ISBC 43 - Moving Through It
Chapter 43 of Hope: A User's Manual
We’re down to the final four chapters of MaryAnn’s book and once again, if you haven’t been reading along with, please begin doing so. Also take a stop over at The Blue Room (MaryAnn’s Substack page) and give a read and a follow!
Sometimes, not always, we look up from our movements to discover the thing that “too shall pass” has passed. We usually don’t notice it until we’re looking back, though. In the moment, things are better, then worse again, then better. And they’re only marginally better, imperceptibly better. And then, 1 percent better than that. Or 0.01 percent.1
I picked up this quote 10+ years ago in Davidson, North Carolina. Full disclosure - It is questionable whether CS Lewis actually said/wrote this, but there’s great truth in the quote anyway. I picked it up in the middle of a really tough time that felt like a day by day slog in my life. And for the last few weeks while I’ve looked at this post and it was taunting me - No matter what I was doing, I couldn’t get something written. And then came a text message from a dear friend who has gone through an incredibly challenging period in their life over the last few years. Without going into anything of what has taken place for them, it has been brutal in so many ways. And I have marveled at how this person has withstood the storms of life that have kept slamming them over and over.
Here is what my friend wrote2 at the end of their message after detailing a lot of what had been going on:
This weekend I was driving to to see family and as I was driving, I realized that the sorrow/grief/resentment/anger/loss of what had taken place and all the things was gone. All the hours of therapy, all the private tears, my inability to move on, yadda yadda yadda. It's gone. It's surrendered. It's handed over.
And I'm grateful.
This person could not have written this a year ago or maybe even six months ago. But here they are sharing this sense of freedom from what had been happening. I wrote them back simply saying “freedom is a gift!” And they replied, “Indeed it is.”
There is a freedom of being on the other side and being able to look back at all that had taken place. I know some of what my friend has gone through and I have been with them in the times when it felt like the waves would never stop crashing in and there was one more thing after one more thing after one more thing. In the moment, I can only imagine how things felt like they were never going to change. But here we are, several years removed, and they experience this realization of freedom while on a road trip to visit family.
There’s a saying I’ve been hearing a lot recently - something akin to “Change comes so very slowly and then all at once.” Feels like this quote in my office and feels like my friend’s story. To my friend about whom I shared above, I am grateful this took place in your life. To everyone else, may it be your story as well.
Grace, Peace, Love, and Joy,
Ed
McKibben Dana, MaryAnn. Hope: A User's Manual (p. 180). Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.. Kindle Edition.
I made some changes to what my friend wrote here that doesn’t change the meaning and experience of what was shared but anonymizes it completely. I have shared this with their full permission.
This. SO MUCH this!
Thank you as usual Ed for your insight.