ALL IS LOST

Tonight is a night in which All IS LOST.

Or, so it seems.

Somehow, I wish it was indeed the famous and much feared night.
For when all is lost, in God’s history, follows the flip, the overrule, the triumph.

But the inevitable questions are – have I done enough? Have I done good enough? And, what if I was wrong in the very decision to come?

Am I just too unrealistic and even headstrong to have come to a foreign land without the basic skills needed to find employment here? Have I proven to be a reckless and brainless laughing stock?

After all the efforts, the resources, the hopes I put into it, I tell myself there is time for self-reflection and reformation. But tonight, tonight is not that time.

Walking under the night sky, starless and moonless, I  reassured myself that even if I can't see them, the stars and the moon are above my head all the same, much like my heavenly guardians and my Father who is on the throne.

My heart aches for some response, some affirmation, some reaction to my soundless cry for mercy and help.

I thought, if there was a good time for some direct, divine discourse this would be it.
But God remains silent and all I can hear are my own steps in the empty and vast palace garden that  would please even nymphs.

As the night gets darker and deeper, it was time to go back to where I stay in this lovely city which I must soon leave to go back to where I came from.

I confessed to God that I am reluctant to go back to the place that is supposed to be my home but really never has been.

Like Jacob, on the eve of the passing of ford Jabbok, I, in  newly acquired boldness, told God that I wouldn’t let him go unless he blesses me.

At the end of the conversation, in somewhat greater boldness, I added, ignoring a pang in the place where my heart is supposed to be, “Thine Will, not mine.”

Slowly exiting the compound which I had come to consider as my spiritual sanctuary, I thought of how my brother and his wife are doing their best to help their little daughter to deal with her learning challenges as the six-year-old has recently started school.

Oh, my Father God would have corrected me, helped and given me all the wisdom I need to get a job here, if that’s his will. He wouldn’t have just leave me to my ignorance and abandon me in my struggles. He wouldn’t have let my inadequacies ruin my destiny.

At the thought of that, the hunting, questioning voice inside my brain was silenced.

The house that used to be dwelled in by an unclean ghost is swept clean and reclaimed. But what am I to put into it?

If this job searching mission is aborted, what am I to do tomorrow and the day after tomorrow?

Darkness now completely reigned within the compound. I could hardly see ahead. The palace disappeared. There was nothing but an infinite void before me.

At the midpoint of my life I am forced to face the threat of an all devouring question – THE PURPOSE OF MY LIFE—what I shall do for the rest of the days on earth, which have become such a burden.

BEING is such pain and hardship that without a purpose, a truly meaningful one that could withstand all questions and attacks, it would be literally unbearable.

I told my friend that I feel so lost right now.
Not knowing what I should do? Shall I become an idle and superficial connoisseur for the rest of my life? Falling and floating aimlessly.
What is my relevancy? Does my existence matter?

I am horrified at the emptiness and weightless of that kind of being!
It is much like being reduced to a two-dimensional existence, the final punishment in a tale of science fiction.

That is not only scary but cruel.

In the gathering storm of my chaotic thoughts, I raised up my head and focused on the Lord who once walked on water and calmed the waves.

The God who created me never created anything without purpose and he certainly wouldn’t have wasted the life of his only begotten son on someone only to let her decay in uselessness and irrelevancy.

I am quite useless. But God is not a god of uselessness.

Yes, I find myself in such a dead end, almost entirely through my own faults. I have wasted my youth through ignorance and sins when I didn’t know better. And life is a one-way street.

Having said that, I am not an orphan. I may be alone here and single all my life. But I have a father who knew my days before I ever lived them. All my mistakes and inadequacies are all calculated and processed.

According to natural law (the consequence of breaking it), I am hopeless and rightfully so.
But according to grace, I am anything but hopeless.

At the edge of hope and at the end of time, do I believe that there is nothing ahead of me but sheer void? Or do I believe that there is a God who called me into an abundant life?