Learning to Lean In

She leaned forward over the table and set her mug of lukewarm coffee aside. Words soft but lips tense. "How can you be sure that all this struggling means anything?" The sadness behind her eyes was piercing and impossible to ignore.

I certainly don't know much. Each year the number of truths I know beyond a doubt shrivels. Each year questions replace the list of doctrines. Each year my view of God expands. It has settled, sifted, much of the I'm-not-so-sure-anymore falls through holes I poked out of my skin like a sieve. But what remains! The tiny diamonds, glistening anew, beauty begging to be marveled... it cannot be denied. This sifting is painful and sometimes gives way to loneliness. The sifting, the questioning while still intently following has brought me into much sadness. It's the same sadness I saw across the table- one that knows there is hope or the questions wouldn't have even escaped her lips. Oh yes, my friend, there is hope.

I reach in and show her one of those diamonds I've spent years cleaning off, painstakingly, gently. Still dusty and raw.

You lean into it. Press into the questions, the doubts, the pain, the struggle, all of it. You stay there awhile, in the wondering, in the loneliness, in the waiting, leaning into the biting wind instead of running to safety. You keep on leaning and saying the hard things out loud and naming the hurt, owning this place, the shifting ground you've landed on. You lean in, until you're sure God is there, too.

But shouldn't we know? I mean, that's what faith is for. I am supposed to have faith.

We've lost so much of the richness of that word- know. Knowledge is something of the intellect, taking place in the brain. But it's deeper than that. To know deeply is something more than just knowing consciously. It's more than my finite mind can explain like facts on a power-point presentation. It digs, sharp and deep, down through myself to the core of who I am. That thing- and it is a thing of substance- it is my absolute foundation.

I know that what God creates God will not abandon.

I know my calling and everyone's is to co-create by Jesus' example of the power of love over the love of power.

I know that nothing can separate me from that Love. Not even death.

I know that the human condition is one of pain, but I also know that I find my life when I offer it up in service, not when I act independently, grasping for control and security. Instead I can invest infectious love into my community and trust that others will catch on to the notion that either we all matter or none of us do.  Repeat: Or none of us do.

I know that my perspective of the joys and struggles is so very small, and I must trust a bigger story.

Much like childbirth, the more we tense up, clench our jaw, fight the pain, the more it hurts. Mommas know. I learned by my third delivery that the key to suffering was to surrender. This process has to happen. It takes everything within me to not fight back, but to breathe and focus on release of all tension. And you know what? The pain doesn't go away, but somehow it hurts less. And there is such freedom in trusting the process will give way to LIFE.

******

I am listening. Keep talking. There is no rush. And there's always more coffee.