on the precarious, and waiting for nothing to happen

It is a truth universally acknowledged that when one part of your life starts going okay, another falls spectacularly to pieces. --Bridget Jones' Diary

I wonder if you ever play the same negative mind games as my dear friend Bridget Jones and I do.

Let me paint you a landscape: It's been a few months since something disastrous has happened (i.e. the loss of a grandparent). Things at work are pretty fantastic, opportunities on my specified career trajectory are opening up (a summer recruiting schedule is in the works), and I've developed rapport with my coworkers. The friend group I'm rooted in is growing and changing and deepening, but always--always--for the better. The church community I joined a few months ago has been ministering to my spirit and challenging me to be more intentional, more sacrificial, more Christ-like. I've even got some fun trips planned in the upcoming weeks: trips to relax and recharge, to meet new friends, and to bond with my oldest and dearest ones. In short, life is fantastic.

Which is round about the time that Bridget and I start getting on famously.

I am so guilty of finding myself in a place--a good, healthy, encouraging, loving place--and waiting for it all to fall spectacularly to pieces. As if my life couldn't possibly maintain a positive momentum for very long. Surely I do not deserve a life so full, so rich, so blessed. Surely it will all come crashing down very very very soon...perhaps even right. this. second.

What energy I must waste trying to keep all the glasses balanced on the tray without crashing to the floor. As if I were the one holding the tray to begin with.

Because really, I don't believe that nonsense. I believe that God gives and takes away, and I would choose Him over everything else, every single time. His love is better than life, even when my life is spectacular. Every single time.

It is so tempting to cling to all the wonderful things in my life, in an effort to control them and make them stay wonderful, when in fact, I just want to cling to Him instead. If I'm trying to hold on to all the pieces of my life and one piece breaks, I drop everything. But when I cling to Him and something falls, He can keep the rest in perfect balance, according to His will.

Clinging to Him means that I stay standing when a coworker of mine from Nigeria, a beautiful, vibrant, smiling twenty-five-year-old, dies from pneumonia, leaving behind her husband of two months.
Clinging to Him means that I can comfort friends who experience unexpected and painful loss, even when it happens 3 times in one week.
Clinging to Him means that I don't buckle under the pressure of added responsibility at work, or financial concerns, or even the stress of becoming an adult.
Clinging to Him does not mean that all the wonderful fantastic parts of my life will stay wonderful and fantastic. It means that if everything does fall spectacularly to pieces someday, I will still have hope.

And that hope? That's something I would stake my life on.

My hope is built on nothing less
than Jesus' blood and righteousness
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
but wholly lean on Jesus' name