Honey Badgers vs. Unicorns

Disclaimer: This entire blog post comes from me casually reading the story of Noah. Casually. I did no research or studying to come to any of the conclusions I draw here. Some of them (all of them) may be horrendously inaccurate or misguided or heretical. My apologies if they are. You've been warned. Disclaimer over. 

So, as most of you know (if you don't know: surprise!) my fiancé broke up with me about a month ago. It's been a really weird month, to be honest. To go from thinking you're getting married and moving to Africa to starting what feels like your entire life over is…bizarre. And confusing. And disappointing. And sad. And did I mention bizarre? Like I said, it's been a weird month.

Clearly, there are a lot of emotions that go along with all this. I won't go into a lot of the details about what happened or why (partially because I'm still not sure what happened or why myself) but the one thing that really has been hard for me through all this (ok, one of many things that have been hard for me) is figuring out how God plays into all this. I was so sure God was leading me in this direction, to marry this person and start this life in North Africa. I was more sure than I'd been about most anything else in my life so far.

So what the heck happened? Did God lead me to that place just to drop me and leave me hurt and confused? Was this part of the plan from the beginning? Or did I totally and completely misunderstand what I thought God was "telling" me or where He was leading me? Do I even know what it sounds like or looks like when God's trying to tell me something? I'm not so sure I do.

I don't have all the answers still. I probably won't ever. But in the midst of all this I started reading through the story of Noah. Not on purpose though, I never purposefully read the story of Noah. It's one of those stories I feel like I get pretty well at this point. Guy builds a boat, takes a cruise with a zoo, there's some rainbows. End of story, right?

Maybe it was because I was feeling very deep and reflective about life and the meaning of things and why things happen and other things people think about when they're being weird and sad and melodramatic. Maybe it's just because I haven't purposefully read the story of Noah in about 10 years (clearly not my best call, I know, I get it, I'll read through the whole Old Testament now. Ok? Get off my back) but either way, when I read through the story of Noah this time it seemed very different from the bedtime story I'd always viewed it as.

It seems pretty obvious to most of us that if God tells you to build a boat, you do it. I'm ok with that part. Seems logical. I'd do the same thing. In fact, if I ever really thought I heard God audibly speak to me I'm fairly certain I'd do absolutely whatever it was without question for fear of Him melting my face off. Not that God melts faces, I mean He might, I don't know. I just wouldn't want that to be on my tombstone "Here lies Kelsey. Face melted by God." Actually, now that I see that written out, it looks kind of cool. But I'd still rather not incur the wrath of God to the point of face melting so I'm sticking with my original theory that if God told me to do something I'd do it, no questions asked. So I get why Noah went with it. Good call, Noah.

Here's the part where I feel like things get crazy. It took Noah somewhere between 50 and 100 years to build the ark (I'm not a biblical scholar, I'm making some estimated guesses here). And as far as I can tell (again, not a biblical scholar here), God spoke to Noah to tell him what to do, but then Noah didn't hear from God until after the ark was done. God told him to build the ark, then after it was done, God told him to head on in. That means that Noah plugged away building a giant boat for over 50 years without another word from God. As someone who likes a lot of positive affirmation, that seems insane to me. I can barely pick out an outfit without someone else telling me it looks ok. I can't imagine working on a boat for 50 years without a thumbs up or a gold star every now and again. If I was Noah I would've very much appreciated a "Hey great job, keep up the good work!" every decade or so, just so I'd know I was on the right path. But I'm fairly certain that didn't happen. God said do it and expected Noah to do it, no second guessing.

I really can't imagine what must've gone through Noah's head during that 50-100 years. How many times he must've second-guessed himself, replayed God's words in his head, tried to remember what exactly He had said, tried to decide if it was real, if it had actually happened. I don't doubt there were days when Noah thought he might be crazy, where he wondered if God had ever really spoken to him or if he'd just imagined it. But then that wonderful day came when God spoke again and told Noah to get into the ark.  That must've been a relief.

Ok so God finally speaks to Noah again, tells him to get on the boat and He shuts the door behind him (that was nice of Him, I think). And then it starts raining and the flood comes, people die, they float around for awhile, etc. etc. But then Noah doesn't hear from God again for an entire year. A year! Noah and his family spent an entire year on a boat with a ridiculous amount of animals (who I'm sure continued to have the normal bodily functions of animals. Some of them were probably seasick. I bet that was fun) without hearing from God. He spent an entire year cramped on a boat with his family, feeding animals, cleaning pens, trying to keep the honey badgers and the unicorns apart (which in my mind, he failed miserably at, which is probably why there are no more unicorns. I have no biblical evidence for that, I just choose to believe that's what happened).

I can't imagine what Noah thought during this time. I know at this point he trusted God to come through for him, but I'm sure it was still really awful. He had no idea how long he'd be on that boat. As far as he knew he could've spent the rest of his life bobbing around on the world's first (and only, to my knowledge) Floating Zoo. He had no idea what God had in store, what came next, what the plan was.

This is how I feel right now. I feel like I'm on an ark floating in the waters with no idea of what's going on or what happens next or how long I'll be here. I felt like God led me to this place but now it's different than I ever imagined it would be. It's not what I expected, it's not what I hoped for, it's not what I wanted. But it's where I am.

I feel like sometimes we look back at the stories of the Bible and think "Oh they had it so easy, God just spoke to them and told them what to do." We have this romanticized vision of what life was like for them, but I think we're wrong. I think it was hard. Really hard. God has plans, but He doesn't give us a heads up about what they are (which is smart of Him, really, because otherwise I would've sent God multiple notarized letters about why His plans were bad and unwelcome and as we all know, God hates getting notarized letters but He would've read them because He's nice like that and it would've wasted His time and my time and probably gotten really annoying after awhile and He would've had to melt my face off just to stop me from sending Him so much mail).  Noah trusted that God would take care of him. I'm sure he was scared and confused and worried occasionally, but he didn't let that overwhelm him, he didn't let it change his course or his trust in God.

Here's another thing about Noah that I found interesting. After a few months on the ark without hearing from God, Noah sent out some birds to see if the waters had receded. He didn't need God to give him step by step directions for his life, he knew a bird would fly around and come back if it couldn't land, so he did the best he could with what he knew. He threw out some birds to see what was going on out there. He didn't just sit on the ark and mope and complain about how God had left him there to die or to float around for all eternity. He made decisions himself; he moved the process along as best as he could without interfering with God's explicit instructions. He did something. He made the best decisions he could with the knowledge he had.

Eventually God told him to get off the boat and we all know what happens next: rainbows, wine, streaking, passing out drunk, curses on your youngest son, etc. That part of the story isn't super relevant to the point I'm making here (although it is largely entertaining). My point is this (well I have multiple points so I'll make them as succinctly as possible because this is already super long and you probably stopped reading a long time ago. I don't blame you. I didn't give you incentives to finish this. That's on me): Noah trusted God's plan, even when God was silent, even when things were confusing or scary, even when he had no idea what was going to happen or why or how he got into this mess or how many loads of camel dung he'd have to throw off the side of the boat. God doesn't give us the whole picture and he doesn't make it easy for us. But that's when we do the best we can with what we know. I can't sit around whining on my metaphorical boat waiting for God to open the doors. I might be here for weeks or months or years. That's why, even when we don't understand what's happening, even when we don't know why God would lead us to the place we're at, that's why we need to start throwing some birds out the window.

So that is my plan. Bird throwing. I may not understand what happened or why or if this was where God wanted me or just where I ended up. But in any case, I'm here now and I know that God won't forget about me, He won't leave me here to float around in my ocean of uncertainty and confusion forever. But until He opens that door and I can get off this miserable boat I'll just keep throwing birds, doing the best I can with what I know, serving Him where I'm at, and being thankful for the fact that no one told me to spend a year in an ark with a honey badger.