It’s Labour Day and
time to be wrapping up my series on jobs. I could write about my ten years at
Portage Alliance Church that followed the college job, where I went from being
the senior pastor's administrative assistant to a communications coordinator,
to the director of creative arts. How I led the drama team and put together
newsletters and PowerPoint shows and Sunday programs and schedules for the
music and tech teams. How I wrote drama scripts and articles and produced
Christmas banquets. How I got burned out.
Or I could write about
how I traded all that for a part-time job at City Hall where I could simply do
my job and go home. No evening meetings or Sunday mornings or putting in extra
time. No people to lead. Knowing everything I did would be double-checked by a
superior, so I could relax. How I studied through the required courses to
obtain a Certificate in Manitoba Municipal Administration and got to attend a
graduation ceremony for the first time since high school. How I would learn to conduct
municipal elections and prepare agendas and minutes for city council meetings
and so much more. How I would get to write speeches for the mayor sometimes.
How hard it is to believe I’ve already been there over seven years.
Or I could tell about
how the city hall job freed up time to pursue writing. How by the second year I
would see two of the plays and several of the short sketches we’d done at
church published, as well as some Chicken
Soup for the Soul stories. How I’d
ask for and get a weekly newspaper column. How I’d keep working on my novel,
take writing courses, attend conferences, and make it to the finals in a
contest that would attract the attention of an agent who would eventually sell
my book and I’d see it published in 2016. How I’d sign a contract on my second
novel just five months later.
Each of those paragraphs
could easily be a story for another day. Each could tell of the lessons God
taught me, the way he has been there leading and guiding even when I couldn’t
feel his presence or see his hand. Even when health issues brought me to my
knees in tears and defeat and I couldn’t understand how or why he heals some
and not others. Even when I failed
miserably to hear his voice.
Last week I was
privileged to attend the American Christian Fiction Writers conference in
Nashville where I learned from Allen Arnold about how we can choose to exist in
one of two realms: the Orphan realm or the Freedom realm. When we exist in the
orphan realm, we believe life is up to us. If anything good is going to happen,
it’s because we work and strive to make it happen. It’s a place of fear, of
hoarding, of control, of never having enough because we don’t know we have a
loving Father who wants to invite us into something better.
The Freedom Realm is a
land of “with.” In it, our Father invites us to do the things we love with him. It’s a place of fierce
dependence on God, of peace and joy, of knowing that control is an illusion. It’s
a place where “pro and con” lists are a toxic way to make decisions because
they depend on my knowledge of the future. It’s a place of knowing I am a
beloved daughter of God and I can enter into a new adventure with him every
morning, every moment, and not need to have all the answers.
It’s where I want to
live.
We closed the session
with a look at a popular video, Derek Redmond’s famous run in the 1992 Olympics
where a torn hamstring stopped him on the track but where he got back up and
hobbled to the finish line. You’ve probably seen it. It’s a powerfully moving
clip all by itself. The world has held it up as a story of courage and never
giving up.
But it’s so much more. As
I watched it again, I saw myself as that runner. The injury became my most
recent wound, the loss of my newspaper column which was still stinging my
heart. My Father comes down out of the stands to be with me. He fiercely
defends me against those who would remove me from the race. And he supports me
to the finish line.
Naturally, I was a
complete and blubbering wreck. But it got worse.
The next morning during
our worship time as we sang “Good, good Father,” God asked me something. “What
if it’s about more than the lost column? What if that torn muscle represents
your deepest wound, the thing that trips you up and speaks lies to your heart
no matter how earnestly and frequently you’ve forgiven the perpetrator?” As I attached those
hurts to the Olympics scenario, the fierce protection of my heavenly father’s
love became more powerful still.
And I knew that’s where
I wanted to live. Every moment.
Watch the video again.
You’re the runner, hurling yourself down that track with all you’ve got to
give. You’re in the lead, you’re set to win. Then life throws pain at you. You
know what it is. That thing that happened when you were little. That thing that
happened last week. Either way, you had no control over it. It hurt. And it
still hurts. You believe it’s taken you out of the running. You get up and try to hobble along on your own.
But your Father comes.
He defends. He supports. He comforts. He loves. He finishes the race with you. You are not alone. You do not
have to live in the orphan realm.
Derek Redmond says, in
spite of the millions of people who have been encouraged by his story, he would
still prefer to have won the gold medal in Barcelona that day. But God knows that the areas where we
are scarred and wounded are a gateway to our greatest strength.
Let him lead you there.
(To order Allen Arnold's book, The Story of WITH, click HERE.)
The Bible says “We are saved by trusting.
And trusting means looking forward to getting something we don’t yet have—for a
man who already has something doesn’t need to hope and trust that he will get
it. 
