Around the Corner

“Sometimes,” she confessed, “I don’t want to go around the corner, even though God may have something good waiting for me.”

I was at my church’s women’s retreat when a casual acquaintance shared this during a session break.

“Why not?” I asked, a bit incredulous, thinking that most people would run toward good stuff from the Creator of the universe.

“Because I don’t know what’s there,” she replied. “And it scares me.”

Looking at her life and the possibilities it held—young, beautiful SAHM, two wonderful children, a hardworking, attorney husband—I couldn’t make sense of it. But I gave her a proper and polite, churchy-lady smile and nodded as though I did.

Then she turned the discussion toward me and asked the ‘big question’:

What are you wrestling with right now?

Um. Not much, really.

Marriage good.
Check.

Health good.
Check.

Career good.
Check.

Life, in general?

Um. Pretty good, I guess.

Sort of.
I mean, mostly.
No reason to complain really, except …

I blurted:

“I feel lost. I’m going to turn 50 six months from today and I’m wondering if this is, like, ‘the end.’ Life is almost over for me and I’ve done nothing that means anything. Nothing at all.”

The don’t-I-look-and-feel-stupids moved in fast. Tears welled in my eyes. My face flushed posey-pink.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know where that came from,” I stammered. “It’s just that, well, I’m afraid there’s nothing around the corner for me …”

Yeesh.

I sounded like Dorothy when the Wizard empties the last from the little black bag and she—I mean, me—is left without.

She turned and squared her shoulders toward mine, her round, blue eyes smiling directly at me and said something about me still breathing and God not being done with me yet … then she delivered the whammy:

What you’re feeling is just preparation for what’s around the corner.

Heart and soul.
Bone and marrow.
Pierced to the core.

A life-saving message from from God’s soul to mine through her.

Preparation? Why, I hadn’t thought of that!

Her words forced me into a cataclysmic decision to believe God’s promise in Ephesians 2:10:

For we are His handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which He prepared in advance for us to do.

There is something around the corner for me; it’s just that I’m not yet near enough to make the bend.

By: Jan O’Daniel, Amplifying Joy