Still Being Spoken

I've talked here before, and quoted from Robert Benson's "The Echo Within".  It's the book on calling that I picked up in Michigan, on the way home from Ontario, after I'd lost my job.  It's the book that shaped, to some extent, the process of discernment that led me to choosing this journey towards nursing.  And it's the book that inspired my thoughts on being "duckless."

I was flipping through this marvelous little book again the other morning, and came across the following two bits.

"We are, said Bob Mulholland, 'an incarnate word, spoken by God, still being spoken by God.'  And because we are still being spoken, the questions we have about calling, are, in part, questions about listening for the incarnate word whispered into us.  They are questions about learning to open up to and becoming the word that was whispered into us.  And is still being whispered into us." (pg. 13)

"Somewhere deep inside of me, perhaps in the truest and most holy part of me - the part of me that is the most me there is or ever will be - there is an echo of the Voice that spoke me into being and is still speaking the incarnate word who is Robert.  If I can learn to recognize that Voice, I may also learn to trust it." (pg. 14)

These two bits struck deeply as I pondered the last week or two.  It's been a swirl of reminders to trust, and a swirl of moments where trusting felt like clinging for dear life, with white knuckles and gritted teeth.

One of those moments involved finances, and working. 

I turned down a job offer the other day.  Not because I thought I'd dislike the job (I was pretty sure I wouldn't).  Not because the pay was poor (though it was.)  But because deep inside me, as I'd been pondering the whole "part-time work while in school this summer" situation, as I'd been praying, I'd reached the conviction that this summer needed to be about focusing on my studies and about rest.  That it was to be a time of recovery from the stresses of some major life challenges and of the toxic environment in which I worked for the last three years.  That it was time to rest, to heal, to be restored, to find health again.

Sounds good, right?

And practically, I'm financially okay to do this.  I'm even financially okay to not work a bit longer than that if nothing pops up immediately in September.

My head and heart sort of agree on this.  It's a good decision, one that I believe is God's leading.

But as soon as I made it, I descended into panicky sobs.

Because, you see, fear plays a role, too.

And in turning down a job I opened a deep fear - that there wouldn't be something else.  That being dismissed from my last job was actually a statement of my worth.  That clearly I didn't have value as an employee, and that was why I'd been fired.

It didn't really matter in that moment that I knew that none of those things were true.  In that moment I could list other examples for you.  Examples like losing a job during the depression years, basically because I wasn't "perky" enough. 

It didn't even matter in that moment that my heart could also recognize this as a wound that God was offering to heal if I would choose to trust again in his timing, his leading, his provision.

All I could really acknowledge was the fear, and the latent grief over the way my job came so suddenly to an end.  And I cried for a long time.  Then I forced myself to sit with a journal, and acknowledge "out loud" all of the things I was feeling.

And then I started reminding myself of all the reasons and confirmations along the journey, as I started this summer path of studying and resting.  As I started walking this new direction towards nursing.

And I thought of these lines from Benson, about trusting the voice that is speaking.  And about a word that is still being spoken.  My life is still being spoken, and it's being spoken by One whom I am increasingly able to trust.  One who's loving care and direction is something I see increasingly, and increasingly find rest in.

"Somewhere deep inside of me, perhaps in the truest and most holy part of me - the part of me that is the most me there is or ever will be - there is an echo of the Voice that spoke me into being and is still speaking the incarnate word who is Lisa.  If I can learn to recognize that Voice, I may also learn to trust it" (Benson, with a change of name to personalize for me.)

I am still being spoken.  And that, my friends, is one of the most comforting thoughts that I've encountered in quite some time.