My Learning Curve

Sometimes when I learn something new about myself or my life, after really internalizing it, I think, DUH! Often in retrospect, those lessons that seem so big and life-changing suddenly seem elementary.

I haven't made it much of a secret AT ALL (except to people in my office- ha!) that I'm pretty unhappy in my job. I moved back to the South this past July after a year in Colorado, where I loved my life. It was simple and, while not always easy, laid back. In Colorado I learned to drink coffee (love coffee, crave coffee, require coffee to live), picked up some mad crazy ping-pong skillZ, went horseback riding on mesas in a legit cowboy hat, kayaked, white water rafted, read books, watched LOST to my heart's content, drank wine, enjoyed stimulating company, removed carpet, repainted walls, destroyed one wall, baked fatty & sweet deliciousness, gained weight, lost a lot more weight, learned to love exercise, chopped my hair off, woke up earlier than ever before in my life on a regular basis, learned to drive a stick shift (on snowy dirt roads, up a mountain, for twenty miles, in the dead of winter, with no heat), wrote for the pleasure of it, wrote for money, went to the theatre, raised money for the theatre, jaywalked daily, saw a double rainbow over the mountain tops, danced several nights away, took Latin dance lessons, learned to appreciate Wal-Mart and thus learned to appreciate Target (1.5 hours away) THAT much more, frequented a bar where dogs were allowed, learned to drive in the snow, almost drove a suburban off the side of a muddy mountain (with my cousins in the car), saw a herd of wild elk, saw a herd of real buffalo, played on top of enormous hay bales, saw the coal mines where my great-great grandfather worked, went to church in an old schoolhouse, watched a meteor shower laying on my back with my cousins beside me in a backyard on top of a mesa, sat on a porch under a tin roof and listened to the rain, spent a day on an honest-to-God cattle ranch, got hit on by an honest-to-God railroad conductor, saw a ballet in an old converted dairy barn, saw David Gray on a snowy Christmasy night in downtown Denver, became a Broncos & Rockies fan, learned to love life without air conditioning, danced along a mountain path in the sunshine nearly everyday, and many, many other adventures.

It was a jam-packed year in many ways, but it was also like a deep breath. When you take a deep breath, it's about more than oxygen, it's about gaining perspective. My year in Colorado was like that. I needed the break and the sustenance the time would provide, but looking back I realize, I needed the perspective just as much. Because while I experienced all of the things I listed above, I learned more about myself and my place in relationship to the world, in relationship to other people and in relationship to God than I ever had before. I learned that it's okay to not have it all together. It's okay to let people see your weaknesses. It's okay to do stupid things. I learned that allowing your insecurities and vulnerabilities to be known by people who love you can be one of the most freeing things. I learned that friendship & authentic relationship are possible with people I might not have ever even spoken with before I moved West. And I learned that relationships are the most valuable things in my life. I learned grace by living in it.

And so, one would think that after all that, my mind would be a little more, ummmm, open. How do I put this...? Nope!

As mentioned several times, my job has been disappointing. As far as work goes, I'm mostly bored. I want to do something that has meaning and I don't feel that here. But when I go back to the lessons Colorado taught me, I realize that if relationships are the most important thing to me, cultivating the ones around me right now should be a priority. This is something I've considered often in the past weeks and so I've tried to be intentional about investing time and purpose into my relationships with co-workers. I don't think I am in my place of ultimate purpose, but I do believe that the work of my ultimate purpose involves relationships.

All of these tumbling thoughts were clarified for me when I listened to a podcast of a sermon about exile. Alan Wright preached about Jeremiah 29, a scripture that is familiar to many people-- God knows his plans for our lives and all that. The back story though, is the people about whom the text was written were in literal exile. Wright explained that exile then, can be considered "a time in which the things you have trusted in for your security are stripped away and you're put into a place that is not your ultimate destination. And yet, it is where you are. In between two places--where you always had been and where you know one day you'll be, but right now it has yet to be fulfilled. It's a transition."

Is that where I am in life? DING! DING! DING! We have a winner! My security used to be found so deeply in being the one who had it all together. I still struggle with this every single day. In Colorado, my belief in my own ability to handle it all started to be chipped away. Now it's coming off in strips (the way wallpaper is supposed to, and when it doesn't you make holes in the wall). So my security is being stripped away-- my security in my self-defined identity and the walls I built around it. This process has been a bitch. My safe zone is wiped out and I can see where the momentum of my learning is heading, but I'm not there yet. Hello, exile! Here I am!

But the thrust of Wright's word is so key for me right now (thanks to all you ladies who pointed me to this podcast; there were more than few of you). You can be fruitful in your place of exile. Hello!!! Let's do that again: You can be fruitful in your place of exile. Use the time to increase, to speak peace and prosperity into the place you reside. I'd be willing to bet that most of you haven't read the parts of Jeremiah 29 that come before verse 11, so let's just examine them, shall we?

This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: "Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper." ...

"I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile."

This? BLOWS. MY. MIND. It makes me so excited for God's purpose that I can't wallow in my depression anymore. And that, my friend, is good. He's saying pray for and bless the ones who have hurt your life the most. Because out of blessing comes productivity. If they prosper, I prosper. What?! The economy of God is so whack. Seriously? I don't know where he comes up with this stuff. But you know what? I reallllly like it.

Okay, so all of this really made me think about how I go about my days. On Monday I was so depressed about being in this office that I cried and cried when I finally reached the sanctuary of my home. Tuesday, I was beginning to understand that God is a weeeee smarter than me and perhaps he meant for me to be here in this office. Go figure. However, I think he wanted to make sure I got it, so he slapped me upside the head with a conversation I had over lunch yesterday.

I mentioned a few days ago about how surprised I was by my co-workers' lack of spiritual knowledge. Or maybe it's more accurate to say their lack of ability to speak Christian-nese. Nothing against them really, it was just shocking to me, and it caused my perspective of them to shift. I think I immediately saw them as totally nonspiritual. There are about twelve people in my office and the aforementioned conversation happened between four of us. But of course I clumped most all of them together since they're all drinking buddies. That's great, I stereotype people. Perfect. (Please, read sarcasm.)

Yesterday, an appreciation lunch was given to our office, so we were all eating together when the conversation between three of us moved towards books. One of the women asked: "Have you guys heard of this book, The Shack?" My ears perked up and my interest was peaked. I read The Shack when it was just published, a little over a year ago (and a couple times since) and it rocked my world. I won't go into it too much, other than to say the story blows everything I ever hated about religion out of the water and reveals the nature of relationship with the loving God of the universe as real, authentic and full of grace. The girl who brought it up had heard some people talking on the radio about it and was planning to read it. I was the only person who had actually read it and for the first time since I began working here, I shared my faith in a really basic way, as it pertained to the text. And I was surprised when my words were met with nods of interest. Those three women are now emailing me, telling me they just ordered the book online and are excited to get into it.

I am supposed to be in this office. There is a purpose in the hours I spend in this windowless cave. It needs some light. It's begging for light actually.

Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.

You better believe my tune is changing.