Pastor Bart Smith uttered those profound words one Sunday morning after the church choir couldn’t quite get our entrance timed correctly with the accompaniment CD. We needed a re-do! So we just started over instead of trying to plow through when we were out of time with the music.
I have thought about that phrase so often through the years. Life has a way of humbling us and beating us down. A couple of the job assignments I have been tasked with the past few years have been HUGE learning curves. Complicated, fast-paced, with impatient people sighing, grumbling, glaring, and emitting general intolerance of my challenges of learning my job when it slows them down or makes them wait.
I often tell myself, “Well, you can quit or you can work through it.” I try to work through it. It’s humbling sometimes, but I don’t have to allow it to make me feel humiliated.
Being humble is different than being humiliated. Being humble lets me laugh and tell the person in front of me that there isn’t a long line of people standing in the wings wanting to push me out of the way to do my job.
A few years ago, my mother’s beautiful pergola had rotting posts and upper supports that were about to collapse under the weight of the wisteria they supported. My dad cut the vines back and tore the structure down. One day when I was visiting, Mom looked at the area that now stood bare and open. Losing the pergola left a huge hole. It was a loss. She sighed and said sadly, “I guess I’ll have to get used to it being gone.” I replied, “Oh no! We’ll have to replace it.” The family pulled together and we rebuilt it.
A few years ago, after a devastating sequence of events that made me feel like my life had collapsed around me, I entered a phase of recuperation and re-imagining.
I took a job that I thought would be very short term. Instead I have been there five years and feel like I am an integrated part of a team.
I also have been studying with some teachers who are deepening my understanding and appreciation of faith. I believe that faith and belief in God is needed now more than ever. Being able to know and to say that I am certain that Emmanuel, Jesus, is with us. God is with us.
In a world where deception is increasing at an alarming rate, where violence and daily struggles make us wonder if everything is going to be ok, I am trying to focus on how to find and know God. Blocking voices and influences that are actually impeding my relationship with God.
Thoughts From the Garden 