Good morning…
Last Monday morning I woke feeling like a “failure.”
I had facilitated our final Friday morning class and was scheduled to teach our last Zoom class on Monday afternoon. I began the semester writing an interactive, online study with God, but, as we came to the final week, our Waking Up Whole: Mind, Body, and Soul study sat embarrassingly “unfinished,” weeks seven and eight remained only partially complete. In front of the seventy-something people on our combined rosters, I was exposed as a person who did not do what I set out to do. To add to my unsettled angst, I continued to struggle with the Zoom technology, which is so very simple for most smart people. Dangling out on a limb far away from my comfort zone, last Monday morning I woke feeling like a “failure,” a feeling which expanded in my mind to label the whole semester an epic fail.
By Monday afternoon, my anxious heart was creatively calmed. Let me tell you the story.
Back up to earlier in the semester. God had inspired me to bring to life a candlelit ritual using small cups of soil, orchestrating a make-shift Ash Wednesday service with our in-person class the first Friday in Lent. Honoring God’s enduring truth – from dust we have come and to dust we will return – we each took our turn symbolically surrendering our inner soil to the LORD’s purposes, each pouring our cup of dirt into a transparent vase. (See photo above.) Out loud we wondered, “Maybe we will add some seeds to the soil and nurture their growth,” but, instead of actual seeds, on the last day of class we each wrote on a piece of paper the one word summing up for us this one-of-a-kind semester. We took turns explaining our words, then we folded them and placed them as an offering into our collective soil.
Then in our final Zoom class last Monday afternoon, we broke into intimate groups of three to share our personal answers to the same question: “What is the one word summing up this semester for you, a word you will carry forward into the future?” Listening attentively as we unpacked final thoughts in our large group, I jotted down some of the “chosen words” in my journal and later wrote them on separate slips of paper. I folded them and tucked them into our see-through vase.
I felt encouraged by the heartfelt sharing, amazed that God had actually been doing something very important through our incomplete study. My focus had been on discerning Spirit-led words week by week, leading soul-filling discussion, finishing fully the writing of this new eight-week study, but deeper down, beneath my view, God’s invisible power had filtered through my glaring imperfections to spark some incredible healing in the hearts of these women.
A few days later, during a quiet morning, I sat on the floor and unfolded the words summing up our semester. God’s incredible healing expanded into me. Now experience with me these life-changing words.
Unfinished – “I am embarrassed that this study I set out to write is unfinished, but I just enjoyed a walk and talk with a friend who will be a grandmother for the first time this summer and something new dawns on me. I think to myself, ‘Right now, that baby in the belly is unfinished. And it should be. This new person is designed to remain unfinished today.’ We need to trust that this growing baby will be formed fully by God over time and that this new gift will be birthed into the world, whole and unique, when the moment is right. I need to trust that this growing study will be formed fully by God over time and that this new gift will be birthed into the world, whole and unique, when the moment is right.”
Uncovered – “So much of the uniqueness God planted inside me for His purposes is being gradually uncovered this semester.”
Changing – “This has been such a changing semester. I began with my whole life pretty much quarantined away from people. Anxious. Lonely. Depressed. This class is my first step back into the world. I realize that God is changing me from the inside out. Now I am excited about reentering life with the Spirit of God leading me.”
Connection – “After being held away from people for much of this pandemic, I crave connection. This class has given me a sense of deep connection with God, with myself, and with our special group. We are all so powerfully connected.”
True self – “My true self is unfinished. I have a whole lifetime to wake up whole. God is not done with me yet.”
Serene acceptance – “I am working my way to a sense of serene acceptance. In faith, I trust God more and more with whatever ‘is’ on any given day.”
Pain – “With our Waking Up Whole class this semester I have learned to embrace more deeply this C.S. Lewis quote: ‘Pain insists on being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our consciouses, but shouts in our pain. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.’ I am being aroused by God to break out of my deafness.”
Wonder – “Surrendering everything is the only way to have all areas of our life integrate into wholeness. We watch in wonder as God wakes us whole.”
Surrender – “Surrender in a different way. Surrender to the process. I am a planner. I am used to doing my homework Monday through Friday. I have always been a high achiever. Since weekly lessons were not completed as I expected them to be, this semester has helped me to find my own daily intimacy with God rather than filling in the ‘right’ answers in the blanks of a Bible study.”
Spiritual – “I started this semester as a religious person, through this class I have learned that I am a deeply spiritual person. The Spirit of God actually lives in me. The Spirit is the Guide leading me into my future.”
Favored – “Though I have had lots of financial and health problems this semester, God keeps letting me know I am favored. God reminds me again and again, I am favored by Him.”
Dancing – “Joy. God is close. We are all connected. The key is to let God lead our dance through the indwelling Holy Spirit. This has been such a bonding semester.”
“Center me down.” – The prayer of Betty Skinner has become my guide this semester. “Center me down, Lord, to innermost of my inner most, until all of me kneels before You. Then, in this night as I sleep in Your presence, in the morning as I awake in Your presence, silently, reverently, waitfully, bring me to Your table that I might see with Your eyes, hear with Your ears and love with Your heart.”
Center down – “Betty’s Center Me Down prayer will always stay with me too. Every morning I say, ‘Center me down, Lord. Help me release everything to You in prayer.'”
Known – “I am known and loved by the God who made me for His eternal purposes. I think of the Corrie ten Boom quote, ‘Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.'”
Connection – “I have loved the intimate connection each week with women from all over the country and Canada.”
Revelation – “I have learned so much, had so many ‘Ah-ha’ moments with God. We all have choice. Our daily choices matter immensely.”
Intense listening – “I will always remember Betty Skinner saying, ‘I want to listen people into the Eternal Listener’s presence.’ Also this quote stays with me, ‘Maybe we help each other die so that we can help each other really live.'”
Unmoved – “As I stay put with God, unmoved in my daily devotion, the living Christ grows a life of love from my quiet center.”
I woke feeling like a complete “failure” last Monday morning. In a trusting community of authentic Christ-followers, God transformed my heart by mid afternoon. As we each plant ourselves honestly in the fertile soil of God, together we wait, we watch, we wonder, “What will the Spirit grow in our common ground over time?”
But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s! (Romans 8:9-11, MSG).
Feeling “failure” in the morning, by mid afternoon I witnessed Christ’s Spirit living and breathing among us, quietly, gradually waking us more whole, mind, body, and soul.
…Sue…
