January 2021 2
Walking Hope. for The Mudroom.
The sky had been stormy for hours already, so the transition to night was difficult to discern. Disoriented, soaked through, and shivering—we waited for direction.
We had started out the day staring at an “x” on a map, a destination we needed to reach. As the day grew long, our surroundings didn’t look right and our little team began to grumble. The leaders of our expedition, my husband and another member of the group we were traveling with, finally confessed they didn’t think the path we had been following all day would take us to our destination.
Once they realized we were on the wrong trajectory they set off to right our course, but this correction took us down a hill that was already steep before the day’s rains had turned the decline into a muddy slide.
What would happen next lay in their hands. I could see the weight of the decision they must make pressing down on them. Would we continue through the brush trying to find the path, darkness barking at us like a hungry dog? Or would we go back the way we came, returning to the marked (but wrong) trail to find a place to camp? How much longer could we go on in this cold, wet terrain—weary as we were? Whatever they decided affected us all.
I squeezed my children’s hands, trying to pass some confidence into their shaking arms. My five-year-old son’s twenty-pound pack made him look like a turtle slumping under a too-heavy shell. My daughter, two years older than him and trying to seem much braver, winced. I knew her ankles hurt but she wouldn’t say anything about it again. She could see the worry in her dad’s eyes.
We’d been hiking for 48 hours, the last few in sloshy boots and packs burdened with rainwater. In those moments when we stood still waiting for a way forward, hope began to wane. Even if we found a suitable place to camp, could we start a fire in this rain? No longer warmed by the constant movement, we shivered in fear. Hunger gnawed at our confidence that everything would be okay.
Maya Angelou said,
“Each of us has the right and the responsibility to assess the roads which lie ahead, and those over which we have traveled, and if the future road looms ominous or unpromising, and the roads back uninviting, then we need to gather our resolve and, carrying only the necessary baggage, step off that road into another direction.”
“If the new choice is also unpalatable, without embarrassment,” she added, “we must be ready to change that as well.”
There are moments when there doesn’t seem to be a path that leads us back to good. We’re past the point of no return, and there is no map laid out for what happens next. Despair weighs us down like the straps of a pack digging into our shoulders.
I am reminded of another scared group huddled amongst the trees, waiting for directions for their next steps. Confused by the path their leader said he would lead them down and exhausted, they went aside to pray. In the garden whose name means “pressed,” he was crushed by the weight of what was to come like the olive crushed to extract the precious oil from its skin.
Jesus knelt in prayer and wrestled with the uphill climb he knew was ahead but committed to pressing on because of the faith he had in what lay on the other side. He knew the future would be hard for those men he loved sleeping under the olive trees: the weight they would carry, the despair that would try to defeat them.
But he knew hope isn’t stagnant.
It requires testing the road ahead and if we lose our way, keeping on.
Changing course.
Never giving in.
Night was coming and those men couldn’t see beyond it.
Yet they followed the One who led them on...
CONTINUE READING AT THE MUDROOM
Dwell. One Word 2021.
It seems like the logical next step. Except I know enough of God by now to know that logic has nothing to do with the journey of this life.
Last year, still straddling the transition between life in Asia and life in the U.S., God gave me the word, “build.” There were obvious literal applications as we rebuilt our lives in a home that didn’t feel like home, as Lee built a new career, and we renovated a home that needed to grow with our family.
Dwell is a clear follow-up word, right? Once you build something, you live in it. And yet, it is anything but evident to me that this should be the next step. The way the word “build” guided me into understanding myself and the need to love the incompleteness of this life in the last year was unexpected.
I realized I had been looking for a place to belong and instead found abundance in the midst of always being a pilgrim wandering toward home. More than anything, I learned to let go, to accept the life that is always going to be lived under construction and in-between brokenness and wholeness.
My word for 2021 first floated into my mind late last fall as I sat beneath the enveloping branches of a Magnolia tree. I had walked by these same trees a dozen times but never stopped to truly look at them. But my pace that day as I walked around the monastery on a silent retreat allowed me the time to stop and to see anew.
As I sat inside the hollow the branches created and thought about how I had spent 2020 with my word for the year so far, I realized I had started the year with anticipation and momentum, only to find—like everyone else—that the world came to a standstill. As I sat in silent prayer, God showed me all the things that were built in me throughout the year. While outward movement stopped, my roots grew deeper.
The word "dwell" entered my mind like a leaf on the breeze but I didn't hold onto it yet. I opened my hand and let it float away, waiting to see if it returned.
It kept coming to the forefront of my thoughts throughout the next month, though. With it came the echoes of a verse of Scripture many of us know well: “Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness” (Psalm 37.3, ESV).
The Psalm is said to have been written by King David in his old age. The people of God, indeed, lived in the promised land when he wrote those words, but not in a perfect kingdom. David had seen war, failure, the inability to build the temple to God he saw as a completion of the kingdom, betrayal, loss. Looking back on his reign, it was far from complete. He must have looked back with regrets and a longing to see the fulfillment of the goodness God has promised his people.
And yet, he looked forward also with trust. With a belief that amidst an imperfect world God’s people could still see good, do good, and yet dwell in the land with faithfulness.
Dwell. It is an invitation to take the time to be present, even in the imperfection. To take the time to listen to God. “Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?” asks Mary Oliver.
“While the soul, after all, is only a window,
And the opening of the window no more difficult
Than the wakening from a little sleep”
Wake up. Throw open the window. Breathe deeply. Dwell.
It is an invitation to live in the now and not-yet that is our life or faith instead of always chasing after the next thing, the answers, and the illusions of perfection. Can we sit awhile in this half-built house around us and stare out at the trees? Can we accept the mystery and be just where we are?
It is an invitation to live in this world as broken as it may be and to still believe it can be better, that we can be part of making it better. David never saw the temple complete in his life but he built a foundation that his son then continued to build upon. Can we live in the broken places without being consumed by them, to continue to hope?
We may not see how the tiny acts of faithfulness we live out make a difference, but we can trust that they will unite together with all the other tiny acts of faithfulness to matter. Can we dig down into the places God has planted us and take the very next step to build a more Beloved Community?
We’re not done building this home, this Beloved Community in which we live and work and play and dream together. And yet, we must dwell in it—in all it’s imperfections and missing pieces.
We can’t always be chasing after something we don’t yet have or the things we’ve lost. Right now is what we’ve been given. We need to find ways to live at peace in it and to find the beauty in it.
And yet, we keep reaching to make it better, to renovate and redesign and bring more people into the midst of this promised land that we know will be beautiful in time.
***
How do you see God showing you to dwell in the one life you’ve been given? How do you allow yourself to be present in daily life, in God’s presence, in the now and not yet? Do you struggle with restlessness, discontentment, or despair? How do you feel challenged to “befriend faithfulness” in your current situation?
Do you have one word to guide your year? What do you hope this word brings you this year? What change or growth would you like to see it bring your way in 2021?
Leave me your One word below if you want me to pray for you (or send me a message through the Contact page if you don’t want it to be public). I’d love to be a part of your journey this year.
Listen. Learn. Love. is my monthly letter to you, the one who wants to find the places where faith and action intersect. Sign up here.
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