I’ve been joking recently that I feel like I’m living on the cusp of two epochs: BGE and AGE.

That’s before and after my upcoming Greek exam.

In reality, the thing that takes up most of my time is my workplace. However, all spare time at the moment is taken up by my poor attempts to get Greek into my brain and then correctly out onto the page. There are varying degrees of success.

I’m comforting myself in the fact that only 2 weeks into the new AGE epoch also happens to be the July school holidays.

I know I have, but currently it feels like I’ve never taken a break from work.

A break from Greek and a break from work feels like such liberty. Oh the things I will do. And the places I’ll go? (To borrow from Dr. Seuss)

With it being winter now, there’s one word that keeps coming to mind: hibernation. Frankly, at this point in time, I’m happy not to go anywhere.

What I want to do instead is pray. Pray about all the things that keep cropping up into my head in my study breaks (ahem…mind drifts).

Should I find my script and planning notes for the podcast I started preparing about 5 years ago? Should I get on with my sewing side hustle? Should I write a book?

And not just in the here and now either. What should I do in the future? That feels like another epoch all over again.

I have lots of ideas and potential plans for what I might do but am encouraging myself to lean into God and seek His plans. I know he has plans for me and I want to be in step with those.

This is opposed to just being in step with my ideas for my life. Or someone else’s agenda for my life. The older I grow the more I see others pushing their agendas onto my life, whether consciously or unconsciously.

Just because someone expects me to do a certain thing, it doesn’t mean that it’s what God wants me to do. That’s why we need to pray.

Things I’m praying for at the moment include:

For clear direction from God and guidance on the pathway of life.

For the maturity to see beyond my own wishes and desires and to see instead God’s heart and how he wants to manoeuvre me in his purposes.

That I will not be tripped up by those who – whether well-intentioned or not – seek to steer me in a direction that is not God ordained.

I’ve seen God come through with answers before and I know he can do it again.

It’s just when you’re in that weird liminal space between two epochs that the direction ahead seems most unclear. Much like the Israelites, it does feel like walking around in circles in the desert.

I know the desert is not forever, but some days it feels like it.

On those days, prayer seems more like shouting for answers. And confusion as to whether you have started heading in the wrong direction… or whether you started heading in the wrong direction three years ago.

That’s when you have to keep trusting in the sovereignty of God, even though you don’t understand it.

Keep trusting. Keep praying.

And in my case right now, keep studying.

Yours about to write another verb paradigm,

Alison