From the Editor: this is from our Lenten Transformation Stories series
By Julie M.
Good morning. It’s tempting to tell you a smiley-happy-uplifting transformation story… perhaps another time. Instead, I’m going to tell a wilderness story… an uncomfortable and humbling wilderness story. I asked for guidance to discern which story to share today. I was given a hint during the Ash Wednesday service, with the opening meditation. It started with these words: “…often nothing requires more courage than admission of fault…”
So here’s a story where I’ll admit my faults! If I were to give my story a title, it might be A Transformative Stumble to Becoming More Humble.
Several years ago, I felt a deepening yearning for a closer walk with God, for spiritual direction, growth and a more mature, grounded understanding of God’s role in my life, yet I was painfully distracted by the demands of my work and by a powerful addiction to approval, to looking good, to maintaining my so-called “professional image.” My business was “on a roll,” as I was flying around the country doing speaking engagements. I had a heady, sky-is-the-limit feeling about my work but I felt uneasy about where I seemed to be going. Where was my foundation? Did I need to get back down to earth?
My journal entries from that time reflect a constant internal struggle of wanting to discern God’s plans for me. Often, my journal entries would end with an emphatic prayer: Please, give me a sign. On December 8, 1998 I wrote of my mixed feelings about the spiritual path:
…my internal battles twist me up inside… they take me off course in a nowhere direction of wasted, negative energy. My thoughts are racing … invading my path to peacefulness… I see there is no turning back from this path, but moving forward brings a strange mix of anticipation and dread, because I know my ego is always ready to trip me up!
My next journal entry, written six days later, records how God answered my prayer for a sign… by tripping me up. Here’s what I wrote:
Yesterday (December 13), I had one humbling, painful experience after another. It was not a fun day. I messed up during a public presentation! I felt tense, un-centered, resentful, unprepared, awkward, repressed, angry, confused, lost and restless. It wasn’t until I went outside for a walk - and actually tripped over a root in the woods… falling to the ground… that I slowed down, looked around me and got focused on the present.
Wow. I had to FALL, in order to wake up and let go of what happened yesterday, when a presentation did not go exactly as I had wanted. I had to fall from my attachment to perfectionism… fall from the endless ruminating about what I had done “wrong”… It certainly got my attention and was just what I needed, but it felt embarrassing… so humiliating, to go “splat” onto a pile of leaves. Lord, it’s hard to be humble… to get down to earth. To be grounded, to be human, to accept and learn from my mistakes!
No one saw my “humiliating” fall, except for God, and the trees, but I continued to write-at some length–about how I wanted to hide from my imperfection, to cover my face in shame. Ouch. Then, I recorded in my journal what I was learning from my stumble in the forest:
I’ll never come to maturity or true acceptance of others’ humanity until I can look at 100% of myself (faults and all) and honestly say, ‘it’s okay, Julie… no matter how much you fall, I love you anyway. God loves you anyway.’
The root tripping me in the woods made a difference in my life and continues to teach me today. Through this fall I moved one small step closer to catching myself when I fall into the traps of approval-seeking, perfectionism and “if only…”. I learned to be less ashamed of my mistakes and less afraid of my humanity. Everyone falls from time to time! And we are loved in our imperfection, even as we stumble through life. Thank you.