Unfinished Things

Sometimes I have this sense of being perpetually behind. It can be hard to account for – at times, the feeling arises when from external appearance I might seem to be doing well or exactly on schedule. Objective perspective might suggest things are fine, and yet I still have this feeling that I have not done enough, that I could have or should have done more.

It’s often in the little things. Sometimes I feel like I am run down by the small, individually unimportant tasks that build up to assume a crushing weight. I always feel like there are more little things to do or that there are things I don’t even know of that I should be doing. In this sense of being ever and inevitably behind, other insecurities creep in – that I am disorganized, irresponsible, incompetent. I worry that I am not practical enough and will not be able to manage all the things that regular people are supposed to be able to easily balance.

But maybe it is true that no one is ever fully on top of everything, and maybe it is untrue that regular people balance everything easily. Maybe we all work through our limitations each day, and those limitations – those ways in which we feel we are not doing enough – are not actually limitations but rather just realities of our nature – the truths about where we are now: divided, broken, and yet whole apart from whatever we have or have not done. 

In this understanding, to say we are behind does not even really make sense. How can I be behind when I am here? Wherever I am, I am in the present. God accompanies and guides me in the current breath – His presence fills this flickering “now” and He is not in the unrealized alternative timeline in which I am somehow not behind but “ahead.” 

In this moment I am where I am meant to be, and to agitate for otherwise imposes my timing on God’s. There is grace in this moment, beauty in unfinished things, and hope in the not-yet, the bud that waits in silence to unfurl.