When I say that I learned these lessons the hard way what I
mean is that I learned then by… well, by screwing up. Which I tend to do quite a bit of and which
I’m grateful to say allows me to experience God’s grace in fresh and new ways
quite regularly. So, today I thought I’d
share a few of my screw ups with you all and the lessons I’ve learned from them
with the hope that you get a new perspective or at the very least be able to relate
to one or two of the struggles.
1) Sometimes silence speaks louder than words.
I know some things about some stuff, and if I’m being honest
I do like to flex my intellectual muscles sometimes… Ok, Ok, a lot of
times. Some of that probably comes from
my voice and opinions being squelched at one time in my life and a desire to
make sure that doesn’t happen again. The
other part of that comes from the justice lover in me needing to make sure that
no (perceived) falsehood goes unchallenged and that no space of hurt goes
unredeemed. Which are innocent enough
desires, but maybe a little self-involved.
So, I talk and what happens is sometimes I talk so loudly that nobody
hears me. Then I find myself frustrated
and misunderstood and unheard. I end up
achieving the opposite of what I want.
Just within the past year I’ve learned that sometimes my
silence speaks louder than my words.
Sometimes choosing to say nothing says everything. I have found that I have more power in one
sentence, well thought out and spoken softly, than I do in any long angry speech. How did I learn this? Well, by giving a lot of fruitless long angry
speeches that hurt people and sabotaged my message. Luckily, God didn’t vote me off the island!
In fact, in the midst of this, He called me to speak for Him and I was once
again overwhelmed by His grace. As
always, I find that He has much more faith in me than I do.
2) Just because God brings something into your life doesn’t mean you should try and fit it into your plans.
Talk about learning a lesson the hard way I feel like there
are times when this lesson still hasn’t quite sunk in! So here’s how this usually works in my
life: God gives me some lemons. They are
some pretty good looking lemons, perfectly ripe, and I think to myself, “Oh
these must be for the lemonade I was planning on making!” Well how do I know God wasn’t planning on
using those to make lemon cookies or lemon meringue pie, or a nice lemon
sorbet? Well, I don’t. I just know that I want to make lemonade and
God gave me lemons. I get one ingredient
and assume I know what recipe God’s using.
I fully believe that God brings things into our lives with
purpose and planning. I also believe
that even if we make the wrong thing with our lemons that doesn’t mean God’s
going to be upset with us or that somehow our lemonade will be cursed. I’ve just learned that maybe I should ask God
what recipe He’s using before I start squeezing lemons. After all, His recipes always seem to turn
out better than mine for some reason.
3) Self-care is not selfish.
So here I am, the retreat minister, who is constantly
telling people of the need and benefit of resting and being still, and I am
actually the worst at taking time for myself.
I have to purposely put on my calendar “Do nothing” in order for me have
a day of rest. Seriously, I schedule
times of nothingness. I know this sounds
like a bad Seinfeld episode, but really it’s true!
For a long time I thought that doing anything for myself was
being selfish and so I worked and worked and worked for other people until I
finally just collapsed in exhaustion and burnout. You add the belief that self-care is bad to
the fact that I have an anxiety disorder and you get panic attacks, depression,
and addiction. A recipe for destruction
if there ever was one!
One thing that really opened my eyes to the fact that not
only is self-care a good thing but it’s actually something needed and
important, is discovering that even Jesus took time to get away and be alone
and rest. You see this several times in
the gospels, especially after times that are more draining and demanding of His
spirit. He would get in a boat alone and
sail across the sea or he would go for an early morning walk and leave His
disciples sleeping. I imagine during
those times He took naps or maybe just laid on the beach and listened to sounds
of the ocean, taking in the love of the Father.
Self-care needs to be a priority for us.
We can’t give to others if we don’t take time to receive from the Father.
4) Independence is not the same thing as strength.
I was at a conference recently during which one of the
speakers ended with this prayer, “God protect me from the illusion that I am an
independent being.” I asked him
afterwards what he meant by that and he told me, “Choosing to live independently
is choosing to live outside of community, and ultimately leads us to believe
that it is up to us to get everything together on our own. Where is there room for Christ in that?”
I am STILL trying to retrain my mind to see the lie that
being independent is being strong. We
were created for community, to bear one another’s burdens, we were never meant
to do life on our own. Not only are we
hardwired for community with one another but we were designed for community
with God! From the moment of humanity's creation God shows Himself to be a God of community, a God who wishes to walk
with us in the coolness of the garden.
When we, when I, pursue independence I’m essentially saying to God,
“Nah, I don’t wanna hang out with you, I’m good on my own thanks.” I exchange His strength for my own which, is
a pretty piss poor substitute.
If you can relate to any of these, I hope maybe my lessons
offered some insight into your struggle.
If you can’t relate to any of these, well then maybe you can just learn
the lessons vicariously through me so you can avoid the hard part! Either way, my
desire is that you see the greatness of God’s grace interwoven in the nooks and
crevices of the hard lessons and that you get the wonderful opportunity to
experience it in your own life.
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