I was in a hotel recovering from a bout with hypothermia. It can sneak up on you and I was certainly surprised. I knew it was bad news when I could barley zip my jacket let alone feel my hands. I was in a cloud coming out of the mountains and my mind was cloudy too. How did I get here? How did I get in this set of circumstances? And where is the nearest spot to get some sleep? The last thing you want to do when you are hypothermic is to go to sleep, but that is all your body wants to do once you are done shivering. I had stopped shivering a while back, this was not good. Getting to an old mountain road I was still confused on what to do. I didn’t need food so maybe I would just keep walking. As I sorted all this out a jeep pulled over and the ex-military man inside reached over to the passenger door, flung it open, and told me he was heading into town-as if making my decision for me. I was completely soaked and I began to apologize for getting the seat wet but he went on to say that the jeep had been under water a week ago and it dries out like a champ, definitely ex-military. I got in, he drove to a cheap hotel and I was still not sure I was going to be able to operate the doorknob with my lifeless hands, but it worked out after a couple tries. I called my girlfriend then I called my parents and I remember saying something very similar to both of them: “Its just really hard.”
I am learning I am able to do a few things really well but I have trouble getting myself out of overwhelming situations. Sometimes you just have to say ‘no’ and I am getting better at that but sometimes you have to shift the way you think about everything. What really is most important? And what is going to have to die for that to be true in your life? I think this is one of the questions we ask at Lent, and everyday for that matter. Unfortunately, somethings these questions begin in a place where it is just really hard. We have reached our end and we can’t even zip our own jacket. We are numb and crying and broken. The fearful thing in all this is that we can pass through moments where God is allowing space for us to shift our thinking, to repent, while never acknowledging that is what is happening. We then leave a situation or set of circumstances with open soars instead of healed wounds.
I’m inspired by friends who seek to live whole, beautiful and honest lives. The story that they tell helps me find the best way for me life. So I’m going to lean in this day and this week and invite God to shift my thinking that is all to often centered on: the capitol that I will gain, who I will be, what I will accomplish. Letting the agenda whither and the lists of distance wants be taken by the wind, just might begin to shift the whole paradigm. But truth be told, it going to be just really hard.
