Transition in the wilderness - In the end, Gratitude wins!

March 2019 is here and I never dreamed that I'd be where I am, doing what I'm doing, and feeling what I'm feeling at 45. . . 

Life is full of transitions and wilderness journeys - even in city life! 

As part of the Church universal, we celebrate seasons in the Christian calendar. Recently we crossed over the threshold of Ash Wednesday and have been stepping deeper and deeper into the season of Lent - a journey to the Cross with Christ Jesus. I'm reminded, how important the seasons we travel in our lives are in shaping us - especially as sojourns. 

Lent provides us the opportunity to once again be overwhelmed as we reflect on our own mortality - from dust we are made and to dust we will return - and yet, one and at the same time be reminded and encouraged that there is a hope. Hope for the future, and as well, hope in the present.

With the numerous transitions I've experienced in my own life, I continue to learn that we do make the road by walking - and possibly running, skipping, and even often times crawling. While we travel these roads of life, we live in a world where wounds, death, sorrow, and darkness exist, and also where wonder, life, joy, and light exist too. This type of tension existence marks us in unique ways. It's a real tension for humanity and one not to be avoided, dodge, or ignored, especially for believers following Jesus.

We need to accept that joy and sorrow simultaneously exist. In fact, they often times, kiss each other at every moment. One big question in the midst just might be however; can we actually live into this tension well - that is, one not of just mere existence but full of life?
Can we actually live full of life in the wildernesses of life that can come either in choice or by force?

I've most recently been forced into a dark wilderness journey. However, I've chosen to enter the Lenten wilderness journey as part of the body of Christ as well. In all transparency, I've been walking, standing and often times just sitting in the wilderness since the loss of my job nearly 8 months ago. This brought numerous struggles of loss and grief and in the midst, I've found hope to be quite elusive. I guess, loss and grief can do this to us mere mortals.

When hope seems lost, we begin to question existence, our own value, and dare I say our own belovedness - or maybe that's just me?

I believe these emotions, feelings, and questions are real and important to not avoid. Jesus faced similar tempting moments and questions in the wilderness as well - just after the high of being declared publicly and quite majestically as God's Beloved at his baptism. So, if the Son of God was driven into the wilderness and dealt with these questions there too, just maybe it's a good place for us (me) to ask such questions and look deeply at ourselves and the world in which we live?

For example, can we look at the world (the dusty world around us, this dusty world inside us) and still love it, still be hopeful? No doubt, it’s difficult- especially, it seems when we look at the dustyness inside ourselves. But, I believe it’s possible to live life full of hope - through the one who created us out of dust. However, this takes a big imagination. It takes leaving our comfort zones. It takes the wilderness - often times.

As someone who has experienced a forced loss, I've been rattled. I am in no way comparing myself to those who may have lost things greater than a job; like loved ones or one's own ability to see, hear, walk or accomplish tasks on their own. Yet, as one speaking who has lost not only employment in my journey of life, I must recognize that this loss is real too. In this season, it's been a loss of position, title, voice, status, friends, location, hopes, dreams, perceived purpose, and more. This is a wilderness journey that can not not be avoided. I must journey through this season, no matter the uncertainty of length. I must at times, walk and at many other times, just sit.

While the ambiguity is hauntingly overwhelming, in faith, I cling to the promise that God is with me always - even if, the other side is not in this lifetime. Yet, this however, is a dangerous way to live. Not reckless - as that I believe is when we put ourselves in harms way - but dangerous because this moves us away from the comfortable to the uncomfortable. And who likes to be uncomfortable?


As I continue to dwell in these thoughts and the actual steps I'm making into this new season of life, I'm humbled once again that Jesus has invited me into experiencing new life even when death happens. He keeps doing this. Jesus keeps inviting me, and all of us again and again, to keep walking while never leaving us along life’s narrow way, alone. There may be others who abandon, but Christ will always be with you, me, us! Nothing will stand in God's way, not even our locked rooms of loss and despair. In Love, Christ will be present and re-invite us all to touch the wounds, be breathed upon, and receive Jesus' peace.  

In these seasons - and honestly in any season of life - may we all be encouraged as children of a never abandoning, never giving up extravagantly loving God, to pray Our Father, may Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven and may it begin with us. This me-earth. And in this prayer, may we all experience the Christ sitting quietly, and patiently, even at times, whispering His Spirit of loving resurrection in and over us. A prayer of belonging just possibly similar to; I have loved you with an everlasting love. A love that lasts forever. And so with unfailing love, I have drawn you to myself. Again, I will build you up. . . I will be your Father (Jeremiah 31). 

So even in my present season, it’s this God - the God of never ending, ever expanding, everlasting steadfast love that calls to me (and us) -out of slavery, out of self-dependence, our of selfi-ism, out of the trap of business, out of voices that say we're nothing, out of the noise of supposed success -  to remember who God is and who we truly are - God's beloved children of grace and value.

 

So maybe you are experiencing deep grief and yet also know that there are things to be grateful for as well, but it's just too difficult to bring yourself to such a posture? May you and all us know from the life, death and resurrection of Jesus; that in the end, there is beauty that comes out of the ashes and gratitude does win. May we all hold on to this mysterious hope. 

If you find yourself marked with a season of grief, gratitude or the seeming collision of both, may grace fill you so profoundly and abundantly enabling you to live into the tension in a healthy way- in a paradoxical way that eventually, out of death comes resurrected life. 

May we all live into the hope that in the end gratitude does win. The resurrection wins!