It Won't Always Be Winter #spark 03
I’ve been unemployed for almost six months.
I’ve been rejected by over 20 employers. I’m living with the shadow of leaving my pastoral role in such a sudden and disruptive way. This has been a tough season.
My wife had an appropriately melancholy illustration for our ungraceful departure from our church community. To the congregation that we spent so many years of our lives with, we had become a balloon suddenly blown from their hand and floating away. Imagine a child who has a balloon they really love, and they accidentally let go of it. The child is brokenhearted as their balloon drifts higher and higher into the sky - gone without any hope of retrieval. They watch the balloon get smaller and smaller, crying and wishing they could somehow get the balloon back. But, as the balloon gets further and further away, the child moves on to some other thing. They are given another balloon - or an ice cream cone - and they soon forget about the balloon they lost.
I’m not suggesting the people from our congregation are children. It’s simply that humans can only bear truly sorrowful times for a short period. Then we adapt, create a new normal, and move on. This simple idea is born out in our physiology over and over again. We hear an annoying sound, but in a few minutes, out mind has filtered it out. We smell something horrible, but if we just wait a couple of minutes, our minds shut that smell out. God made us as wonderfully adaptable beings!
As time has continued on, fewer and fewer people from our congregation ask about us or check in on us, and this is right and good. This is how it should be. When we chose to do what we did, we did so trusting God: that he would be with the congregation and help them move on. Over the past several months, many from the congregation have found new church communities, some have stayed in our old church community, and most have gotten on with their lives in a new context. The trauma of the balloon’s sudden loss is forgotten as it should be.
Winter
This season began at the end of October and has lasted far longer than I ever expected it to. It's interesting to me that this season of departure and loss coincides with the actual season of winter.
Winter is the season that reminds us of mortality and loss. It reminds us that change sometimes means death and barrenness. It’s a season where we find ourselves longing for the spring, new life, and warmer days. The steady progression of the literal seasons becomes an allegory of our figurative seasons of life. When we are in winter, we know spring is coming, and we have hope. When we are in summer, we know it will soon be autumn, and we remember to savor every summer day.
It was within the understanding of this allegory that God quietly encouraged me again.
I had four job interviews within a couple of weeks right at the end of winter. The interviews for each job went well. I felt a real connection with each interview team, and I began to be hopeful that a job offer would be coming soon.
But the time after the interviews continued to stretch on. I looked into the future and began to despair a bit that a job offer would ever be coming. I know this is irrational, but as I’ve noted elsewhere, your feelings, even when irrational, are telling you something. My emotions were alerting me to my depleted spirit. It’d been a long journey and the tank was nearing empty.
In that season, my morning practices illuminated my darkness. I was stepping through the Psalms in an interactive reading. I would read the psalmist’s words, and then bring the heart and intent into my present situation. Then I would join the psalmist, writing my own response to theirs.
Psalm 17 came up.
Here is what I wrote:
Psalmist:
I call on you, my God, for you will answer me; turn your ear to me and hear my prayer.
Me:
I need a job, Father!
Psalmist:
Show me the wonders of your great love,
you who save by your right hand those who take refuge in you from their foes.
Keep me as the apple of your eye;
hide me in the shadow of your wings
Me:
I am your beloved. You are my king. Help me to rest in you!
It may not seem like much, but these words nudged me into being more insistent in asking God for a job. I see how the psalmist unapologetically asks for what he needs, trusting that the requests made to God will be heard. This is the power of Scripture: not just that God has spoken, but that God is SPEAKING.
I prayed out of obedience, pouring my heart of need out to God. I don't claim to know how prayer works. As I pray, I have the sense that God is changing something IN ME more than changing the fabric of reality to accommodate my desire. I believe God was working hope into me as I prayed for provision.
It’s taken me several weeks to write this post, because I needed more time to meditate on the meaning of the experience I had. In that time, I’ve seen some wonderful things happen. I kept saying what I’ve said all along: “God gave me the last job. God will give me the next job.” But in the dead of winter, it can be hard to imagine the spring.
The Spark
Around the time of my first efforts to write this post, I pulled out of the driveway in my car and started to drive off to wherever I was going when something caught my eye. There, under the mulberry tree, I could see the early shoots of the long-leafed plants that emerge every year in the spring (I think they're day lilies). I paused in the middle of the road and felt a weight lift off my shoulders. I felt the Lord nudge me:
“It won’t always be winter.”
I was filled with a flood of relief. I sensed the presence of God, being reminded that he is with me in the winter, just as Jesus is with me in the summer and every other season. I let out a deep breath and thanked God for this gift of awareness. It didn't have to happen, but it did.
With that spark, the flame (pilot light?) of hope was lit again in my soul. I drove on in reverent silence, contemplating the meaning of this latest spark. I had the sudden irrational confidence that just as spring was literally replacing winter with each day, I would be employed soon. Nothing had changed in my situation. I still had no answers. I still was caught in the balancing act of trying to juggle so many job opportunities and rejections. I was still unemployed.
But this spark rekindled my hope.
This is our good and beautiful God. In the midst of our need, God is speaking. We may struggle to hear. It may be a whisper. Sometimes God shouts into our depression. But I know that Jesus is here with me, wherever “here” may be. He is with you, mourning, celebrating, listening, encouraging, and always inviting you deeper on the journey.
For me, this is what it looks like. A simple reminder that it won’t always be winter is all it took in the moment. Maybe you need something different, something more. God knows what you need, like God knew what I needed.
I’m happy to report that I start my new job on May 1st, exactly 6 months after this winter began. The redbud and the dogwood in my front yard are both in full bloom. The ground that was brown and dead a little over a month ago is now a vibrant green. I had to mow my lawn this past weekend. What a joy!
The grass seed I spread on the dirt patch where my deck used to be (I removed it last summer), is sprouting and the brown patch is slowly turning green. I'm celebrating my good and beautiful God’s faithfulness and provision.
It won’t always be winter.
What kind of winter have you experienced?
If you’re in winter right now, what will you do to maintain your connection with your Creator?
What do you need to believe that it won’t always be winter?
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