It began about two months before my 30th birthday: the sudden panic. I was turning 30 and had absolutely nothing to show for it. I felt as if I’d failed some cosmic keeper of the deadlines.
The panic lasted for almost six months, and I made lots of changes because of that crisis. But the most important one was that after an absence of many years I re-joined the church and started nurturing my spiritual life. In a prayer course at church, I learned had unconsciously set myself an ambitious agenda based on cultural norms as I understood them, an agenda that had very little to do with God’s call to me.
Midway through the course I woke up in the wee hours of the morning and sat bolt upright in bed, realizing for the first time in my life that God loved me exactly as I was. Letting go of the reins, dropping our vested interest in the agenda we’ve set or let others set, and listening for what God truly calls us to be and do: that’s the challenge.
This message is an excerpt from “Timelines” by Deborah K. Farrington in the April 2018 issue of Café.
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