A Tricky Journey

Praise the LORD, my soul, . . . who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion.

—Psalm 103:2, 4

I believe that faith is less like following a GPS through a precise grid of city blocks, and more like being out at sea: a tricky journey, nonlinear and winding, the wind kicking up and then stalling. But what I really wanted during a difficult season was dry land and a computer-woman’s soothing voice leading me through the mess.

I prayed the way you order breakfast from a short-order cook: this is what I want. Period. I didn’t pray for God’s will to be done in my life, or, at any rate, I didn’t mean it. I couldn’t make peace with uncertainty—but nothing in the biblical narrative tells us certainty is part of the deal. I prayed for the waiting to be over, instead of trying to learn something about patience or anything else. I prayed for it to get easier, not that I would be shaped in significant ways. I prayed to be rescued, not redeemed.

I don’t like the person I became, and I’m not proud of the contagious fear and ugliness I left in my wake. This is my confession, and my promise: I want to live a new way, the way I’ve always believed, but temporarily lost sight of.