know why, but India sounds like a very small price to pay in order to not have to answer that awkward question, “Why aren’t you dating anyone?” anymore.)?

(I apologize for my very long [and grammatically confusing {I’m a grammar nerd}] parenthetical sentences. I’ll stop.)

The other day, I whispered a secret to the baby I was nannying (she was at this point not yet sick and therefore on my good side). It’s kind of a big secret. One of those big deals that when you tell people, they don’t really know what to so say. They either sympathetically say, “I’m so sorry,” or offer to pray with me or—the worst—ask me what I’m going to do. And then I wonder why I told them. But baby Rachel, she just looked up at my nervous, embarrassed, and unknowing face, insecure from the past and discouraged from the stories I’ve heard. Her big, innocent brown eyes stared up into my own uncertain, indecisive ones.

And she just smiled.

What? No, Rachel. You didn’t hear me, did you? Do you understand what is going on? This is a big deal! I don’t know what to do!

But Rachel didn’t ask me what I was going to do. She didn’t apologize, or even offer to pray with me. Baby Rachel looked up at me and smiled again, overwhelmed by giggles. As if there were something in my teeth. After returning from the bathroom to check to see if there was indeed anything in my teeth (which there wasn’t, by the way [why can’t three-month-olds be more mature? {only kidding} I’m doing it again.] Shoot.), I told her again. This time almost angrily.

Rachel! Understand! There are decisions to make! So many possible outcomes…I can’t handle this not knowing and the confusion and the variety of different endings!

But Rachel just laughed and turned herself over onto her tummy, as if to say, “That’s good, Whitney. Come to me when you have a real problem. I’ll be here, learning how to get from my tummy to my back without spitting up.”

Fine, Rachel. See if I ever tell you anything again.

But this morning C.S. Lewis taught me a few things about prayer, and so I thought I’d try it out. A test-run of prayer, if you will. And I bowed my head and closed my eyes and felt rushed into a Presence I’d never felt before. But I know all you emotionally-wary people, and I promise you it was not emotion. A reverence was in the air. I was in His throne room, guys. And I’ve been in there before, but this time I acknowledged it was where I was, and this time I felt unworthy to be there.

And suddenly, all the decisions melted away. The worries, the secrets, the embarrassment. All the tears and confusion felt like a distant memory, as if from another life. This is Prayer? This is what I’ve been missing?

And I’m not about to tell you that I had a vision or literally saw His throne room. Or that I had this really fuzzy feeling inside me.

But when I finally remembered why I was in His Presence and started praying, I was overwhelmed by the sense that my Savior was smiling at me.

A big smile, like baby Rachel’s.

A Smile that gives me the patience to wait for the meat to thaw, the casserole to bake, and the water to boil.

Because this meal—though random and full of as many options as the scarves on the foot of my bed—this meal is going to be a good one.

 I can already taste it—and I’m going to be a chef someday.