The Good You Had Expected

"One goes into the forest to pick food and already the thought of one fruit rather than another has grown up in one’s mind. Then, it may be, one finds a different fruit and not the fruit one thought of. One joy was expected and another is given. But this I had never noticed before that at the very moment of the finding there is in the mind a kind of thrusting back, or a setting aside. The picture of the fruit you have not found is still, for a moment, before you. And if you wished - if it were possible to wish - you could keep it there. You could send your soul after the good you had expected, instead of turning it to the good you had got. You could refuse the real good; you could make the real fruit taste insipid by thinking of the other.’"

CS Lewis, Perelandra

Six months ago, I began to dream that I could take the skills I'd gained through my last five years as a copywriter, and use them to begin working for Biola, FPU, or another Christian university. For six months, I dreamed that I could do something I'm good at, to accomplish something meaningful, while working for a Christian university.

That dream, such as it was, is no more - at least for the time being. I've gone through four interview processes, each one seemingly more perfect for my particular skillset than the last, and each time a better fit has been found. And now, in just four short weeks, I will be resigning from TCS and learning to be a full-time stay-at-home dad for Wes and the soon-to-arrive Gabe.

And so one chapter of my life draws to a close, and the one that will be beginning is quite different from what I had hoped for. And I strive embrace one and let go of the other: To not keep the vision of what could have been in front of me, to not long for what is not to be. I strive to embrace the good that is coming instead of the good that is not, because otherwise even the good that I have will be poisoned.

It is hard. But it will get easier.