Hello! This is life calling! Sorry things are a bit confusing and difficult right now, but I kind of mess with folks at times. I have found it the best way to bring growth and maturity to you all. People generally grow more from adversity than they do from prosperity. Sorry, but that seems to be the way you were built.
Now, don’t blame this all on God. God and I are partners in a sense. God doesn’t stand on the sidelines when tough times come. God rolls up God’s sleeves and gets busy teaching lessons, redeeming, and seeing people through. God is often as frustrated and upset as are you. But God sees this as “Get busy time” for God.
Some of you have figured this out. There was a psychiatrist (he was also a psychologist) Victor Frankl. Dr. Frankl survived the Holocaust camps, but lost several loved ones in those camps. Dr. Frankl was fond of saying, “We don’t ask life questions, life questions us.”
During this time I have had most of you ask me questions. Did you notice you never received an answer? At least not a credible or satisfying answer. Heh, heh….that is just my way. I prefer to watch, listen, and take in what is going on around you and allow it to question you and to question your usual status quo understandings and answers. Will all that is going on help you grow into another, stronger person? Or will it make you bitter, angry, and quick to place blame? Frustration and anger are not only okay, they are appropriate. But is that where you intend to end up? See. I’m pretty good at asking you questions, am I not?
Think of life ….yep….me!….as a mission, not a career. Careers are often full of all these precise goals that include all kinds of personal rewards. A mission is being sent, not by your own desires, but by something, someone greater than yourself. Missions have a goal but how you get there is more flexible because it is about the mission, not you.
There is this little writing * that approaches what I am getting at. Here it is:
What if 2020 isn’t cancelled?
What if 2020 is the year we’ve been waiting for?
A year so uncomfortable, so painful, so scary, so raw—
that it finally forces us to grow.
A year that screams so loud, finally awakening us
from our ignorant slumber.
A year we finally accept the need for change.
Declare change. Work for change. Become the change.
A year we finally band together, instead of
pushing each other further apart.
2020 isn’t cancelled, but rather
the most important year of them all.
(Leslie Dwight)
So, keep going. You might even want to share with your children the insight that life is difficult….but worth it. And let me ask you the questions. You’ll be all right. You may even discover you are a new person.
Sincerely,
Life
*writing discovered by church Secretary, MaryBeth LaMont