Good morning…
With the Coronavirus changing life so rapidly, last Friday morning I didn’t know if women would want to gather in our living room to discuss chapters 9 and 10 in The Hidden Life Awakened. So I sent out an email polling people’s opinions about meeting for our weekly class. A few women were nursing a cold or allergies and stayed home as a precaution. A couple moms were home with children since their schools had been canceled for at least two weeks. The huge majority promptly popcorned back, “I’ll be there.” “Wouldn’t miss it.” “Can’t wait to be together.”
As our close-knit group gathered together, we shared thoughts about the pandemic pressing in on us, we lifted prayers, and, among other quotes, we read aloud these powerful words of ninety-four-year-old Betty Skinner: “Trust and letting go work mysteriously together. Nothing ever stays the same in our lives. Again and again we are called to let go in order to find a new way. If we continue to cling to the past and never dare to let go, we will never learn to trust. If we never learn to trust, we will never dare to let go. Our choice is this: to become more bound up trying to fight the reality we find ourselves in, holding on to our illusion of control, or to trust God’s goodness and desire to move us to a new place of freedom. The more we make the choice to believe that God knows and wants what is best for us, the easier it becomes to trust that everything that happens is exactly as it should be.”
Betty’s advice then shifted us to the practical: “The first step is to surrender. We have to let go of how we perceive things and people in our life should be. The second step is to allow some time for God to work and for circumstances to unfold, enabling us to see things a little more clearly before we act. The third step is to accept in love and trust whatever happens, however it happens, whenever it happens. That doesn’t mean it won’t be painful, but this deep acceptance of however He choose to enter our life will soften us and enable us to move to a new place of healing in spite of the pain. And finally, as Jesus exhorts us, once we put our hand to the plow, we are not to look back, trusting that the seeds of new life are being planted that will unfold into something far more beautiful than anything our finite minds can imagine or hope for… When we finally awaken and learn to life from this place, we will become the still-point, the reconciling factor, in the midst of the chaos in our families, our work, and our world” (126-127).
As I finished reading, we sat in stilled silence. Then one woman spoke up, “There is one more quote in this chapter that sums it all up for me. When I read it a while ago, it didn’t really hit me. When I read it during this chaotic week, I was blown away.”
Then she read Betty’s quote aloud to the class: “When we defend ourselves, define another person or situation, or deny our culpability, we cease to see things as they really are. A situation that we label terrible is, in reality, to be used in some mysterious way for our good” (128). We all agreed. The Coronavirus, we label it “terrible.” Yet might the situation brought about by this world-wide pandemic, in reality, be used in some mysterious way for our good?
Before our final prayer, we reviewed Betty’s simple steps: Surrender. Allow some time for God to work. Accept in love and trust whatever happens. Trust the seeds of new life are being planted. Become the still-point, the reconciling factor, in the midst of the chaos. A situation that we label terrible is, in reality, to be used in some mysterious way for our good. Make sure you don’t take things for granted and go slack in working for the common good; share what you have with others. God takes particular pleasure in acts of worship—a different kind of “sacrifice”—that take place in kitchen and workplace and on the streets (Hebrews 13:16, MSG).
…Sue…
P.S. Unbeknownst to all of us, Friday’s gathering in our living room was the last class for at least the next two weeks since Northside Church has suspended all of its face-to-face meetings to help curb the spread of the Coronavirus. As we watch God use this challenge time mysteriously for our good, we will stay creatively in touch through email and texts, through phone calls and individual walk-n-talks, through prayer and our everyday blog posts.
