New Number, Who Dis?: Transitions
All across the globe, August begins the season of transition; as learners prepare for another year of knowledge, as long days and summer nights turn shorter and colder, as the earth prepares for harvest, we all must reckon with another phase of simultaneous endings and beginnings. I have been taking this month as an opportunity to revision this last leg of the year (read: DECADE, YA’LL! whew), and I am going to be transparent: I got a lot going on. Since my study of Proverbs, God has been crystal clear in holding me accountable and gathering this sinful flesh of mine on a regular basis, or more specifically calling me to celibacy (again), counting calories, and working out three times a week; I am also preparing to move apartments here in Chicago; I engaged in my quarterly spirit recalibration through a 21-Day meditation challenge; AND I began seeing a therapist (see…told ya’ll, A LOT). By taking the time to turn inward this summer, I have relished in both reflecting on HOW I survived a n d realizing the power that I have in CHOOSING how I want to LIVE now. There is one thing that I have learned and that I am continuing to learn: Our healing is in ending and beginning again.
· Maybe you had an old coach who was hyperfocused on minimizing your concerns and contributions and maximized your errors. Did you dismiss and disavow that mentorship and now you get physically and emotionally agitated when getting feedback from folks, especially those in authority?
· Maybe you got into an injurious car accident when you were 12 while your dad was driving you home from a friend’s place. Do you now sometimes forego hanging with friends and spending quality time for fear something bad may happen?
· Maybe you were the protector for your siblings, reading stories while mom and her boyfriend fought in the other room and fixing dinner at night for your family. Do you constantly place the needs of others above yourself while invalidating your feelings and vulnerability, functioning “at your best” in chaos?
· Maybe you learned to be self-sufficient really early and spent the bulk of your childhood raising yourself, fixing your own meals, walking yourself to school, and setting your own curfew while a parent was out of the home providing or was just out of it due to drugs or alcohol or both. Do you often disengage easily and withdraw in moments of complexity or conflict?
As it turns out, those behaviors and thought patterns that helped us survive, that made sense in the moment, and that protected us from emotional and physical pain, do not often bode well outside of their context. Because forgiving and releasing is hard AND it often goes undetected and unfinished, your life is maintaining outdated, well-intentioned, strategic survival strategies that are wreaking havoc on your new life.
While still one of the revered books of wisdom, the biblical book of Ecclesiastes takes a more critical, almost brash perspective on gathering insight about the ways in which we make meaning of the world and the patterns we use to navigate. This practice is explicitly what Ecclesiastes calls us to “let go” in chapter 3.
Verses 1 – 14 “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.
What do workers gain from their toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time…I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live.”
By not allowing both the time and experience of our previous pains to end, we truly sabotage our ability to dance and build and laugh and search and love in the present. In trying to protect ourselves from others being able to hurt us (because I know we hurt each other badly) and trying to be in charge of your life and what happens to you, you end up living your life as you “think it should be” versus accepting and experiencing where you are and who you are right now. Our healing is in acknowledging HOW we have survived, paying homage to ourselves for the love in that survival, and having the courage to surrender to a new life with a clean slate and a heart towards forgiveness (you see I said towards and not at, because there will be some folks that we will be forgiving for a long time).
This will not be easy, but I have a secret and a joy I just cannot contain: the JOY is in allowing yourself to surrender, to die to that old you and be risen again. This joy – MY joy – comes from a Savior. As believers of Christ, WE know that there is literal salvation in being risen. I stake my life on the fact that Jesus died so that a very necessary and sinful ending would not stop me from beginning again as a new creation. In my ending almost two thousand and twenty years ago, death almost won, but life and joy are in surrendering my PATTERNS and THOUGHTS and BODY and HEART to a Savior that allows me to live again in power and in peace. I choose to end and begin again every day. Is it time that you do, too?