I've done a lot of babysitting and childcare in my 30-ish years of life and regardless of location, ages, and family cultures, one thing has been a trend in every household: the littlest kids are always desperate to keep up with the big kids. They HATE being left out! Sometimes Copy Cat turns into a hilarious if not dangerous attempt to do exactly what the older sibling is doing. I often try to guess what's going through the toddler's head as they try and fail and retry and kind of get it and then retry and it just isn't the same. Character is revealed in these moments. The kids who are more introspective and analytical will watch longer before reattempting, but those with shorter tempers are much more likely to scream and throw things by attempt number three. :) And it seems that the more children there are in a family, the more desperate the younger ones become to keep up with the older ones. The sense of being left out grows with every sibling because there is so much more activity to be part of.
I can't help but wonder, how many places in life are we doing exactly the same thing...
"You're going to be just like your sister, aren't you? College degree, job at 22 -- yep, I bet you will!"
"Well, yes, usually by your age most people have bought a house, but don't worry -- you're not that far behind."
"Oh, still rocking the iPhone 6, huh? Do your apps still update correctly? When do you plan to update?"
"We just booked our flights for Spring Break. Where are you guys going this year? Anywhere warm and tropical?"
You get the picture... we are a culture of comparison fueled by an ever-quickening pace of life. In many ways, to slow down IS a choice to be left behind. In my job, I am often helping retirees figure out technology hurdles that seem basic to any millennial, but to someone whose life has only had internet for the last 20%, this change is epic and takes some drastic readjustment. And just about the time I think I've got most of them trained on how to log into their accounts... the database system is bought out and the data doesn't transfer so we have to start over. This is the world we live in. We never really catch up, but for some reason we keep chasing that dangling carrot of "getting ahead."
I told you recently that I do not have internet at my apartment currently. Well, a couple weeks ago, I decided my TV and DVD player were being put on a 60-day time-out too. Really, it hasn't changed much other than forcing me to ask myself, "How are you going to spend your time tonight?" when I get home. But the reactions I've gotten from people about such a small and relatively unimportant "life choice" have been widely varied and sort of funny. I've gotten everything from "Good for you -- you do what's right for you!" to "Are you kidding me?! That's pretty crazy -- I wouldn't know what to do with myself without my phone and Netflix and TV!" to "Oh... are you going Amish? Or, like, what's the reasoning? Boycotting something?" To be clear, my decline in media consumption is in no way a boycott, political statement, personal declaration of superiority, or moral decision. I just put them in the closet so I don't waste my life. It's really not that big of deal.
Sometimes we can make a right choice and feel confident... until someone questions it. It's been said that "What's popular is not always right and what's right is not always popular." I'm not here to tell you that your subscription to Netflix is in anyway "wrong..." but the point stands: it's counter-cultural and unpopular and that can make a person feel like an outcast even when it's nowhere near a moral issue. I was used to being teased for being a bookworm in elementary school, but this is next-level and I sometimes have to remind myself that in five years, no one is going to care whether I watched the news tonight or not. It's just a reaction.
Another area this is true for me is in my journey as a young woman who hopes to marry someday. I know that for right now (today, January 22) marriage is not what's best for me. I can say this because God gives good gifts but He loves us enough to make sure a gift is ready before it's given. Our God is not a God of half-cooked pancakes and fake-it-til-you-make-it life plans. Psalm 139 makes that perfectly clear, as does Romans 8. Instead, He asks us to wait, to prepare, to trust, and to look to Him for all our needs not only before a gift is given but during, after, and when the gift itself is a long-gone memory. Because really, it's never about the gift -- it's always about the goodness of the Giver. So while it's not God's best to be married today, I trust that He will provide when the time is right. I know that this is the right path for me today.
The problem is, so many others my age are already there. Many of my friends have husbands AND babies AND houses and a lifestyle I can barely fathom. As the oldest sibling in a small town where being highly-driven meant achieving a lot of things, I rarely experienced the "left out" syndrome that seems to plague so many of the itty-bitty's I babysit. It wasn't until late high school or even college that I really knew and understood what it's like to not be a pioneer, head of the class, top of the heap-type ranking. And it still kinda shakes me up sometimes. I genuinely think that while being a pioneer is scary in its own way, it is far more difficult to be left behind.
To be told, "Nope, not your turn.
You have to wait.
When you're just a liiiiittle older...
This isn't for you.
They're leaving.
Stay here.
Maybe someday.
Your day will come.
Try again.
...is really hard to hear repeatedly. When you're the oldest, the first, the top, the trend-setter, people are generally more gracious and encouraging because they tend to recognize the struggle of making your own way. But when you've got a long line of examples to follow... Lord have mercy on the poor tiny souls in turbo mode screaming "WAIT FOR MEEE! I want to come along too!" At age 30 with most of my friends, family, and acquaintances having already tied the knot, I definitely feel left out or even forgotten sometimes. It causes me to empathize with the little guys whose legs just can't go fast enough to catch up to big bro on his way to the park. Our best can seem like the most insulting kind of "not enough."
But recently God has helped me re-frame the expectations I have for myself and for others who are left out. What if instead of being "last to achieve" I am in fact "reserved" for something different or just a different order of operations? Think about it -- we do this with food all the time. If you put a roast in the crockpot with BBQ sauce first thing in the morning, the sauce incorporates into the meat differently than if it was used later as a dip or a topping. By the end of a whole day of marinating and slow cooking, the sauce is hardly even noticed because it's so incorporated. But when used as a dip or the final touch, the flavor is far more pronounced and distinct. The ingredient is the same, but the function is different and so then, is the result. Both are good, but depending on the goal, the chef may prefer one over the other.
Here's the thing... I am not my own chef. I mean, I am -- I love to cook and I live alone so I AM my own chef in real life. But metaphorically speaking, God alone is the Chef of my life. I don't really even get to choose the meal my life makes. My meal plan would've put BBQ with the roast... just saying, that was what I had in mind as a young adult. But God, in His sovereignty, has set apart the sauce of marriage and a family to be a later addition. He knows that this is how flavor is accentuated and honored and HE is the one who has goals and plans for my life. The order that my life is unfolding is exactly how God has planned it. When I refuse to see His plans as wisdom, I effectively spit in the Chef's ingredients. That's not the kind of woman I want to be. He has challenged me to see the goodness and the wisdom of His order of operations instead of trying to influence the chef for my own preferences. In the end, the Chef is the one who gets compliments for a good meal, right? Why would I try to rob Him of what is already His? I can no more take compliments for a meal I didn't make than I can rob God of the glory He deserves for a plan that was His before I ever arrived earth-side. Perhaps it is better to surrender our sous-chef tendencies and just enjoy whatever He makes out of life. That's my homework right now.
Maybe the way your life is going, you can relate to feeling left out even if it isn't pertaining to marital status or BBQ roasts. The book of 1 Peter is full of encouragement for those of us feeling a little out-of-place. Peter tells the believers that even though they may ethnically belong where they're living, spiritually they are now set-apart, aliens, resident weirdos. Jesus promised us that we will have hardship, that people will not always understand why we do what we do, and that even in our best attempts to love people, we will still get hurt. But when we're okay to live set-apart, even if we feel left behind, Jesus promises to leave His peace with us. We have access to the Holy Spirit that is our comforter, our source for wisdom, and an intercessor with God for us. We might get left behind, but we are never truly alone.
I don't know where you're at or what makes you feel alone today, but take heart: if you've put your hope in Jesus' completed work on the cross, know that your separation is intentional. Either God is using the space to prepare you for what's next or to weed out some stuff that doesn't need to be there anymore. Or both -- He's good with the both/and thing.
I can't help but wonder, how many places in life are we doing exactly the same thing...
"You're going to be just like your sister, aren't you? College degree, job at 22 -- yep, I bet you will!"
"Well, yes, usually by your age most people have bought a house, but don't worry -- you're not that far behind."
"Oh, still rocking the iPhone 6, huh? Do your apps still update correctly? When do you plan to update?"
"We just booked our flights for Spring Break. Where are you guys going this year? Anywhere warm and tropical?"
You get the picture... we are a culture of comparison fueled by an ever-quickening pace of life. In many ways, to slow down IS a choice to be left behind. In my job, I am often helping retirees figure out technology hurdles that seem basic to any millennial, but to someone whose life has only had internet for the last 20%, this change is epic and takes some drastic readjustment. And just about the time I think I've got most of them trained on how to log into their accounts... the database system is bought out and the data doesn't transfer so we have to start over. This is the world we live in. We never really catch up, but for some reason we keep chasing that dangling carrot of "getting ahead."
I told you recently that I do not have internet at my apartment currently. Well, a couple weeks ago, I decided my TV and DVD player were being put on a 60-day time-out too. Really, it hasn't changed much other than forcing me to ask myself, "How are you going to spend your time tonight?" when I get home. But the reactions I've gotten from people about such a small and relatively unimportant "life choice" have been widely varied and sort of funny. I've gotten everything from "Good for you -- you do what's right for you!" to "Are you kidding me?! That's pretty crazy -- I wouldn't know what to do with myself without my phone and Netflix and TV!" to "Oh... are you going Amish? Or, like, what's the reasoning? Boycotting something?" To be clear, my decline in media consumption is in no way a boycott, political statement, personal declaration of superiority, or moral decision. I just put them in the closet so I don't waste my life. It's really not that big of deal.
Sometimes we can make a right choice and feel confident... until someone questions it. It's been said that "What's popular is not always right and what's right is not always popular." I'm not here to tell you that your subscription to Netflix is in anyway "wrong..." but the point stands: it's counter-cultural and unpopular and that can make a person feel like an outcast even when it's nowhere near a moral issue. I was used to being teased for being a bookworm in elementary school, but this is next-level and I sometimes have to remind myself that in five years, no one is going to care whether I watched the news tonight or not. It's just a reaction.
Another area this is true for me is in my journey as a young woman who hopes to marry someday. I know that for right now (today, January 22) marriage is not what's best for me. I can say this because God gives good gifts but He loves us enough to make sure a gift is ready before it's given. Our God is not a God of half-cooked pancakes and fake-it-til-you-make-it life plans. Psalm 139 makes that perfectly clear, as does Romans 8. Instead, He asks us to wait, to prepare, to trust, and to look to Him for all our needs not only before a gift is given but during, after, and when the gift itself is a long-gone memory. Because really, it's never about the gift -- it's always about the goodness of the Giver. So while it's not God's best to be married today, I trust that He will provide when the time is right. I know that this is the right path for me today.
The problem is, so many others my age are already there. Many of my friends have husbands AND babies AND houses and a lifestyle I can barely fathom. As the oldest sibling in a small town where being highly-driven meant achieving a lot of things, I rarely experienced the "left out" syndrome that seems to plague so many of the itty-bitty's I babysit. It wasn't until late high school or even college that I really knew and understood what it's like to not be a pioneer, head of the class, top of the heap-type ranking. And it still kinda shakes me up sometimes. I genuinely think that while being a pioneer is scary in its own way, it is far more difficult to be left behind.
To be told, "Nope, not your turn.
You have to wait.
When you're just a liiiiittle older...
This isn't for you.
They're leaving.
Stay here.
Maybe someday.
Your day will come.
Try again.
...is really hard to hear repeatedly. When you're the oldest, the first, the top, the trend-setter, people are generally more gracious and encouraging because they tend to recognize the struggle of making your own way. But when you've got a long line of examples to follow... Lord have mercy on the poor tiny souls in turbo mode screaming "WAIT FOR MEEE! I want to come along too!" At age 30 with most of my friends, family, and acquaintances having already tied the knot, I definitely feel left out or even forgotten sometimes. It causes me to empathize with the little guys whose legs just can't go fast enough to catch up to big bro on his way to the park. Our best can seem like the most insulting kind of "not enough."
But recently God has helped me re-frame the expectations I have for myself and for others who are left out. What if instead of being "last to achieve" I am in fact "reserved" for something different or just a different order of operations? Think about it -- we do this with food all the time. If you put a roast in the crockpot with BBQ sauce first thing in the morning, the sauce incorporates into the meat differently than if it was used later as a dip or a topping. By the end of a whole day of marinating and slow cooking, the sauce is hardly even noticed because it's so incorporated. But when used as a dip or the final touch, the flavor is far more pronounced and distinct. The ingredient is the same, but the function is different and so then, is the result. Both are good, but depending on the goal, the chef may prefer one over the other.
Here's the thing... I am not my own chef. I mean, I am -- I love to cook and I live alone so I AM my own chef in real life. But metaphorically speaking, God alone is the Chef of my life. I don't really even get to choose the meal my life makes. My meal plan would've put BBQ with the roast... just saying, that was what I had in mind as a young adult. But God, in His sovereignty, has set apart the sauce of marriage and a family to be a later addition. He knows that this is how flavor is accentuated and honored and HE is the one who has goals and plans for my life. The order that my life is unfolding is exactly how God has planned it. When I refuse to see His plans as wisdom, I effectively spit in the Chef's ingredients. That's not the kind of woman I want to be. He has challenged me to see the goodness and the wisdom of His order of operations instead of trying to influence the chef for my own preferences. In the end, the Chef is the one who gets compliments for a good meal, right? Why would I try to rob Him of what is already His? I can no more take compliments for a meal I didn't make than I can rob God of the glory He deserves for a plan that was His before I ever arrived earth-side. Perhaps it is better to surrender our sous-chef tendencies and just enjoy whatever He makes out of life. That's my homework right now.
Maybe the way your life is going, you can relate to feeling left out even if it isn't pertaining to marital status or BBQ roasts. The book of 1 Peter is full of encouragement for those of us feeling a little out-of-place. Peter tells the believers that even though they may ethnically belong where they're living, spiritually they are now set-apart, aliens, resident weirdos. Jesus promised us that we will have hardship, that people will not always understand why we do what we do, and that even in our best attempts to love people, we will still get hurt. But when we're okay to live set-apart, even if we feel left behind, Jesus promises to leave His peace with us. We have access to the Holy Spirit that is our comforter, our source for wisdom, and an intercessor with God for us. We might get left behind, but we are never truly alone.
I don't know where you're at or what makes you feel alone today, but take heart: if you've put your hope in Jesus' completed work on the cross, know that your separation is intentional. Either God is using the space to prepare you for what's next or to weed out some stuff that doesn't need to be there anymore. Or both -- He's good with the both/and thing.
Comments
Post a Comment