Some of Life’s Surprises

I sometimes dread the future, based on the concept that the future will contain more of what the past held. Frankly, that’s unrealistic, because everything changes. It’s also silly, because change is in fact the most noticeable feature of the past. If I look beyond particular events and financial and physical and even emotional dilemmas, and see the overall character of the past, I find there is absolutely nothing to be afraid of in that regard.

Today I’m thinking about that, because I have, in the past two days, found it necessary to discuss speed with a couple of people who have been working in my office. That probably means nothing to you, unless you knew me twenty years ago. I was renowned for my slowness. Had you asked me to describe my work capabilities, I would have said that I was careful, but I was slow.

Over this weekend, it occurred to me that perhaps I was slow because I was doing something that I was slow at. If I was to spend a whole day picking grapes in a vineyard, even today, I would probably not be a lot faster at it than I was twenty years ago. But God didn’t create me to pick grapes in a vineyard—although I did so for ten years—so He didn’t need to equip me for that.

It took me a lot of years to find the things that I was fast at, and to find my place in the world. While I wouldn’t win a typing competition, I am the fastest typist I know. I’m sure there are people who are more adept with QuickBooks than I am, but I’m the best that I know. People don’t look at me and call me slow anymore—nor do I think of myself in that way—because I am one of the fastest people even they know … at doing what I do. How strange it has felt, in recent years, to recognize that I am not the big, clutzy, slow girl I once thought I was. I am in fact graceful and coordinated and fast—partly because I have found an occupation that matches my giftings, which in turn gives me confidence in my gifting, which in turn increases my grace and speed.

This has been one of life’s biggest surprises for me. I am actually better—a whole lot better—than I thought I was or could ever be. I do better. I regularly disappoint myself, and sometimes bitterly so, but still, I would never have dreamed, twenty years ago, that I could be where I am now, doing what I am doing now, as successfully as I am doing it now. And if I am surprised about that now, why should I look ahead in fear that the future will be like the past? Nearly every year I am amazed, when I look back, at how far I’ve come.

And what’s to fear about a future like that?

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