“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

—John Lennon

More than any other social media, Instagram is to blame for any amount of time I waste in my life. Ok, any wasted time is my fault—but Instagram is usually the cause. Photo’s of my friend’s adventures or Insta-stories of people living in cool places (check out @GirlinFlorence if you want a fabulous taste of Italy)—all of it, sucks me in. Almost daily I find myself mindlessly scrolling through photo’s I have already seen, and I have to tell myself to put the phone down.

Beautiful pictures and fun videos are so alluring. Mostly because, that is how we want our lives to be. Though few of us expect perfection, I do believe enough of us want an Insta-worthy life. Only not the appearance of one, the way social media enables us to portray to the world—no, I think we all want an actual, good and meaningful life. I think this is why Instagram is so popular; it give us an illusion that life can be smoother around the edges than it really is.

But lately, I’ve been wondering if it’s messing with my perception of how things should be. I caught myself talking to God about a few things in my life, and realized that for as long as I can remember, I have been searching and working for a perfect picture. Yet not in the way that you may think.

It’s been more like this: You know when you buy a piece of furniture from Ikea, and you realize more assembly is required than you thought? You pull out a bunch of flat particle boards from a heavy box and somehow they are supposed to create a bookcase or dining room table. And all they give you is a bag of nuts and bolts, a tiny tool, and a diagram picture for how things are supposed to go together. In my life,

I feel like I am missing the diagram.

At times, I feel I have been given an unmarked Ikea box with a bunch of parts. But there is no diagram, and not even a picture of what all of these pieces are supposed to become. At thirty-six, I have found a few ways that these boards and bolts can come together and work, but none of them have felt sturdy enough.

And as if our culture is the Ikea website, I have looked around at different ways of living, to try and figure out what my life is supposed to look like—and I have only felt discouraged. My small Christian College told me it looked like finding my husband and getting married right after graduation—but I had another six years after school before I’d even date him. And now, seven years together, my husband and I watch as our friends and family make babies and buy houses, and somehow that life doesn’t feel right either. Its great for them, but it’s a plan that doesn’t seem to include all our pieces, and requires a few others.

So I keep talking to God, asking Him for a picture. In my desperate moments, I tell him it doesn’t have to be the whole picture, just some of it. The planner in me wants to know where we’re headed, and where He is taking us. Maybe it is just me, but I want to know what my future is about.

Only, as I talk to God, I keep being reminded that NO ONE was given a diagram for their life. No one gets a perfect picture. Sure, some people’s lives may seem to fit more neatly in a culturally prescribed format, but that doesn’t mean their lives are neat—or easy. The person who finds their perfect career at twenty, maybeIn looking for a new one at twenty-six. And the people who seem surrounded with an ideal community, may feel the loneliest of all.

No one has it easy, and none of us were slipped a secret diagram for how to put together a life.  So as hard as it is, trying to build a life with faith and courage, and as easy as it is to escape into the world of Instagram, all of us are really in the same place. We’re doing the best we can, or at least we’re trying.

If you don’t have all the answers today, don’t worry. I don’t either. When it comes to building our lives, the only thing I am sure of is that they matter. Whether they are perfect pictures or not, they’re important. And even if we don’t fully know where they will take us, our choices count.

Have you had a picture for how your life was supposed to go?

Are you in a place where you have more questions than answers?

 

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