I Don't Know

There are some seasons that are rife with unknowns. We are in one of those right now. Everywhere I turn, there seems to be another unknown. And they aren’t little ones. They’re big, life-changing, everything-could-be-different types of unknowns.

It’s terrifying and unsettling.

I’m finding myself often coming to God and admitting my own lack of knowledge, lack of courage, lack of insight. Lack of everything. I ask Him to be all that I am not and to give me the knowledge and strength I need for just the next step.

And He is faithful.

My husband and I are attending a Sunday school class at our church in which we discuss how to parent with mental health in mind. In one of our recent classes, I made the comment to our group that one of the ways I’m learning to cope is in accepting that “I don’t know” is an appropriate and allowable response.

I don’t know how to parent teens who are being raised in a very different world from mine. I don’t know how to talk them through mental health crises and keep them safe. I don’t know how to help them navigate the ups and downs of their relationships. I don’t know. And that’s all right.

I have surgery coming up. It’s a medium surgery, on the minor-to-major spectrum of surgeries. The outcome should be good, but there are some variables that I can’t control and can’t predict. The recovery should go well, but with my crazy health and some of the increased stress lately, it could be enough to send me into a full relapse. The truth is, there is much about it that I don’t know. And that’s all right, too.

I’m working on publishing my first novel and learning so very much about every aspect of it. How to write, how to finish a novel-length story, how to find test readers, how to receive feedback and criticism, how to create a synopsis and proposal and query letter, how to find agents, how to look for publishers… The list feels endless, and I am very small and very inadequate in the face of it. There’s so much that I literally just don’t know. And that has to be all right.

There are so many more places that are filled with what feels like my inability and incompetence. I feel woefully inadequate most of the time.

Yet there’s peace and comfort in that.

For one thing, it means that I am allowed to let go. I don’t have to have my hands on everything, fighting for control I never had (and never will have) to begin with. I can let go.

For another thing, I can learn. I have beautiful opportunities to become a far wiser and more knowledgeable and skilled person. If I can stop pretending and stop fighting my inexperience, I will step into a season of growth and new understanding.

But most of all, my being less means that there is room for God to be more. Not that He needed me to make room. But when I feel adequate and wise and all of the things that I think I ought to be, I have a tendency to push Him aside and make my own way.

In these seasons, though—the ones of not knowing—I can do literally nothing more than walk forward an inch at a time, asking Him for guidance and understanding and wisdom and knowledge and all of the things I need for just that inch. And in the next inch, as He reveals it, I ask all over again. Inch by inch, moment by moment, I walk out my faith in His strength and in His sufficiency. And not my own.

When we find ourselves in seasons for which we are horribly mismatched and unprepared, it’s tempting to give in to fear or to lean into pride. Neither one will help us. I’m trying to live out this season differently. I’m trying to embrace “I don’t know” and see what God can do with it.

I have a feeling it will be more than I could ever do for myself.