Growing up, I spent a lot of time in the land of indecision, waiting for other people to tell me which choice was best. When I initially crossed over into adulthood (the timing on this event is vague), my indecisiveness remained ingrained in my personality.  I could often be spotted in front of windows or counters or catalogs staring blankly ahead, waiting for inspiration to strike.  (This “inspiration” was another code name for that most popular of Christian catchphrases,”God’s will”, which I used to believe was only delivered in the black-and-white, written-in-stone, no-two-ways-about-it version that Moses received.)  As adulthood wore on, I realized that my indecisiveness had left a permanent tattoo on my back that read, “Please tell me what to do.”  And so I was the recipient of constant unsolicited advice, which I took from others with thanks as Gospel truth until one day I woke up and realized I was so damn sick and tired of other people always telling me what to do.  The pendulum swung to the other extreme, and I embraced decisiveness as a virtue alongside godliness and cleanliness.  And began to hate hate HATE the phenomenon of unsolicited advice, which persisted in spite of my new big-girl decision-making ways.

Now that I’m growing enough to know that God’s plan doesn’t come on one-size-fits-all mass-generated stone tablets, and that the intention behind others’ advice is more about helpfulness than judgment (USUALLY), I’m trying to be more patient in the face of pithy comments.  But…I’m not to the point where I’m beyond making Sara Bareilles’ song “King of Anything” my personal anthem:

All my life I’ve tried

To make everybody happy while I

Just hurt and hide waitin’ for someone to tell me

It’s my turn to decide

Who cares if you disagree, you are not me

Who made you king of anything?

So you dare tell me who to be

Who died, and made you king of anything?

Statements from others that begin with “You should” are still personal anathema to me and in the future may very well be answered with my iPod being held up to the offender with this song played full-blast.  I’m not THAT grown, y’all.  But along with my developed annoyance to such an infraction is the awareness that I have been guilty of the offense myself…with none other than the stone-tablet artist Himself. Alongside my childhood, teenage, and partial adulthood indecisiveness about immediate matters was the counter-intuitively paired set of plans I made about my future.  I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up and by what date I wanted those letters to appear behind my name.  I knew the age at which I wanted to be married (and oftentimes, to whom–ugh).  I was perpetually prepared with an answer to the question “Where do you see yourself in ten years?” even if I didn’t have an answer for the same question adjusted to a five-minute timeline.

As you all know by now, that plan of mine went exactly where it belonged, which was to hell in a handbasket.

I thought about all this last night as I hovered over the counter in The Sis’s kitchen, engaging in one of my favorite pastimes–wiping away crumbs.  We were winding down a marathon eight-hour period spent with family, and were all still alive (monumental!).  The Mom and Dad and dogs had left; The Sis was upstairs feeding The Niece; The Husband and The Bro-in-Law were in the family room watching and narrating football.  I thought about all the years I had ached for this sense of family and, more intensely, this sense of belonging.  Because we all know that family doesn’t necessarily provide that, depending on what yours looks like. And we all know how deeply the current of desire to be a part of a paired-off unit runs in our society and our souls.  We are nothing short of built for it.  I tried to make it happen for so much of my life, handing my suggestions to God in a “You should” format and expecting to get results as if He was more Sugar Daddy than Father.  And not for one second, much to my then-chagrin and now-inexpressible gratitude, did He cave to my decisiveness.  I couldn’t see what lay ahead–that dent in the couch and crook in the arm where I belonged, that person who would be family member and best friend and perfect match all in one, and all in due time (right, YM?).  As I heard footsteps and baby coos descend the stairs, and familiar voices lamenting Fantasy Football picks, and The Mom tell me this morning how much she loved seeing me in The Husband’s arms on the couch (with the addendum Finally! not spoken but understood), I felt the meaning of thanksgiving descend upon my heart.  Not to mention a plan–the best one– finally coming together.