I will end October the way it began but with some explanation. Not that I think I can relay my feeling in words any better then before but I will try.
All throughout the summer I had been having a feeling of spiritual stagnance. The term usually has negative connotations but in my instance this was not the case…well for the most part. For the first time in a long time I really felt at peace about a lot of things in my life…especially spiritually. The various changes God had started in my life, one and a half years ago, seemed to be settling in my heart and it seemed God had given my mind a much needed hiatus from its constant ponderings. It felt like God had brought me out of the “desert” period of life and that I was now in “Canaan”. At this time I didn’t feel far from God however, I did not feel close.
When September rolled around and I got back into the swing of things this stagnance began to evolve into something else entirely. While I still held the notion that I had been brought out of the “desert” and into “Canaan” a small voice started to reverberate within the depths of me. A voice that knows all the corners hidden deep within my soul. A voice damaging to the core. The voice of self doubt.
As a child of God I know have been given specific spiritual gifts. While I may not know all the gifts I have…I know that one in particular has become a double edged sword. Encouragement has always come easily to me. The role of a cheer leader for any individual or team cause has never been hard for me. And I know this is because I deeply feel and am affected by the encouragement of others. It’s not that I need constant affirmation in everything I do but if I don't receive encouragement it could turn the best week in my life into the worst. I think a lot of people that have known me for a while have figured this out. Yet, some of the most important people in my life have yet to really fully realize their potential to affect me in this way.
With the start of September came the start of new classes in my new major. While having discussed changing my major with my parents and occasionally my new vocational direction they both very much sat on the awkward back burner of our relationship. I love my parents. They are really good at showing me love. Sometimes my mothers love could be construed as smothering. Having said that though my parents rarely encourage me in things that are deeply important to me. Instead of encouragement they offer a hug, a pat on the head, or an I love you. Statements such as “we are proud of you” are uttered but stop precisely there. I don't know where this notion of awkwardness came in association with anything encouraging or spiritual in nature. My sister Bubbles on the other hand is a bundle of ever flowing encouragement. In fact for my birthday that is what she gave me (ask to see my door of encouragement when you come over sometime). I am very thankful.
So as September began to drag on the little voice of doubt grew louder and louder as the encouragement of summer passed into a fleeting notion. While I was thoroughly enjoying my classes my doubts toward my looming vocational call began to compound. In my mind it seemed like I was caught in a giant “case or debate” for my call to ministry. Everything I did or said was judged by this little voice which usually sided with me not being fit for ministry (…especially if when it came to religious thoughts or actions). The voice would say “you can’t think that way if you ever hope to become a pastor”, “a person of faith would never hold such a notion”, “you are just conforming to the world to make yourself seem like a better Christian”, “you can’t even defend your own faith”. This voice and I grew well acquainted as the days dragged on. At the time I wasn’t even thinking about it in all honesty. I assumed the voice was my own.
Through IVCF I got word of a silent retreat they would be putting on at the Martha Retreat center toward the end of September. Initially I was really excited about it. I love the center and its nuns. But soon my excitement turned into a passiveness about the whole thing. By the time the week of the retreat came about the little voice had almost convinced me that as there was only 16 spots open and “I wasn’t really supposed to go anyway” that I would be taking someone else’s spot that would need it a lot more then me (I felt this way because of the idea that I had just come out of the desert and was being led into a place of calm in life). Even when I arrived at the center that morning the little voice gave me about a million reasons to leave.
We each chose a spiritual director for the day and I ended up picking an amazing woman named Ruth. She flew in from the IVCF head office in Ontario to be with us that weekend. Through my sessions with Ruth I came to realize a lot. For instance I had been and in a way continue to run from deeply intimate times with God. This has been occurring ever since he gave me my new life calling one and a half years ago and its almost out of fear that I have kept this distance. Fear of other life altering changes that will once again upset the life I have just finished figuring out. As I was talking to Ruth I likened my running to that of Jonah from Nineveh…She thought Nineveh was a strong word but by friend Dee, who had chosen the same director, assured her it was the right word. And it was from there that Ruth and I embarked on a 12 hour journey of reflection and silence.
I thought that meeting with Ruth might be awkward, that she might not really understand, or try to impose her own ideas on my life. Thankfully she was nothing like any of my thoughts. Ruth was and still is the best active listener I have ever had the joy to meet in my life. Within 1 min of talking with her I felt as though I had known her all my life. When Ruth said my name it was as if God himself was calling down to me from heaven and it took all I had within me not to cry.
Ruth gave me 2 passages to meditate on that day:
Morning -Isaiah 43 1-7 – reiteration of God’s love and encouragement for Israel’s people
Afternoon - Luke 13:10-17 – Jesus heals the crippled woman
Through the passages, prayer, walks, and talks with Ruth I truly discovered that God is always seeking me even when I am doing my best not to be found and healed by him. Ruth quickly got to the heart of a lot of my issues and I believe it was partly due to her having experienced the same family circumstances as I. Ruth spent most of the time we were together trying to get me to see that while being emotionally strong in the face of what life had thrown my way might have been important at the time. She got me to understand however that God longed to meet me in a place of weakness. And for me coming from my life experience this was a nice thought that I could agree with for anyone…other then myself of course.
Ruth’s trying to instill this notion of strength through weakness could be likened to that scene in Good Will Hunting when Robin Williams is telling Matt Damon that “its not your fault”. Matt acknowledges what Robin has said by saying “yah” then abruptly begins brushing off the words. Robin continually pounds these words at Matt until he breaks down crying and comes to the realization that its really not his fault and it never was. I came to my realizations much in the same way. Ruth wouldn’t tell me the same things over and over as Robin did. Instead she would ask me questions and try to get me to come up with the answers myself. She would “change” the subject of the question until she found the question that got the right response out of me.
At one point she asked me “Lindsey…what would God say about you…what would God say he loves about Lindsey?” And to be honest I drew a blank for about an awkward minute. I had never thought about this. So I gave her some answers but none of them really had anything to do with what she was hoping to get at. They had to do with caring for others, caring deeply about the world, or aching for the pain of others. Ruth acknowledged that these were all excellent things to have in ones heart but posed the question again and again until I started to notice how hard it was for me to acknowledge that God loved things specific to me not just the things I do. She then some how got it out of me that praying for myself, not surprisingly, was incredibly hard. I find it very easy and comfortable to pray for others and their needs but when it comes to me and my needs it just seems out of place and awkward to pray to God. And when questioned about it I realized that the times I had really been weak before God he had been a great comfort or he had created massive life changes. After figuring this out Ruth gave me a stack of art to dig through and once I had chosen 2 she gave me them as well as the passage from Luke to meditate on for the afternoon.
The thing that hit me later that afternoon about the woman in Luke’s passage was that she didn’t come to the temple to be healed. She was there crippled by an unknown source for 18 years, not calling out to Jesus to be healed, or chasing after Him to touch His robe. She was just there. Jesus as busy as he was with his disciples and his ever ensuing crowd saw her out of the corner of his eye and noticed her suffering. He then left the group of people surrounding Him and went over to the woman and upon touching her she was healed. The fact that Jesus noticed this easily untouchable woman and healed her was an epiphanies moment for me. As obvious as this seeking relationship might be to any Christian it never really hit me. I am sure I have told numerous kids at NBC camp that God actively seeks them out and strives to me in an intimate relationship with them…but I never really believed it for myself. To know that God seeks me out even when I am in avoidance of him was beyond powerful for me. It was freeing. Not that I was ready to be weak…but I understood that I could be and that I needed to be before God. I know it will take me a while to get ingrain this need into my inner being but I am trying.
All in all that weekend quelled my doubts and answered a lot of the questions posed by the little voice. God used Ruth to show me that I could pursue vocational ministry and that He would guide me and give me all I needed. That I need not worry that all my theology be in place or that my notions would all be correct. To not worry about my youth or “lack of life experience” or “maturity”. I am still very much working on these things and to be honest praying for myself on a regular basis has become enough of a challenge. But I like all of Gods creation is always in a constant state of plasticity. God is always at work within His peoples lives gently molding them to conform to His steadfast plan for their lives.
Skakes
