Each morning as a part of my routine I check my TimeHop app. Perhaps I'm a sucker for nostalgia, but I love looking back at what I've said on social media or pictures I shared in past years.
Sometimes I can't help but smile at this looking back. I giggle at silly memories and shake my head at the different hairstyles I've sported through the years. I rediscover books I've read or songs I've listened to. But sometimes this act of looking back is painful. I find happy memories that are no longer possible because of people who are no longer a part of my life. I find painful reminders of surgeries or treatments. I find judgmental statements, or at best naive statements, about how the world operates. Looking back helps me see how much I've grown. And though it causes pain sometimes, it also brings some hope because I know I am not where I was.
But every now and again, in the looking back, I'm called to look ahead to something new. Sometimes the barriers between past, present, and future fall away and I sit observing non-judgmentally (a true feat for me) at life. I sense the truth of the mystery that what was, what is, and what will be, is really not all that separate.
Today was one such day. Five years ago today I posted these lyrics from Benjamin Beddome:
And must I part with all I have,
My dearest Lord for thee?
It is but right since thou hast done
Much more than this for me.
Yes, let it go--one look from thee
Will more than make amends,
For all the losses I sustain
Of credit, riches, friends.
Five years ago. I was entering my last semester of undergrad work at Milligan. I had no clue what I wanted to do upon graduating. I was conflicted about whether or not I was going to continue my education through a Ph.D. route in Church History or if I was going to try to go to seminary. I was unsure of what I felt like God's call was on my life. I couldn't decide if becoming a professor would mean I had to give up my desire of being a minister, or if perhaps they could be one and the same thing.
However, I doubt that all of this was on my mind when I posted these lyrics. Knowing the way I used to compartmentalize my emotions and my studies, I sense that what actually happened was that I came across these lines in a reading somewhere and found them beautiful in and of themselves. I have a hunch that I might have thought for a moment what it might mean to part with things or people that I hold dear for the sake of Christ, but there was no substance to that. It was only a theory to pick apart, not a reality to be lived.
Five years changes a lot. I'm older now and have grown a lot in my sense of God's call on my life. I am wiser for those five years of experiences and challenges. And I've learned that theology is done best when it is lived out and not simply theorized about. And so, here I am, encountering these lyrics with new eyes and ears. And for the first time, I really know what they mean, and I really can pray them with a sense of truth ringing in the words.
You see, I've finally given myself over to God's call on my life. I've known for years that God was calling me to dedicate my life to God's work in the world, but I wasn't sure what that meant. I thought Youth Ministry for a while, then I thought work with the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, then I thought I had misunderstood the calling altogether! I then felt I was called to enter academia and minister to students there. Eventually, while at seminary, I gave up the idea that I had to figure out my whole life's calling in the moment and would instead allow God to lead, even if it was only for the next small and shaky step in the journey. In a lot of ways, I let go
It took a while (okay... a long while...) but I finally feel like God is opening my eyes to the path which I am to walk down next. I'm not sure exactly all of the details yet, but I know that the lyrics I posted five years ago ring truer than ever before.
I will be parting from things and people in very tangible ways. I know I'll have to move soon, and that means divesting my life of the things I've accumulated in the 8 years I've lived in Johnson City. But this also means that I'll be saying goodbye to people that I would rather not leave. Life won't be the same. And to be honest, I'm grieving that. I'm excited that God is bringing a new chapter into my life, but I am saddened by the knowledge that opening a new chapter means closing this current one.
Grief comes in many forms. And I'm learning that grief can come even in the midst of excitement. My prayer is that as I take these next steps, as I sustain losses of "credit, riches, friends" that God does indeed grant me a peace which surpasses understanding as I dwell under God's gaze.