Things don’t happen to me

They happen for me.

Image by Ian, using HiDream I1 Fast

TL/DR version: Choosing one’s perspective is key to overcoming the desolation of life’s disappointments

I want to share something that has been much on my mind of late, but I want to preface this with the caveat that there’s a sea of pretty ideas out there that appeal instantly but that don’t stand up to intensive scrutiny. Ours, alas, is an age of people trying to stanch the nag of spiritual questions with the soft pop psychology that permeates western culture and begs the listener to turn to anything but Jesus, when all along, He is the only answer. The story I’m about to share is absolutely true, and it could be adjacent to some of those pop psychology ideas that the likes of Oprah directs her audience to consider. I suspect her method, beyond feathering her nest, is to channel the attention of the public to things that appear close enough to admitting that we are spiritual beings without asking the tough questions about what is ultimately right or wrong. Hers seems the realm of reinforcing comforting ideas that, ultimately, are philosophically flawed. The story I share with you below is about making a choice to perceive things from a more objective standpoint, rather than seeing every curveball as the ultimate disruptor that could have occurred, and making life a misery.

Today I was in a lovely garden center where I’d gone to find a hummingbird feeder. I grabbed a cart and made my way through one greenhouse with trees, only to emerge into one filled with blooms, annuals and perennials, and hanging baskets dripping with blossoms. It was incredibly lovely. However, the humid heat in this greenhouse was oppressive.

“Those pentas are a gorgeous color, and the hummingbirds love them!”

The fellow shopper seemed startled as I pointed to the pot of crimson blooms she was considering.
“Aren’t they wonderful?”

“Yes! They’re a favorite of mine!” Then, without thinking, I blurted something that may have sounded like a complaint. “It’s like a sauna in here!”

“It really is.”

She didn’t need an explanation, but I decided to give one.
“Since I had radiation treatment a couple years ago, I am weirdly heat-fragile. This is the kind of heat that gets to me. I’ll just make a quick trip through.”

“I am sorry to hear about that. I hope you are healed. Bless you.”
It was kind of her to say. She had turned to me and seemed interested.
“Thank you, I really am blessed. It will sound strange to say, but the cancer itself was a blessing. I didn’t know it at the time, but it made me look at a lot of things differently. The Lord has blessed me beyond measure, and I am thankful for the lesson. And now I’m talking to you in this beautiful place.”

“You know, I’ve had that same experience through some health trials recently. I didn’t have cancer, but I had struggles. It all worked out for the best, thank the Lord. He is working to our good”

“Amen!” I said.

We talked a little bit more, and it was a sweet and joyous conversation. It brightened my day, and I hope it did hers, too.

One never knows how a random conversation can affect someone. I think sometimes we should state the obvious, like remarking on the beauty of the color of a flower, or on the astonishing engineering that wrought a bee with bags of pollen on her legs into existence. It’s important to name what we are experiencing, especially the mundane beauties and grace we take for granted.

I’ve always tried to embrace the joy of living, but I’ve not always understood how to go about it. I think now I understand that this joy is not having the right things or the stylish possessions that the world dictates are the measure of a life well-lived. I think one can have a joyous life in the most humble of circumstances, if one chooses. It is a matter of perspective across which I stumbled in a random conversation with a man about 14 years ago.

I was working as a move manager for a company. I coordinated moving crews, drivers, and dispatchers to make sure the move would be done to the customer’s liking. Best-laid plans being what they were, hiccups and turning on a dime were attendant features in that profession. From one of these hiccups came what would be one of the most startling lessons I’ve learnt in life, even though it took me years to really embed the idea properly.

That year, I called a customer in April to plan his move. I took an inventory of his possessions so the crew would arrive with adequate boxes for the pack, and so there would be enough trailers to haul his goods. The conversation was about half an hour, but I had all I needed to ensure his move would be as smooth as possible in July. He was nice, but moving is incredibly stressful for people, and I always did all I could to insure things would happen without a hitch.

The week before his move, I called the truck terminal and the moving crew to confirm that all the appointments were booked. I called him to let him know I’d reach out to him the day before.

The day before his move, I got a call from the man who owned the local moving company who was packing and loading my client’s house the following day.

“Sorry, Rita. This other job we’re doing today was under-estimated. We are going to be there another day. Can you tell your guy we’ll be there bright and early the day after tomorrow?”

This was the week of July 4, which is the biggest moving week in the industry. There was no way to get another crew in to pinch-hit. I called a few other movers, but quickly exhausted that faulty notion for the folly it was. I dreaded calling the customer, but I subscribe to the eat-the-frog philosophy that if you have to eat a frog, do it as early as possible, then you don’t have to spend your day dreading eating the frog.

I called the client and said “I’m terribly sorry, but I’ve just learned that your crew is tied up on a job that will run over by a day, and will arrive 24 hours later than scheduled. I am so sorry to disrupt your plans.”

Braced for a stream of invective, I was astonished by his response.

“Oh, okay. Great! Hey, Rita, thanks for calling and letting me know! I’ll be here on Thursday. I’m all ready.”

I was astonished. He sounded happy. I could not resist the urge to remark on it.

“If you don’t mind me saying, I am surprised you are not angry. We worked out so many details and I thought you’d be upset.”

“I found out a long time ago that life is better when I recognize that things don’t happen to me, they happen for me. There’s a bigger picture I can’t see yet, so I try not to get bothered by a change in plans.”

I wish I’d kept a record of his name, because this startling conversation has come to mind hundreds of times since that day. I’ve spent so much of my life thinking that by running in one direction I could affect a particular outcome that would see me happier, more prosperous, and safer in an unpredictable world. However, all my planning and running in whatever direction kept bringing me to unexpected corridors and places I didn’t recognize, places I would not have intentionally chosen. I would question how I could have been so wrong. Second-guessing oneself is simply too easy.

The truth is that more than anything, the Bible admonishes us over and over to not be afraid, to not succumb to fearful living. Human effort and resilience is not what gives us strength. The grace and power of God is what carries us, even when we don’t recognize it. What I’d been doing most of my adult life was living according to my whims and not considering that God had plans and purpose for my life. I will not now succumb to regret, but instead I feel energized by the fact that He brought me through my terrible choices and missteps for a real purpose, and that there is more to come.

I’m flawed, and a sinful person, but the Lord is working on me. Thankfully, I have His grace to give me what I could never be good enough to earn. It’s been astonishing to look at the worst moments of my life, mostly in the past 8 years, and see His hand at work, helping me to recognize that even if things don’t make sense from moment to moment, I can rejoice that “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

I am not perfect, never have been, never will be. I am, however, responsible for how I choose to perceive my life and how it unfolds. I can be hard and brittle and insist that the world go my way, or conclude that because it’s not all going my way that it is flawed and less worthwhile than the lives of others. Or I can bend like a tree bends in the wind, letting the tempest temper and knit its bark more tightly to prepare for future storms, twisting and springing back stronger and more adaptive. This is what I am choosing for my life. I can celebrate the fact that I don’t have to have all the answers today, and that I’m not the arbiter of all outcomes: I am the beneficiary. I think I’ve only been an adult for about five minutes, but don’t hold me to that. I’m still capable of setting a foot wrong.

For now, I’ll keep resting on Blessed Assurance, and trying to recognize that things are happening for me, and not to me. I’ll leave you with my favorite poem by C.S. Lewis, in which he gives thanks for the way his flaws have fallen to shambles, and left him to move forward with a clearer understanding of what really matters:

As The Ruin Falls

All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you.
I never had a selfless thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through:
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek,
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:
I talk of love –a scholar’s parrot may talk Greek–
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.
I see the chasm. And everything you are was making
My heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.

For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains
You give me are more precious than all other gains.

~C.S. Lewis

Something to think about on a summer’s day.

Rita