(Last Week’s) Five Minute Friday: Ready

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Gentle Reader,

Linking up late (again) with Kate and the FMF crew. Setting the timer for five minutes and I’m: ready.

Go.

I never feel ready for anything. Ever. Even when I was a kid and I’d study for tests weeks before they actually happened, I never felt prepared. I was always convinced that I was going to fail. (And I did on occasion. Organic chemistry. Algebra. I have yet to use either in life. Whatever).

I’ve carried that sense with me into adulthood. I’m always looking over my shoulder, wondering when the fall is going to come. No matter how hard I work or how well I do my job, surely I’m going to get fired. No matter how well I’ve got the lesson prepared (or the game, or the discussion questions, or anything) for the kids on Wednesday nights, it’s going to be a flop. No matter how closely I follow the recipe, when I cook dinner (a rare and well-documented thing in my house), it will suck.

Somehow, somewhere, some time, I came to believe that I’m a weakling who can’t handle anything. I started second-guessing every decision. Re-thinking every word. Clipping my cuticles (nail obsession tends to happen in those who are anxious). Oh, and I analyze. Everything. All the time. From every angle. Until I want to throw up.

It’s something else when you actually make yourself sick.

Looking at this belief of mine, this idea that I’m never ready…well, it makes me shake my head. So many times it hasn’t been true. I make plans and see things through and the failures, while real, have never been big enough to rock my world forever. I’ve worked for the same people for 14 years, for Pete’s sake. It makes zero sense to think that I’m going to be fired every time I walk through the door.

Here is another area in which I must learn to operate out of what I know and not what I feel. There’s a lot I can prepare for. I might not feel ready, but I can be ready. When the times comes when I can neither feel nor be ready – like my approaching visit to the liver specialist – I can rely on the One who goes before me.

The Lord who is always ready.

Stop.