|
On this same week exactly one year ago, my life changed. A leadership position I had held for several years came to a necessary ending, and if you’ve ever been through that kind of thing before, you know that it can be accompanied by a lot of different emotions. I experienced all of them. For a variety of reasons, I didn’t have my next gig lined up yet, and some of the plans I had in place for the future fell apart spectacularly. These days, I can smile about it (on my good days), but in the moment, I felt like I had made a pretty big mess of things. And yet: looking back a year later, I am so profoundly grateful that my best laid plans all went up in smoke. God knew that I needed a dose of uncertainty, so that I could find my bearings again. It wasn’t easy. When I was in the weeds, thoroughly depressed and swamped by self-doubt, I was forced into a spiritual posture of total surrender. I had lost the illusion of control over my future. I had lost the distraction of intentional busyness that helped me feel self-important. Instead, all that was left was the “right now” – the present moment. There weren’t any weekly meetings on the calendar that needed my leadership. There weren’t any major projects that required my creativity. No one was texting or calling, seeking my input or asking for a decision. Day after day after day, I just had to “be.” I hated it, honestly. I stopped checking social media because it just added ugly feelings of jealousy and shame to the pile of negativity swirling in my soul. But gradually, in a way that I didn’t realize it was happening, God started to heal some of the deep hurts within me. After a few months, it dawned on me that I was becoming a healthier and more mature person, simply because I had been stripped of my calendar and forced to take each day as it comes. I started to enjoy each conversation without thinking about where I needed to be next. I learned how to pray again, not as an obligation but as a joyful awareness to the present moment. In John 15, Jesus teaches his disciples to “abide” in him, to “remain” in him, and that apart from him, they can do nothing. This past year has changed the way I read this passage. I no longer see this as something I have to “do,” as much as something that God does for me. If I’m willing to surrender all of the things that rob me of the “right now” – the scrolling, the worrying, the endless planning, the second-guessing – and allow myself to simply be in the presence of Christ, then I can be liberated from the tyranny of the urgent to enjoy the treasure of life itself.With love and hope, Rev. Kevin Griffin
|
