The Light at My Feet

A strange sensation came over me this past Sunday. I was sitting on one of our hand-me-down leather couches in the front room, the dog curled up next to me. Mike was on the other couch watching football, feet up on the knicked and dinged coffee table where the girls were using the personalized art sets they got for Christmas. The boys were running around wrestling, rumble tumble pell-mell, imaginations ablaze.

The feeling descended on me like a heavy, Downy-fresh, straight from the dryer quilt. I looked up from my book. I contorted myself to look at the thermostat above me. Still set to our usual temp of just barely warm enough. The warmth remained, bone-deep to the marrow.

I looked around the room again. Totally average Sunday afternoon. Except…

Except my girls were so sweet there coloring and creating together. Ten and six and giggling and talking about their work.

Except the boys were loud, crashing around the circle-track our house makes when you have both doors to our room open. I love how they love each other. How they adventure together.

Except even Mike looked serene vegging out to the game.

The rest of the house wasn’t a total wreck, but certainly wasn’t tidy. I probably should have been folding the laundry or taking down the Christmas decorations instead of reading. Or the tree. One year, when I was still in the trenches of littles our tree didn’t come down until after Valentine’s Day. So, I feel like I’ve still got some time.

And it hit me. This comfortable, peaceful feeling? I think this is contentment.

I wasn’t expecting it.

I haven’t written a thing in over a month. This is partially on purpose. Per the suggestion of my spiritual director, I had decided to use Advent as a season of discernment to see where God was moving in my life. Because I felt I was drowning in good things. I had spent too much time anxious and grappling for vision that wasn’t becoming clear. I had been strategizing and planning for a future I designed on the fly.

Post-Advent now and it still wasn’t clear. I’ve struggled to find words and questioned whether flinging any at the dark void ahead even mattered. There are so many words out there already.

I have a friend who is gifted with vision. She’s the type of person who sees not only the next mountain, but the one beyond that. I realized a couple mornings ago, talking to her over coffee by the fire, that I’m in a place where I can’t even see the mountain anymore. When I try to look around all I see is darkness. I strain my spiritual eyes, but see only shadows at best. I spent a lot of 2015 reaching out, hoping to grab things that never quite materialized. All of the New Year’s vision-casting posts I’ve read over the last couple weeks a poignant reminder.

The contrast of light and darkness came up again and again throughout my Advent journey. He is our light in the darkness and the darkness does not overcome Him. We are the light of the world. I’ve been holding to the image in Psalm 119:105, “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.” Though I may not be able to see the shape of the mountain before me, I can see the light at my feet. I see enough for the next small, faithful step on a path I’m trusting He’s already laid out.

It is hard to make plans when you only see by the light at your feet. Recently, this light has illumined more than a couple sharp turns I hadn’t anticipated.

Last year I spent a lot of energy trying to figure out where I was going. I am the consummate trip planner. I have been known to write out detailed hour by hour itineraries for our family Disneyland trips. I almost never travel without checking TripAdvisor forums first. I’m currently doing extensive research for the three week cross-country family road trip we’re hoping to take this spring. I watch Rick Steves on PBS every night before bed and plan fantastic (hypothetical) European vacations.

I may have a problem.

Do you see how this season of only having enough light for my feet could be grating? No making plans, not a lot of research, no real strategy. I want to choose my destination and plan for the best way to get there; a choose-your-adventure genre of life.

Which is why the contentment that settled on me out of nowhere was so startling.

When I entered this time of discernment, I expected the outcome would be that the Lord’s plans would be made more clear. I would have a better idea of where He’s leading me than when I started, and I could then plan accordingly. Instead, He gave me more peace for where I am right now.

I guess it makes sense though. If I must live by only the light at my feet right now, then I must live in the present. I can only be where I am, no gallivanting off into a hypothetical future. No striving up mountains I can’t see. No planning out the easiest paths of least resistance.

To my fellow travelers who may find themselves on this narrow way, who cannot see beyond the edges of the circle of light in which you’re standing: be encouraged. We are meant to walk into all the plans He has for us, whether we can see the horizon or not. Whether you have crafted a five year plan or designed a dream board (or not). We are all invited to enjoy the just-enough light at our feet for the next faithful step, wherever we’re currently standing.