For the past few months, I’ve talked a lot about listening.
Specifically, listening to God.
Though I hesitate to make this blog into any kind of religious soapbox or forum, today feels very different. I’m going to take a risk and do a damned if I do, damned if I don’t leap into how I’ve learned to listen to God more.
Because for a long time, I fought against the current of how my relationships, my career and my identity evolved. My life seemed to exist in two time frames – past and future. I really believed that I could get whatever I wanted – that is, if I worked and sacrificed enough.
I broke my heart again and again.
I have never been further from God than I was before I learned how to pray. Until then, I was (unintentionally) ignoring him. The funny this is, when I went against my instincts or doubted myself, I felt distance. I just didn’t understand why.
So one night, I was up watching War Room – (Yes, a Christian movie.)
It was already 10 or 11 – on a work night. I had seen the movie a few times before. But this time, it made me reflect on my faith and I felt inspired to change. Instead of going to sleep (I was exhausted), I went to my closet and cleared everything out.
Clothes, shoes, junk – everything. I dragged all of it out into my bedroom where I could see it.
Then, I started to pray.
Before that experience, my prayers had always been jumbled thoughts and emotions. Half the time, I just wanted to complain to someone. I thought talking to God was telling Him what I wanted – dictating to Him what was right for me. That magically, He’d solve my problems because I asked Him to. Because I was mostly a good person, and threw in the occasional “and oh yeah, and world peace, please”, God trusted me to make the calls about my own life.
Yeah, that wasn’t working.
I still felt distant and unsure. So when I prayed this time, I wrote it down. Just one or two things. Then I taped them up on my closet doors.
For the next few weeks, I continued the practice.
The space went from an empty closet with a few Post-its, to walls of long, written out letters. I cut out pictures from magazines that varied from places I wanted to see, to food I wanted to try. Cultures I wanted to explore. I taped up old cards and letters friends had sent me that made me feel good. I even added artifacts – things from my trips to Iceland, pictures of loved ones, to remind me of when my prayers have been answered.
I even prayed and asked how I could pray better. I stopped setting up litmus tests to challenge God to prove He was listening to me. Instead, I just asked for Him to show me what to do. I let myself get super vulnerable, and at the risk of someone breaking into my house and reading everything I wrote down, I described some of my deepest fears and insecurities.
And though I’ll never be “finished” – I feel a sense of completion that I haven’t felt before.
Still, one burden remained. The best way to describe this situation was approaching a door, only to have it slammed in my face over and over again. Like a persistent Girl Scout or relentless solicitor, I kept going up to it. In fact, I was so hungry and determined to be right about this, many times, I’d throw myself between the door and the frame.
(I don’t know how well I’m summarizing this, but there’s a point here.)
Nothing changed. God didn’t give me what I wanted.
But He did give me some help – help in the form of my friends setting me straight. Help in the form of serendipitously placed articles and conversations. But also, a shit ton of tough love. He let me be disappointed again and again.
And wow, did I feel it.
One day, I sat and looked at all the pictures, prayers, and words I had compiled, and realized that despite my best efforts, my dedication – I had to give up. I had to believe what I had learned to believe about the other areas of life – if something is meant to be, it will be.
God works pretty quickly when He wants something to work out.
So I decided I was done. And perhaps it was the emotional exhaustion, but I felt a lot better for it. Not all at once, of course, but over time.
That brings us to today. I followed an instinct, and went to the Durham Summit branch. I’ve never been to the service downtown before, and even though I was over 20 minutes late, I still showed up.
I crept into the dimly lit theater, took a seat off to the side, and pulled out my journal as J.D. was preaching (via projection, not in person) about being thankful for the problems in our lives. I was half listening – which I try not to do when J.D. speaks, because everything he says is so frequently, exactly what I need to hear.
Despite anything J.D. Grear has ever said that has reached me, nothing can compare to what he said today. Two words that I was absolutely and undeniably supposed to hear.
“…a tapestry….” His voice echoed.
I literally snapped my head up.
Did he just say tapestry? I thought. Did he seriously just use that word?
Immediately, I thought of all the times I referred to my life as a “tapestry” to my friend Rachel. The times I’ve written about it, alluded to it in various blog posts. My secret Pinterest board called “tapestry”, where I pin motivating images and phrases.
Then he started talking about how God uses disappointment for good.
“Can you believe that?” J.D. asked. “That behind all of those bad things, is a good God?”
After church, I walked around downtown. On the surface, I probably looked super normal and calm, but inside, I was George Bailey running through Bedford Falls chanting, “Merry Christmas, everyone!”
(Minus the manic screaming)
I walked by wonderful old Building and Loan – my office. Where sometimes, yes, I’ve felt overly stressed and doubtful of my abilities. Past my movie house, the gym, a place that I love and also simultaneously hate, because I’m insecure about not being athletic enough.
Up and down blocks that I’ve walked through hundreds of times – on dates, with friends, alone – in the best and worst of moods and situations.
And I felt so incredibly grateful and humbled by it.
I’m not trying to prove that God was intending to reach me. I could have gotten that phrase “tapestry” from a previous sermon. But the reassurance was everything – that good or bad, every part of my life was meant to be mine. And not because I had somehow failed to mold myself into the best version of myself by now.
The disappointment wasn’t intended to punish me. It was intended to belong to me.
To quote pre-2016 Driftyland –
“As I examined all of the truly unique, beautiful works of art, I came across a piece made of small metal circles.
I took note of all of the intricacies. I didn’t really understand what it was, until I walked by again, stepped back and realized –
All of the madness made a shape.”
A perfect and imperfect combination of messes and tangles. Vibrant and muted colors of threads. Every little bit. Uniquely and wonderfully mine.