A New Way

I’ve been living life a new way recently.  I’ve been living by faith on a deeper level than I have before.  March 5 was the last day of my job, and since then I have been fundraising full time.  There have been ups and downs, but the word that captures it all for me: different.  I have no doubt that this is how I want to live, trusting God to provide for me.  However, it is difficult to give up the “safety” that I have created for myself over the past several years.  The safety of a pay check, the safety of measureable outcomes, the safety of knowing how to accomplish the things that need to be accomplished.

A few weeks ago I came across a (rather long) quote that summarizes what I am feeling and the reasons I want to live this way:  “Without the ability to imagine, even just for a few moments, what life looks like seen through another’s eyes, without the capacity to empathize with the pain or delight of another, to know that there have I been, and there I am, without the courage to go beyond the boundaries of our own self-interest, prejudices, cares, needs, and meet others without defences, how can we affirm, with Paul, that ‘if one part of the body suffers, all the other parts suffer with it; if one part is praised, all the others share its happiness’ (1 Cor. 12.26)?  It is not just that we have bodies, we are a body, in which the divisions are the illusion and the barriers and the disease.  Of all the divisions, the most damaging is that of one part of ourself from another part of ourself.  As long as we are strangers to ourselves, then we will be deeply strangers to others.  Sometimes it may be our experience of being deeply loved by another that will bring us home.  Life is kinder than we let it be, for there are so many occasions for love, if we don’t let fear overpower us.  So many opportunities for healing, for wholeness, and all of them signs of the grace of God that desires to go on loving us and healing us and calling us home to ourselves and to each other.  But without the facing of fear, even stumbling, even trembling, even sick to the pit of our stomachs, without these abandonments of jumping off the cliff into the arms of God, then we can only armour, repeat, retrench, self-protect, and whine at anyone who is different from us.  And face lives without passion, without sap, without grace.“ 

 –Kathy Galloway, Getting Personal: Sermons and Meditations

Read that again if you need to, there’s so much there.

I have jumped off the cliff.  There are many moments that I am unsure if His arms are there.  I have determined that I am going to live those moments just as much as I live the moments that I am sure of His arms.  I haven’t let the presence of fear deter me from jumping.  That has been my victory recently.  I am amazed at the strength He’s given me so far and I am trusting Him for even more.

Childlike Maturity

At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” He called a child, whom he put among them, and said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 18:1-4

When I think about child-like qualities, the words trusting, adventuresome and creative come to mind. At their best, children have not yet become cynical; they are open and trusting. Children also have the wonderful ability to live in the moment, in awe of the world around them. They are ready to explore the world, to get their hands dirty, to dream, create, and make life better. Isn’t this how we are all invited to be – open and trusting in our relationship with God; present in the moment and in awe of the world God has created for us; ready to dream big and then roll up our sleeves and help create the world God envisions? Perhaps Peter Pan was right; maybe we should never grow up!– Tracy Hartman

In many ways, the process I am going through right now is one of growing up.  It’s an opportunity to become more of who God created me to be.  It’s new community.  It’s new responsibilities.  It’s new work.  In many ways, it’s a new life.  As I’ve been thinking about this over the past months, I can’t help but think that I have tried to take on responsibilities (and worry about things) that are not mine.  I’ve tried to take responsibility for things that it are my Father’s responsibility (and joy) to provide me.  A child trusts her father to provide for her.  And I have an amazing Father who wants to provide all that I need.  He is providing all I need right now.  So, I hope that through this process, I can grow up into a child who trusts her Father for all that she needs and joyfully takes the responsibilities that He has given to her.