An Unplanned Conversation
Not long ago an interruption to my day – an unplanned conversation that took precious time that I didn’t think I had to give – turned out to be a beautiful moment of clarifying misunderstandings and healing old wounds. It reminded me of a book I had read and wrote about many years ago when my children were young. I have searched in vain for a journal entry or a note left in the book or the old newsletter where I had shared my thoughts, but they have long since disappeared into the past. However, it gave me the opportunity to reread several passages in the book and for a while, I lost myself in this beautifully written story. This passage from the book Stepping Heavenward by Elizabeth Prentiss and my recent conversation reminded me that some interruptions that momentarily inconvenience can be beautiful opportunities for growth and healing.
Stepping Heavenward
This book is so full of rich wisdom that it is hard to copy just a short passage. In this passage, Katy and her friend are discussing the great suffering of those who have lost loved ones, and the smaller trials, frustrations, and inconvenient interruptions of daily life.
“They have ‘hours of terrible agony’ of course. God’s grace does not harden our hearts, and make them proof against suffering, like coats of mail. They can all say, ‘Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee,’ and it is they alone who have been down into the depths and had rich experience of what God could be to His children there, who can utter such testimonials to His honor, as those I have just repeated.”
“Katy,” Helen suddenly asked, “do you always submit to God’s will thus?”
“In great things I do, “I said. “What grieves me is that I am constantly forgetting to recognize God’s hand in the little every-day trials of life, and instead of receiving them as from Him, find fault with the instruments by which He sends them. I can give up my child, my only brother, my darling mother without a word; but to receive every tiresome visitor as sent expressly and directly to weary me by the Master Himself; to meet every negligence on the part of the servants as His choice for me at the moment; to be satisfied and patient when Ernest (her husband) gets particularly absorbed in his books because my Father sees that little discipline suitable for me at the time; all this I have not fully learned.”
Moving Beyond Grief
Many years ago, long before I ever heard of Marilyn Kubler-Ross and the stages of grief that she studied and documented, I wrote my first book, My Journey with Justin. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my book chronicled my journey through grief to a peaceful place of acceptance. Not long after I published that book, I began another journey through grief when my youngest son who had struggled with same sex attraction since he was a teen began to live an openly gay lifestyle and married another man. As our relationship crumbled, his life began a tailspin as he struggled with depression, mental-illness, drugs, and PTSD from both childhood and military service. While that journey has been very different than the first, there were also many similarities, and it too has come to a place of beautiful acceptance and healing. There is so much to say about this journey that it would also take a book to chronicle the process. Nonetheless, both journeys and the events and losses of 2020, including the loss of my Father to cancer in March of 2020, have led me to write much about my experiences with grief.
But as we work through grief and begin to accept God’s peace in a loss that has become a living part of our life, we may think that we have done the hardest work we will ever do – and in fact, we may have. However, it is not the only work we will ever do. Difficult experiences in life do not all directly involve grief. There are other experiences in life that leave us feeling angry or frustrated. Some experiences leave us feeling used, abused, exploited, and simply spent.
The Hard work of Growing
While we need to guard against codependent responses and boundary violations, sometimes the smaller annoyances and frustrations in our life should also be graciously looked upon as God’s molding of our uncompassionate hearts. Sometimes we need to remember, “Interruptions are not always obstacles to the work God has given us to do, but often the work itself. ~ Walter Brueggemann*.
Whether we call it mending, healing, or sanctification, I don’t think the learning, repairing, and growing of our souls ever ends in this life. Many of us will walk through major loss at some point in our lives and the experience will forever change us. Grief and loss can enlarge our capacity for compassion; it can make us humble, and it can give us grace for others. However, all of us will also walk through dozens and dozens of minor trials that frustrate and annoy us. These too, can leave lasting changes in our lives. They can help us practice patience and pursue loving kindness. And while they may slow our work or plans for the day, inconvenient interruptions provide opportunities for us to pause and truly ‘see’ someone else. So, whether we are grieving loss or simply annoyed by inconvenient interruptions, let us never cease to grow in grace and love as we continue to ‘step heavenward’.
*The threat of Life: Sermons on Pain, Power, and Weakness by Walter Brueggemann published in 1996. In a sermon titled: The liturgy of Abundance, the Myth of Scarcity.