Uncertainty: Adverse or Adventure?

Have we ever been down a longer road of uncertainty, where the bends are so continuous that we can’t quite see around them to the destination beyond?

At a global level, covid has created a mask over our eyes as much as our mouths; despite vaccines and time to process the disease, we have no stable way to predict what will come next month or even next week.

For my family, the maze of foster care has also become a long-term variable. We believe we know where the path is leading, but the timing is just so ambiguous that my usually-trusty monthly planner is useless. We find ourselves in a gridlock of DCF policies and procedures which, though intended to protect children, sometimes cause arbitrary delays that seem to create obstacles for all parties involved.

This inability to know or plan my future has been a crazy struggle for me. Between trying to sort our schooling for my kids (we’re planning to send them back in person this fall after a year and a half of being home!), juggling an ever changing foster schedule, and attempting to squeeze work hours into the caprice that is nap time, I have at times felt myself drowning in the adversity of uncertainty.

My mind has felt stuck, as though I didn’t know how to live today if I couldn’t project what tomorrow would offer. Sometimes I’ve had to gather my focus as though it were glitter sprinkled in the wind. And honestly with our fostering situation, I have arbitrated many long arguments between my head and my heart, each trying to make their case for how to love in a world where outcomes are temporarily suspended.

In short, I’ve been in survival mode, trying to figure out how to find the smallest victory in this present moment. It feels like I’m working frantically to get a plane in the air with no idea of how much runway I have left before we head off a cliff.

In that way, the uncertainty has brought fear and anxiety, and a sense of hopelessness at times. The unknown felt like an enemy- a pit that would swallow me up.

Yet I’ve recently been feeling a shift in my heart.

Maybe its a combination of coffee and my favorite season approaching, but the last few days I’ve had a return of an old familiar emotion: anticipation. Through recent events, as well as attending the Global Leadership Summit, my brain has started processing some of the previously-paralyzing uncertainty as adventure instead of adversity.

I find myself asking questions like “What COULD…” rather than “What IF.”

“What if…?” usually leads me to imagine negatives behind every door that I’ve yet to open. What if this hurts too much? What if all the decisions I’ve made during Covid were a mistake? What if not having all the answers is going to destroy me? What if I didn’t set my kids up to succeed? What if I envision a new role for myself and completely fail or don’t have enough time? What if things go wrong?

But “what could…?” sees the unopened and uncertain doors as an exciting new space in which to create. What COULD my life be like if I pursued this dream? What could the difficulty of this current season be producing that will open up life tomorrow? What lessons could I take from my failures in parenting today, and how could that inform my parenting later? What could a painful letting go create space for? What could I be doing that I can’t even imagine because I’ve limited my reality? What could go right if I say yes? (Thank you Michelle Poler !!)

Seeing the future as an adventure doesn’t mean that I negate my pain and grief in the present season, or ignore the fears of the unknown that still linger. But adventure implies I have a choice; I’m invited to bring my full imperfect self into the unknown believing that there is purpose there.

I wish I could give you three easy steps to move from adverse to adventure, but I really believe God created this shift in me over time. But I can leave you with a few truths that help to settle my heart in this godly adventure perspective:

• God is using both the joyful and painful experiences of today to give us tools for tomorrow’s season.
  I heard a pastor named Rich Wilkerson Jr. talk about renaming our experiences into positive preparation instead of wasted negative seasons. It could be reframing a “waiting” or “difficult” season as a “preparation” or “strengthening” time.
  The renaming is really an exercise in trust in the God who sees the whole story of our lives before we live it out. He knows the next chapter, and the process I need to go through today to arrive there.
• Daily relationship means trust for daily provision.
  So often I want all the answers now, but this causes me to trust in plans and outcomes OVER my trust in the One who is writing the plan. Like in the movie “Stranger Than Fiction”, where the character learns to trust the author of His story, we were meant to learn to daily trust the AUTHOR of our stories, instead of the story itself.
• If I always got what I wanted, I would miss out on so many great things.
  The truth is, as much as I want a full, vibrant life, when I get my way I usually default to safety, security, and comfortable. It’s not that my desires are bad- it’s just that my scope is so small. The sense of adventure comes in realizing that I have no idea what my giving UP will give ROOM for.

Where are YOU right now? Does your uncertainty feel more like adversity or adventure? There is no need to rush ahead or pretend if the future feels more overwhelming than whimsical right now. But since we’re all still in process, what is God teaching you today that would help us all let go and see His plans as a brave new space to explore?