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The Winter of My Discontent
Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.
Matthew 7:7-8 (NRSV)
Matthew 7:7-8 (NRSV)
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me
From "Great Is Thy Faithfulness" by Thomas O. Chisholm
It was a Thursday evening in mid November, and I was in a hotel room at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, waiting for a phone call. I was attending a conference with some of my coworkers, and a few of us were planning to go to a party which was hosted at the House of Blues that year. When I turned on the television, I was very surprised to see that one of my favorite movies was on. Based on a short story by science fiction writer Philip K. Dick, The Adjustment Bureau tells the story of two lovers who are essentially wrestling with God's will for their lives.
Two years earlier, while I was attending the same conference, I sat in my hotel room on a Thursday evening, watching the same movie before the same party, waiting for a coworker to call me. At that time, like the two protagonists in the film, I was wrestling with God's will for my life, for I thought that God wanted for me something I did not want for myself. I found it comforting to watch a movie about two people who were going through the same conflict. I hoped that, like the two protagonists of the movie, I would be granted a new path to follow.
It's funny how the journey of life has a way of taking us past the same landmark multiple times.
Sunday, December 28, 2014 was a very special day for me: it was the sixth anniversary of the day I delivered my very first sermon at my home church. When I originally wrote that sermon, I was going through a difficult time in my life. I was stuck in a bad job situation, and, seeking a new direction in life, I began to wonder if I had it in me to preach. Wondering if I could write a sermon for any given Sunday, I decided not to choose my own Scripture passage, but rather to allow the Revised Common Lectionary choose a passage for me. I ended up writing a sermon about the story of two elderly prophets named Simeon and Anna who had the privilege to see their long-awaited Messiah as a baby.1
Because my pastor also frequently used the Lectionary to prepare her sermons, and because the Lectionary is a three-year cycle of readings, I suspected she might deliver a sermon on the same passage. I was feeling a bit under the weather that day, but I had absolutely no intention of missing church. The evening before, I had reread my first sermon to see if I would write anything different if I were to preach on the same passage six years later. After all, lot had changed in that time.
Both my writing and my preparation have improved over the years, so, if I were to rewrite my first sermon, I would rework a lot of the wording and do some additional research so that I could replace a lot of unnecessary filler. Those changes aside, I figured I would probably retain the basic structure and overall message of the sermon. I would probably retell the biblical story, weaving in observations and cultural details, and explain how Simeon's prophecy would be realized in the life of Jesus, just as I did before. I would probably do more work to reinforce the main point of the sermon: like Simeon and Anna, we Christians are also waiting for our Messiah to set things right.
A couple of days later, on the day before New Year's Eve, I tried to write an introspection about my anniversary - one last blog post before the end of the year. I realized that I probably wrote a sermon about waiting and longing because, six years ago, I was personally in a season of waiting and longing. I also realized that, if I rewrote my sermon, I probably wouldn't change much of it because I was in yet another season of waiting and longing. In my previous blog post, I had written that the season of Advent was like "the darkness before the dawn." It was now the sixth day of Christmastide, and I felt like I was still waiting for the dawn. Unfortunately, life does not always follow the Church calendar.
As I wrote, I began to realize I was angry. In the years after I wrote my first sermon, a lot happened to me. I lost my job and was led to something better; I was led to a new community of faith with my own peers; and I became more and more involved in the Church. Life was on the upswing: I hoped that my life was finally going somewhere. And then, 2013 happened. I began to break beneath the weight of what I believed to be people's expectations of me. I gave up trying to please people, and then I began to feel like I was failing people left and right. I think that, by mid 2014, I was so tired of pain, I began to avoid any potentially painful situations. I ended up quitting a lot of things.
I've never really been satisfied with how my adult life has turned out. At one point, I thought my life was going somewhere, but it didn't. The last couple of years left me feeling like there was somehow less of me than there was before. I didn't finish that blog post.2 What the hell was I supposed to write? I was stopped in my tracks. I lost my motivation to write, and I ended up taking a hiatus from blogging and teaching Sunday school.
It was winter.
Sometimes we just need to take a break - to take some time to let the dust settle so that we can begin to see clearly once again. I didn't really quit writing: for the most part, I only quit writing stuff meant for other people to read. Eventually the pain and frustration dulled. I got my writing mojo back when a book study with my friends inspired me to write a new series of blog posts for Lent, and, during those six weeks, I blogged more frequently than ever before. After Easter, I began teaching Sunday school and blogging regularly once again. When my pastor for the last six years was transferred to another church, her last piece of advice for me was to keep writing, and that is what I intend to do.
During the spring and the summer I had to revisit a couple of lessons I had learned a long time ago, back when I was still stuck at a job I hated.
In June, I attended my denomination's Annual Conference in my state, and I had a lot more fun than in recent years. I made it a point to seize the day. I sought out certain people my friends told me I needed to meet, and I made a lot of new friends. I even became a bit of an activist. I spoke up for the first time at the conference, encouraging people to consider electing young adults to the General Conference, the decision-making body for the denomination. I was reminded how important it is to live intentionally, as opposed to simply letting life happen to me.
After a couple of difficult years, life was beginning to look up once again, but every now and then the disconnect between what my life is and what I want my life to be starts to get to me. I was reminded how important it is not only to send my prayers "upward" to be heard by God, but also to send my prayers "outward" to be heard by others. Sometimes God answers our prayers through the people in our midst, but we have to be vulnerable enough to open up to them. One night a few weeks ago, when my Bible study group shared joys and concerns, I asked my friends to pray for me because I felt like I was "stuck in a rut." It was a poor choice of words: I sounded like I was just bored. What I really meant to say was that I felt like my life was going nowhere.
I reached out to my friends by asking them to pray for me, and immediately they reached back to me. In the last few weeks, God has blessed me greatly through them. I've had some important conversations which have given me some much needed perspective on my life, and I've gotten some things off my chest, helping me to continue healing.
On the journey of life, we all experience mountaintops and valleys, highs and lows, summer and winter. We don't have to live at the mercy of the rise and fall of our circumstances, for we can find peace and freedom in the midst of it all. We don't have to walk through the valleys by ourselves, for God walks with us - as do God's other children, if we let them.
Notes:
- See Luke 2:22-38.
- Actually, the blog post I didn't finish became this blog post.
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