An Autumn Walk

I took a walk in the woods this morning.

My restless, aching, introverted soul was dying to get away. The dawning sky smothered like a faded grey blanket. I strolled through the whimsy Seattle wilderness with the attempt of possibly escaping what I knew God was calling me to this year. The earthly aroma of my early autumn walk filled my lungs. As I walked I prayed out loud to my best friend and God that I have shamefully neglected and been too busy to make time for the past few weeks. However, like always, my old friend met me with open arms and was quick to take any shame or guilt from my weary hands.

Oh, how light our Father’s yoke is. How deep is his unfailing love for us.

Still, my heart was anxious, my mind racing with all the seemingly impossible tasks before me, not qualified, not ready, not prepared, not enough time. I can’t do this. I am not the person you want for this.

Autumn is my beloved season and I like to embrace it—to soak in all of her beauty. A new school year, apples, crisp air, crunchy leaves below, sweaters, bon-fires, pumpkin spice white mochas, boots, school supply shopping, so many new things and new beginnings. Autumn has always been an exciting season for me—a sense of starting. My friend told me yesterday that she was “oddly and randomly obsessed with the way the months of autumn sound on her lips--September, October, November--like they’re regal, like they’re trimmed with gold.” I wholeheartedly agreed with her and knew exactly what she was saying.

This year is a dream come true for me. I am in my senior year at Seattle Pacific University. I still haven’t forgotten what a massive blessing and gift it is to be attending, growing, and learning at this school. I will be graduating this June debt free. I spent the summer preaching at my home church and began the candidacy process to become a pastor. I have my church, friends, and family’s support to attend Divinity School next fall. I am the Peer Advisor (0r “RA”) on 5 East Ashton to 47 beautiful and wonderful women. I have an incredible staff I get to serve Ashton with. I am only taking music, communication, and theology classes this year—everything that I love. I have a sweet job in the Admissions office where I get the opportunity to tell perspective students my story about coming to SPU.

However if I am painfully honest with myself, I’m sometimes secretly disappointed that this season will not be as calm, chill, and relaxing new beginnings as it usually is. I have a stack of grad application papers up to my eyeballs. I have administration papers, green cards, check-ins, and floor meeting memos to write and prepare for. It is a season of deadlines, of a bulging inbox, of long phone calls with my denomination synod, of late nights at the computer, of broken lights and maintenance request forms for days, of missing workouts and one too many cups of coffee and handfuls of chocolate chips, of doubting if I am the right person for what I seem to be called to. This is a season of barely keeping up.

It’s funny, isn’t it? How we can make ourselves dissatisfied even with our dreams-come-true, how we always think the next season will be better. 

I may not be meeting all my To-Do-List goals, but I’m meeting my career, ministry, and dream goals. I get to meet tons of new people, empower and inspire the ones in my life, hear new music, learn new things. I might not get to curl up with a fat mug of hot chocolate in hand to watch movies every weekend, but I do get to sink deep into my favorite comfy futon couch after a long day in my own quaint and charming dorm room on a floor I got to decorate—all while knowing someone else paid for it all!

I get the opportunity to be creative, doing everything well and beautifully, with an eagerness and delight—leaving a trail of loveliness behind everywhere I go. I might not be able to find time to schedule coffee dates with my good friends I left behind on 3^rd Hill during this crisp autumn season, but I have 47 5E Ashton ladies who I get to live life, dream big, cry, sing, and be silly with. I have deadlines for Grad schools I never in a million years thought I would have even the slightest chance of attending. I am preparing to finish off my undergrad college career with a major and minor I never thought my parents would support and be excited about. Everything is just like I’d always dreamed, and I’d be a fool not to enjoy every second of it. 

Living fully in this season makes the barely keeping up, showing up late to almost every meeting, and the late nights all part of the adventure. Living fully in this season makes me less anxious and more thankful. Living fully in this season keeps my prideful ego in check because I know in a blink of an eye this season will be over. **Lord, give me a humble heart.** And living fully in this season, will make the next one even sweeter. 

I continued to wonder aimlessly around those woods. I needed to be thankful. Needed to see that all is grace in my life: the good, the bad, the hard, the ugly, the beautiful, and the sweet moments. I want to live fully in this season, in the present moment because I know that is where God is. When I am present, I meet “I AM”—God’s very name. I meet the very presence of a present God.  In his arms time loses all sense of speed and stress, anxieties and worries fall off me like chains hitting a cement floor, and everything around me seems so still….so holy.

God’s kingdom is the only place to breathe in an atmosphere of pure grace. Sometimes the startling grace of your life can drop you right to your knees and is there any other way to rightly see your life?

It is easy to not feel sufficient to the leadership and calling that God has placed on your life. But one of my favorite parts of Prince Caspian from the Narnia Series by C.S Lewis says…

Then Peter, leading Caspian, forced his way through the crowd of animals. 

“This is Caspian, Sir,” he said. And Caspian knelt and kissed the Lion’s paw. 

“Welcome Prince,” said Aslan. “Do you feel yourself sufficient to take up the Kingship of Narnia?" 

“I—I don’t think I do, Sir,” said Caspian. “I’m only a kid.” 

“Good,” said Aslan. “If you had felt yourself sufficient, it would have been proof that you were not. Therefore, under us and under the High King, you shall be King of Narnia, Lord of Cair Paravel, and Emperor of the Lone Islands. You and your heirs while your race lasts.”

        

And in that still and holy moment I remembered what I should have realized all along. Jesus says that he wants to ABIDE in us. “Abide in me, and I will abide in YOU”. What a promise. Jesus doesn’t tell us to do anything that he isn’t willing to get inside us and do. Christ takes over from the inside. Transforming our hearts and minds by abiding INSIDE US. Martin Luther said abiding is the blessed exchange: giving Jesus all that I am for all that He is.

I can come to Jesus hands open, take a deep breath and just relax. Abide. Because it’s never about my abilities, my strength, my holiness, my leadership. I can come sin stained, messy, and broken and take hold of the promise that Christ is eager to come in and take responsibility to cover my cracks, to heal and mend, to set me free of the prisons I get myself into, to be my completeness and enoughness. I have nothing to prove. I am beloved. I can abandon my worries, my fears, my anxieties and wholly abide.

         It wasn’t radical enough for the God of the Universe, the word of life, to come and dwell among us (Emmanuel: “God with us”)—today I remember the beautiful truth that Jesus want to go one step further and dwell IN me too. I am enough. I am qualified. I am ready because Jesus is enough, Jesus is qualified, Jesus is ready.

         I took a walk in the woods this morning and came back a different person. A healthier person. A whole-er person.  An abided person. A beloved person.