How much longer? and variations

Anyone who has been around children has heard the questions, "are we there yet? how much longer? when will we be there?" "when will we stop again?" I ask these questions, too. Here are some examples:

1. "How much longer?" I moan inwardly,  when my husband takes me on what I call a magical mystery tour. He remembers some place he wants me to see, and takes me there, but never directly. We weave in and out of streets, courtyards, alleys, and parks, as he gives me the scenic tour--for free. He knows where he's going, so he is always relaxed. I don't know if we have another minute or another hour before we reach our destination. This drives me crazy. He gets very hurt if I ask this question out loud, interpreting it as a lack of trust in his ability to give me a wonderful surprise. So I bite my tongue and suffer...

2. "When did this happen? Who planned it? Why didn't I know about it?"  I have this reaction to any surprise. I've been the honored guest at three surprise parties in my life--a baby shower, a small gathering of friends so low-key that I didn't even realize it was a birthday party for me, and a bigger birthday party that my kids planned when they were 8 and 11 years old. In all three cases, I was so discombobulated that I couldn't quite grasp what was happening. Surprises are just too surprising for me, as I like to know where I am and where I am going, on a nice neat timetable. I need firm beginning and ending times to be happy. Long, complicated ceremonies have the same effect--a bishop's visit, a dance recital, a sneak preview.

3. "When will it stop?" This is my anxious question when I'm waiting for something to happen--for a dog to stop barking down the block at night, for a baby to stop crying in the next room at a hotel, for a pot to boil on the stove, for the dentist to finish drilling my tooth. What makes me so nervous is not knowing how long this will last--if I know that there are 56 more seconds of drilling, I have all kinds of coping mechanisms to use to pass the time. It's the unknown that defeats me.

4. "Where will I be next year at this time?" When I'm making a big life change, which seems to be about every two years or so, I can't help but ask this question. In my younger years, not knowing was exciting and adventurous. Now it's kind of scary. Since I try to follow God's guidance in these changes, rather than planning them out logically with my own brainpower, I spend lots of time in this state of uncertainty. It really drives me mad, at times. I like limited commitments, like a one-year teaching contract or a two-year lease. Being enclosed in a well-defined agreement is comfortable for me. I would have liked being in the military for this reason--except I would not have liked the enforced obedience, the constant conformity and the weapons training. Well, maybe I wasn't meant for the military!

I used to make fun of people who were so timid that they couldn't do anything new. Routines were for unintelligent people who couldn't enjoy the spontaneity of life. Now I am one of those people. I think that life's most stinging moments come when we realize, as Pogo said, that we are the enemy. Or, to put it another way, "what goes around comes around." What we consider our strengths are so often the areas of our downfall--what we scorn in others is what we may, indeed, end up scorning in ourselves.

So all my questions--"how much longer?" "are we there yet?" "when will this be over?"--reveal the lack of trust that I hoped to avoid as an adult, and as a Christian. We really don't know the answers, but can only guess. How much smarter to admit how little we know, and to trust God that He has our best interests at heart and is bringing into our lives exactly what we need, when we need it.