It’s an aggravating cliche for a reason— sometimes joy comes through right when you need it the most. Now, it doesn’t always solve anything, and can come with more questions than it answers, but it turns out it does actually happen sometimes. I didn’t expect that a snowy, quiet, and anxiety-haunted Wednesday morning would suddenly fling open doors towards things that I have been hoping for for a long time. But that is what happened. I cried. I laughed. I laughed through my tears. I walked through the snow dreaming about how all of this might just come together after all. I worried a bit about details and possible failure.
I can’t say that it snapped me out of my anxiety completely. In my experience, anxiety doesn’t usually work that way, and grief definitely doesn’t. But it did give my brain something new, something hopeful, something beautiful to mull over. And I will be honest, it felt vindicating. I had really started to wonder whether all my discernment, all my growth, my careful questions, all that slow feeling my way towards something I couldn’t quite see, was foolishness after all. And honestly, it might have been. It was definitely a risk. I had started to wonder about God, and if certain critical errors had been made somewhere along the line, or maybe I had misunderstood. There were signs along the way, but I had really started to wonder whether I had read them all wrong.
An open door in a lot of ways is just that, a possibility. A movement towards something where there had previously been a barrier. But the joy that comes with it, and that feeling of recognition, the relief of movement in a space of long waiting, now that is powerful stuff. But this big joy moment of possibility was cobbled together by a lot of angsty prayer, many long walks and even longer conversations. It was something I made room for, and that holding space was painful. I think we tend to see big moments of joy as something that descend upon us unanticipated and unasked for, which is sometimes true. But I think more often these moments take partnership, work, and a heck of a lot of time.
As I prepare to walk towards some big new things, which hopefully I can tell you about in more detail soon, I am quite sure that this next phase will involve many of the same things: patience, discernment, community, and trust. I’m sure I will navigate uncertainty, anxiety, and trepidation. And nothing is guaranteed. Maybe this door is simply here to lead me to yet another, but nonetheless, I am very grateful to walk through it.
I recently listened to a sermon on hope recently that reminded the congregation that while God is rarely early, God is always right on time. A classic phrase which I both knew to be true, and also begrudged rather deeply. It certainly didn’t feel true to me right at that moment. And there are many moments where I still struggle to understand my disappointed hopes and God’s mysterious sense of time. But at this particular moment, in this concrete space of fear and the great yawning unknown, joy and hope sprang up at just the right time. So what can I do but let my heart be glad? What else can I do by try and see what comes of it? My dreams, perhaps, are much closer than I realized. All I can do is gather every last scrap of my courage, to let this strange joy sweep through my heart, and give it a try.
Wellspring 