"I know the way out"

At least one part of my life of late has been filled with confusion: the part that involves navigating the visa application tangle to find the least complicated (cynical laugh) way to stay and work here.

Amidst the added confusion of many different voices giving me well-meaning, but often ignorant and unfounded, advice are my own frantic attempts to simultaneously take no notice of the mistaken advice while paying close attention to information from reliable channels (such as, say, the official website, which for some uncanny reason tends to be at a tangent to the advice from the aforementioned. Why do people seem to think that having been through something personally makes them authorities on the wider subject, even when it involves others in completely different circumstances? See my previous post. Meh.) and I feel as though I'm rowing a boat solo along an unfamiliar network of winding rivers, while dozens of different people stand on the bank and call out conflicting directions.

Without the benefit of a cox (and navigator), I'm sunk. Pardon the pun. And last night, I could feel myself sinking. The weight of it all was pushing me under the surface and keeping me there. "I can't do this. I don't have a job, I don't have the money for all of these documents and applications, I don't even have money to pay my utility bills and the rent, and everybody around me is too interested in giving me advice to listen to what I'm saying. I get the feeling that even if I were to strain my ears to listen to just one of them -- any one, that person would still end up giving me directions to the wrong destination because none of them knows what I'm aiming for, but they know where they've been and that's where they want me to go."

Never mind that some of the roads they're recommending have long since been closed, or merged with other roads.

Never mind that I am someone else entirely, with different aspirations and dreams and plans.

Never mind that everybody is eager to talk to me (or at me), but not in the least interested in listening to me.

Can you hear me sputtering as I try to keep my head above water? Nobody knows, and nobody wants to know.

Cue sobbing. Tears. Tissues and more tissues.

And then came the voice I have come to recognise for its unearthly peacefulness even in the stormiest of storms.

"I know."

He knows?

"I know the way out. I know where you want to go, because I created that destination for you. Follow Me."

Once before, in a similar time of desperation, I saw myself as a rat in a closed maze. There was no way out, just lots of cheese and even more walls.

And then I saw a hand reach down to lift me up and "bring me out into a place of abundance". And I knew then that no amount of effort on my part, or "help", or "advice" from others who are really just rats in other mazes who think they've found the way out of mine, was going to get me out. I couldn't climb up the high, slippery walls. I couldn't chew my way out. I needed only to stop my frantic race, to wait, to be still, and I would be lifted out.

I feel ratty again. I feel as though all of this futile scurrying down what seemed like promising leads from my beautifully uninformed friends has resulted only in fatigue and crumbs of stale cheese, not the fresh air and food (and rats of a similar stripe) I'm longing for.

Once again, I want to place my trust in Him and only Him. Not the multitudes on the river banks, telling me what each of them thinks is best. Only Him.

And He knows, knows very well, the one way out that will lead me to the life abundant that I have been dreaming of.