Your Life is Your Prayer / TRANSITIONS

TRANSITIONS

What will I do when I don’t do what I do anymore? For example, in the last sixteen years I’ve been opening counseling centers and starting other businesses. It’s what I do and I’ve done it for so long, it feels like it’s who I am.   It feels like it’s me, but something in that same ME is asking me for change. 

In countless ways change is a constant, but we can go for years without noticing any changes. We may be much more likely to notice the tedium of unpleasant sameness—always too busy, never getting ahead, always in debt, the retirement that never seems to come.  We drift unconsciously in a sea of sameness until we are shocked into the present by some milepost of change: our first gray hair, spotting fine lines forming around our eyes, the inevitable loss of a beloved elder. 

Ignoring change doesn’t stop it. Resisting change might slow it down, but time marches on and one day we notice a hint of longing for something new. As I write this, I feel change pulling me and I want to go. What I previously tried to slow down now feels like it’s taking forever. For Heaven’s sake, snap it up!

By the time I notice the call of change, I’ve been unconsciously praying for it for quite some time.  The prayers show up in different forms—little regrets for what was previously a blessing, little desires for what seems to be out of reach, being troubled by a schedule that seems to be more in charge of me than I am of it.  The prayers for change that call me today started as a hint of longing to be spending a great deal of time sitting on the ocean shore watching the waves and feeling the breeze.  I didn’t notice for quite some time that I was praying for unstructured peaceful time. I notice it now and I’m praying consciously: 

“I hear the calling and I know there’s nothing to fear, so bring it on!”

“I’m looking forward to this change. Can we speed it up a little?”

So, what will I do when I don’t do what I do anymore? I will embrace what comes. I will explore what’s new. I will remember to pray what I’ve prayed through so many previous changes: 

                “Thank you.”

I have faith that, in no time at all, I will be sitting on the beach with a smile and that prayer of 

                 “Thank you.”

If you hold this blog up to your ear, I bet you can hear the ocean!

Original post found here.