A Prayer When I’m Feeling Uncertain

​I’m just sitting in a hospital bed waiting.  I don’t even really know exactly what I’m waiting for.  I’m waiting for my health to go south so the doctor will be forced to deliver the baby in my womb.  I’m waiting for my water to break or contractions to start; I have a history of pre-term labor, so this wouldn’t be too far-fetched.  I’m waiting for the weeks to go by to give my baby time to mature.  I’m waiting for my uterus to stretch just a little more and help that placenta get out of the way of my cervix.  I’m waiting for the day that the doctor comes in and tells me that he can deliver the baby safely and lets me in on making the call to induce or wait.  I know I’m waiting for our baby, a little girl, but the circumstances are not ideal and I’m just feeling uncertain and unsettled about how everything is playing out.
 
And I’m no stranger to uncertainty.  Thankfully, I’m not a worrier, but almost daily I’m wondering if I’m doing God’s will and what His plan for me is.  I do believe that God is with me and I know that God has a plan for me, but that doesn’t always mean I’m feeling confident or secure.
 
There are three ladies from a local parish who administer the Eucharist at this hospital.  They are such a bright spot in my days.  In addition to the Eucharist, they pray with me, tell me stories, offer me encouragement and sometimes bring prayer cards for me.  The last one who came brought me a card that really spoke to how I am feeling in this moment and the words are so beautiful that I wanted to share it with you all.

God has created me to do Him some definite service;
He has committed some work to me which He has not
committed to another.  I have my mission –
I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next.
 
I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons.  
He has not created me for naught.  I shall do good, 
I shall do His work.  I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth
in my own place while not intending it – if I do but keep His Commandments.
 
Therefore, I will trust Him, whatever, wherever I am.  I can never be thrown away.
If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity 
may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him.  
He does nothing in vain.  He knows what He is about.
He may take away my friends, He may throw me among strangers, 
He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me – 
still He knows what He is about.
 
Cardinal Newman 

I may never even know exactly what my mission is!  For me there is tremendous comfort in this.  How freeing it is that I don’t have to know everything.  By keeping the Ten Commandments, loving God with my all my soul, mind and strength, loving my neighbor as myself, heeding the Beatitudes, doing Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy and living the Great Commission, I will already be doing the mission He has planned for me.  I don’t have to worry if I haven’t started a ministry or wrote something so profound that hundreds of people felt prompted by the Spirit to know Jesus.  So maybe I’ll never feed thousands of hungry people.  Maybe my mission is just to feed a few, like my kids and husband and friends and the occasional sick person or homeless person.  Or maybe He’ll ask me to do things that don’t seem related to what I think my mission is.  I don’t have to figure out how it fits into the plan.  The burden of knowing everything is lifted.  I can just have faith and do His work without knowing the exact mission.  Like most everything that is good and beautiful and worthwhile, it is not easy, but it is very simple.  Everything I do, even this waiting in uncertainty, I can do for Him. 
 
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.  1 Corinthians 10:31

​Text © Natalie Clevenger 2018