What Good Angst Is

Today I had a brief encounter that left my reserves of patience empty.

While I wait for word from E.W.U., my mind grows more weary with thoughts of failure. Doubtful thoughts, questions like "What if," refuse to leave me alone. Even though I am accepted into the Creative Writing program as a student, I'm still in limbo about the teaching position, which is the key element on which everything hinges. The teaching position would pay for schooling as well as provide a minor stipend (even the university's poor pay is equivalent to several raises from Starbucks). Without the teaching position, I would be unable to attend the school.
I was about to write that "my future depends upon acceptance." As most of you will be quick to point out, that is not true. Now, a more accurate statement is "The future I have been envisioning depends on acceptance." My future, as the Lord has shown again and again, lies in the hands of the Almighty. The work I've done in the past several months might not culminate in a teaching position at Eastern, but, as Lynné is always quick to point out, "God will have something better for you if you don't get this." I've done a lot of things that led nowhere--applying for Wheaton College in my third year of undergraduate work, writing a screenplay and submitting it for ABC's annual competition, numerous submissions to magazines that returned only rejections. Yet, in spite of these things, I am able to sit and enjoy my life. That, if you listen to the Ecclesiastor, is a miracle of God.
So we come to my point. I am angst-ridden with waiting. Whenever I reason through the process of waiting on the Lord, I often forget the angst of waiting. You see, my reasoning goes like this: God promises you big things, sometimes in exchange for an act of faith, and all you must do is wait. Waiting, incidentally, is a remarkably easy thing as it requires one to do absolutely nothing. Standing guard requires the soldier only to be ready to act--not climb, kill, or run. "Just stand and wait," to quote a Milton sonnet. So when God asks you to wait, all you must do is pre-occupy yourself with some other matter, trivial or not, until the moment comes. Then, you must act.
That is my reasoning about patience, but the angst part comes when you depend on the Lord's coming through. My trouble is I am becoming resentful of my job at Starbucks. (All of you who work in the service industry who read my 'blog must be aware of the possibility of such feelings. Despite what amazing things I can do with my li'l paycheck, I am often aware of what more I could do with a bigger one, or one that requires less work than Starbucks. When I moved to Spokane, I took a two dollar pay-cut--which meant that I received the same paycheck working part-time in Texas as I did full-time in Spokane. I know some good people who proudly work the service industry, partly because they like it or because they like a freedom it affords them. I have neither of those feelings. The only bulwark against my resentment of my chosen job is that it is familiar, it has been the one that paid the bills thus far. That resentment, coupled with the realization that many of us twenty-somethings are not in higher-ranking jobs because the Baby-Boomer generation is, in their older age, keeping its occupations longer than previous generations. My tirade on this point has ended.) With such deep-seated resentment, I look ahead to a golden future at E.W.U. Lynné will sometimes daydream with me. She'll say, "You know, when you're teaching, it'll be better." I know we're setting some expectations a little high, but it also keeps me in the faith of God's good work being fulfilled.
I therefore imagine that angst is a fuel for the spiritual worker. I don't know how to look at it since I don't see any passages about Abraham wringing his hands about his descendents. I don't know of any Biblical tale where the protagonist has "emotional worries" about whether God'll come through. Even Jonah has profound reasoning behind his cowardly flight. So where do we, we children of modernists, go to understand this emotional strife and its role in our lives?
I honestly don't know. That's why I leave the question out there. Leave a little note saying you'll pray for me. Leave a little note saying "Just pray" (which I think is the only recourse we worry-worts have). But leave some thought.