Heuristic Leaning

I feel as if I've become something of an insomniac. That's dramatic, I've become a night owl. What has happened is that my baby is no longer a baby and my toddler doesn't put up a wild debate every night about bedtime. So when operation put-kids-to-bed is finished I actually have a little bit of energy left.

At night my mind comes unwound from the tight coils wrapped around my day-to-day living. Emotions and to-dos had turned around themselves and then crossed over fears, some doubts, making its way back around to joy.

Some mornings start out in a slow long line, they rise or fall, veer left or right until the pace of productivity sets and we're off rounding bend after bend. There are days that start with a screaming baby in early hours, or a migraine (thank you hormones). Those mornings jerk me into a coiled spring so small and tight I could slip between your toes and be trampled underfoot. Most common are the days we wind around ourselves with the routine of thoughts, commands, events- coffee, shower, ask nicely, don't climb on the table, let's get dressed, don't argue with me, yes you are arguing with me, where's a binky? 

But coiling isn't a rotten nasty curse of humanity. It gives me the tension to jump further, push deep into the day and come out ahead. At every curve there's a questioned motive or underlying message. All those moments are speaking something, something I can be taught by. I like to think all this reflection makes me a sensei in my own right.

And when the kids are quieted in their beds and my mind is free to think its own thoughts, my life spins round my head. The words I spoke, frustrations, questions, and deep down longings. It's all there. A mess of multicolored threads going this way and that. 

The real problem is this. What I want, and have always wanted, I won't get. I've been waiting for someone to show me the blueprints for my life. To point out why every screw and board and wall has been constructed. While I trust God is building my life, I would have really preferred a more open line of communication about it all. I don't want to show up at the end to find out what was happening, and I don't want to wait for retirement or an empty nest to live the things I really love. I want to be in on the plan, getting it all done now.

What I really can't grasp is that God cares more about the me that's involved in the plan than the actual plan. I'm far too anxious to comprehend how someone could be so hands-off. But heuristic learning doesn't frighten Him. All my wanderings He watches and counts as significant journeys. The seasons of long graceful strokes and the ones where day after day small dots gradually reveal something of movement; learning by discovery, learning by leaning into the moment and its whispered dreams.

Whether roads are rocky, wide, or barren, He's there. His very presence making a way before me. Making feet like a deer and streams in the desert He sustains me; the sun to rise and set a path He leads me. And all the anecdotes I've heard of giving up to gain ease my heart into peace so that slumber can fall.