When I got home from church this morning I sent Pastor Debbie a text saying that for the first time in probably six months, I made it through a church service with no back pain. For a whole hour this morning, I stood up and sat down and stood up and sat down and didn’t even have a twinge of pain. It was beautiful.
As I sit here writing though I can feel the pain returning. And that’s okay. I know I still have work to do to get healthy, but, again, for an hour this morning, life was blissfully normal.
The other day I was walking the labyrinth. It was a warm and sunny December afternoon. And as I walked all I could think about was how I wished it was summer already. And then I laughed. Summer was only six months away. Where had the last six months gone? Why did 2011 feel like it had flown by? And why was I praying to God for something momentous to happen in my life in 2012? Was finishing the discernment process, becoming a postulant, entering seminary, finishing my first seminary class, having to take an extended sick leave from work not momentous enough for me in 2011?
There is a scene in the movie Total Recall where Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character Douglas Quaid has just arrived on Mars. He’s being hunted by government officials and when his disguise goes wrong, said officials open fire on him, taking out a window and causing the facility to depressurize. One soldier is sucked out into the uninviting and unlivable Martian air. Everyone else hangs on for dear life as suction threatens to tear them from whatever it is they are clinging to.
Even burly Arnold is barely hanging on.
That was how my life felt back in August and September and October this past year, like I was barely hanging on, like the forces of nature were conspiring against me to rip me away from the journey I had undertaken.
Bitter became my favorite word. I was angry, so angry and hurt that after being given a glimpse of the life God had planned for me, I couldn’t head directly to my destination. Instead I was seemingly trapped by my health and by my job, kept from the one thing I wanted more than anything in the world, which was to fully devote myself to seminary and a life of following Christ.
I’ve had a lot of time the last few months to reflect on that.
And I’m pleased to say that the bitterness and anger has faded and been replaced by contentment. For a while there I resented teaching because I thought it was keeping me away from my journey to the priesthood, but since I’ve been away from it, I find I miss it more than ever, that teaching is part of the journey. It’s not a roadblock or a detour, it is something that completes me and fills a place in my heart. Even when I become a priest, teaching will always be a part of what I do.
I find that I’m slowing down, that I’m comfortable with God taking the wheel, that it’s easier sometimes to let someone else drive as long as you can promise not to become a backseat driver.
Some months ago, I wrote about God speaking through the messages in the Dove chocolate bar wrappers. And just yesterday this is what I unwrapped … “You are exactly where you are supposed to be.”
That is sometimes a hard, but necessary lesson to learn.
That God has you exactly where you are supposed to be.
And maybe that means you’re like Douglas Quaid in Total Recall, hanging on for dear life, but doing so with a purpose. Later in the movie, it is Doug, who by just putting his hand on an alien reactor, causes a chain reaction that terraforms Mars, bringing oxygen and life to a dead planet.
As long as we continue the journey God has set before us, even when we have no idea of timelines or even destinations, we are exactly where we are supposed to be … with God—trusting Him.
May you hold strong in your faith in 2012.
