The Season of Waiting

I sat at the table with Will; sun shining, both our faces turned towards it, we were relaxed for the first time in months, our breathing smooth and easy. I sat with my chin resting in my palm and I said “you know, I don’t know that I really want to do ministry anymore.” Will, the ever patient and supportive partner responded with curiosity rather than judgement, “Yeah? Is there a way you can actually get out of it?” To which I promptly responded, “I don’t know. But I am tired.”

It is no secret that my call to ministry has been one that has been fraught with personal insecurities, frustrations, and a lot of kicking and screaming on my part. But sitting at a sunny table on Jekyll Island late October I felt the weariness in my soul. The political tension was thick in the air as we edged closer and closer to an election that had the country we call home at one another’s throats, meanness or fear mongering ready to slip from anyone’s tongue before the drop of a hat—even as we kept taking deep calming vacation relaxed breaths the fear was thickening and swirling around us all. (Disclaimer: I am not making any political statements here—we would all be lying to ourselves and one another if we chose to believe that the election was not fraught with anxiety for all of us—regardless of how it would turn out. Please refrain from making any political comments, I as the author of this work reserve the right and will delete any and all political comments—particularly comments made with the intention to divide). The work that I do in the hospital while always holy is never not heavy with the deep suffering of human beings. Time away helps, but it cannot fully heal the part of my heart that hurts each time I recognize the limits of my ability to help.

I have sat with this feeling of wanting to “give it up”, I have turned it over, examined it, and I have chosen to get curious. What is it that makes me want to quit this thing called ministry? This thing that is so interwoven into the structure of my heart, my soul, my life? As I have gotten more and more curious and approached myself with gentleness, kindness, and curiosity I recognize it is the deep feeling of inadequacy.

The realization that no matter how passionately and fiercely I preach love, the message of hate will always scream louder, that no matter how hard I try to help ease the pain of suffering it will never fully alleviate the hurt inflicted by pain’s sharp edges, and no matter how much I try to hold on to hope when the ground is shaking and crumbling around me—it oftentimes may never be enough to make the world stop falling apart. I discovered my deep fear and my frustration at feeling that love is an inadequate response to hatred.

Returning from Jekyll rested, relaxed, and quite tan from the amount of time we spent in God’s good creation—I felt somewhat relieved by my admission, my willingness to question my call, my motivations, my ability to call upon the God who called me, ask for guidance, and to vent my frustrations. Communication is key in all relationships; especially my relationship with the Divine. I usually need to be humbled and reminded that God never called me to be the savior, God already took care of that—but that God called me to love God’s people in a distinct type of way (which is what led me to ordained ministry). But I am so often overwhelmed by the great responsibility, the overwhelming needs of this world, and my human limitations that I feel the only option is to give up. (Maybe that is what the meanness is, the voice that whispers in my ear that I am not enough and it is better to quit).

Just as I felt like I was easing out onto some sense of solid ground—the world as I knew it fell apart. My beloved Granddaddy, James Fleming, died on October 31. A few days later we laid him to rest. Then the election results shook the country (no matter which way it went it was going to shake the country). Will and I continued to feel stuck in the murky waters of personal life and career discernment. Any one of these things would cause a world to shake—but it felt as if my world crumbled and as the pieces slipped through my fingertips I was somehow supposed to make sense of it all and find the hope even as everything turned to dust.

Despite my misgivings and questions regarding my call to ministry, the crumbling of the world as I knew and loved it, thrust me into the throes of ministry. The care I provided to myself and others as I navigated being a trained chaplain whose beloved grandfather died in one of the hospitals in the system I serve, planning and participating alongside two other clergy in his service to the witness of the resurrection, the hope finding and promoting I have offered to so many in their times of need, presiding at the communion table within the walls of a hospital room, praying for God’s spirit to bless the waters at the sacrament of baptism has taught me that the call to ministry is not something one can just give up and turn off. I was thrust time and time again into the role in which God has called me and have found that God has provided the strength, the courage, the love, the patience, the hope that I need to keep going.

I always need reminding that God does not call me to solely do this work, or to even attempt to solve this world’s deep problems and hurts. God simply asked me to love God’s people brought into my life to the best of my ability—all with God’s divine help. Loving even one person well impacts this world, choosing hope and faith in God for myself impacts this world—the meanness simply wants me to believe it doesn’t—so we keep going. We always keep going.

Today, Sunday, December 1, 2024 marks the first Sunday in one of my favorite liturgical seasons, Advent. A season we, in the Northern Hemisphere, experience in literal darkness while our liturgical calendar also invites us to wait in the spiritual darkness of the not yet. Those Christian traditions that follow the liturgical calendar are called to sit in the discomfort of the not yet, the Christ child has not yet come, the light has not yet come into the world, God’s kin-dom has not yet come. We sit in discomfort of the unknown, we sit in the discomfort of a world that is certainly not quite how God or any of us would have it, and we sit with the discomfort stirred within us from scriptures that are powerful and booming, laced with language that causes awe and dare I say fear rather than that shiny, sparkly, too sugary sweet, “Christmas ” society tries to sell us.

This Advent I am reading, Stay Awhile : Advent Lessons in Divine Hospitality by Kara Eidson and she writes, in reflection of one of the first week’s lectionary texts, Jeremiah 33: 14-16: “Despite all evidence to the contrary, they will survive, and even thrive, on the other end of these horrific events. Jeremiah’s prophecy is an invitation to hope, even when hope seems futile. It is an invitation to believe that God will prevail, an invitation to trust that God is not finished yet. It is an invitation to be a part of the work that God is still doing in the world and to be active participans in the ongoing kin-dom of God” (p.12).

Even when the world shatters to dust—we are called to hope. To hope in the redeeming, reconciling love of God. To trust that God is still at work, the God of love has not abandoned us, and God is not finished yet—even when it feels as if our world has turned to dust and is swept away in the wind.

I don’t think it is ministry that I want to return to God—it is more likely the soft, loving, hopeful heart that led me to pursue ministry I would like to get rid of. It seems to thrive in a world with this much pain and meanness it would be a lot easier if I could just love a little less passionately and care a heck of a lot less—but that is not how I was created, nor is the life God calls me or any of us to.

We are in the season of waiting—the pathway is murky, but the truth is Christ will come again, love is always more powerful than hate, and hope is never powerless or inadequate. We are all invited to continue to answer the callings on our hearts and lives, to keep pushing forward, to actively work with God and one another to bring God’s kin-dom into fruition even as we wait for Christ’s ultimate return (this theme comes from Stay Awhile).

I share this story of wanting to give up, hoping that it provides encouragement for you to keep going—your light matters, your love matters, your hope is powerful, and God is truly still here at work.

May we find the courage to actively wait in hope for the God of love and light to come illuminate and redeem this world. May we have the courage and may we be strengthened to go out and love this world well.

Amen.