A Story about the Spiritual Journey

by Sharon Garlough Brown

  Hannah kept her eyes closed, asking the Spirit to guide and direct her, to help her know what she wanted and needed, and to give her peace. She hadn’t expected to feel anxious. Was this what people experienced when they came to her for help? It had been years since she’d sat on the receiving end of spiritual care, and despite Katherine’s calm and trustworthy demeanor, Hannah felt uneasy. She preferred being The Pastor.

  “So, Hannah,” Katherine began, “why don’t you tell me a bit about your own faith story?”

  Hannah shifted on the couch, trying to find a comfortable position. “Like how I came to faith, you mean?”

  Katherine smiled. “Anything you’d like to tell me about your life with God up until now.”

  Hannah took a deep breath. Where should she start?

  Though she was tempted to launch straight into her current struggles over her sabbatical, Hannah knew she needed to provide a larger context. If Katherine was going to understand Hannah’s journey forward, she would need at least a Reader’s Digest version of Hannah’s past.

  Folding her hands in front of her, Hannah gave a rapid-fire, bullet point account of her childhood and adolescence: the frequent moves, her gradual awakening to her need for God as a teenager, her call to ministry. Hannah didn’t supply many details, and Katherine didn’t ask for any. In fact, Katherine didn’t even ask a clarifying question.

  Satisfied that she had given enough historical background, Hannah shared the words that had haunted her since August: You don’t know who you are when you’re not pastoring.

  “It’s true,” Hannah said. “I feel like everything I’ve known and loved for the past fifteen years has been torn away from me, and I’m left feeling empty and sad. And I honestly don’t know what to do about it. I want this sabbatical to be productive, and I just don’t feel like I have any direction for it. No direction at all. I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing.”

  Katherine did not reply, and Hannah tried not to feel uneasy in the long silence. Shifting her gaze to the Christ candle, she watched the flame flicker and dance whenever she exhaled.

  Katherine finally spoke. “So . . . as you think about this season of your life, Hannah, is there an image or a passage of Scripture that comes to mind? Anything that connects with your story?”

  Hannah furrowed her brow in concentration. “Death. That’s the only word I can think of. It feels like death. So I’ve been trying to name everything that’s died so that I can grieve well.”

  She paused, thinking of all the things she had lost by leaving behind her life in Chicago: the familiarity of her home and neighborhood, the companionship of her friends and colleagues, the routine and reward of her ministry responsibilities. As she mentally reviewed the list, she knew which loss was most painful.

  “I think what I’m grieving the most right now is the loss of my productivity. I love serving God. I love serving other people. I love being God’s instrument in his kingdom work. And now all that has been stripped away from me. So I feel lost.” Hannah looked out the window, watching orange and gold leaves flutter on the trees. “You know,” she said thoughtfully, “it’s funny that you used the word season just now. Because I think that’s part of my problem.”

  Katherine waited patiently for Hannah to elaborate.

  “I’ve always loved this time of year,” Hannah went on, motioning toward the window. “I love the change of seasons, the change of colors. But for as long as I can remember, autumn has been a season of high activity for me—especially at the church, with all the fall programs kicking off. The run up to Thanksgiving and Advent is always busy. Really busy. And now this autumn is totally different.” She paused. “I think the time of year is just underscoring my deep sense of loss, reminding me of all the things I’m usually doing in the fall—all the things I’m not doing now.”

  Her mind drifted again to Westminster, to the life she had loved and abandoned. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that autumn was the perfect image for describing her sense of loss. She had been forced into a season of transition, plunged toward winter’s dormancy. Everything that had been fruitful and productive in her life had been stripped away. Everything.

  Something Jesus said about his own death came to mind, and Hannah spoke the verse aloud: “‘Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain. But if it dies, it bears much fruit.’” She sighed. “I guess I need to trust that God is at work in this season of my life. If God is bringing things to death, then it will all be fruitful someday, even if I can’t see how right now. I’ve got to trust that somehow invisible seeds are being scattered—seeds that will spring up into new life at the right time.”

  Katherine glanced out the window to the courtyard. “I confess I don’t remember much from my science classes,” she said, “but my granddaughter Jessica was telling me about photosynthesis the other day. Do you know why leaves change color in autumn?”

  Hannah shook her head.

  “Jessica explained to me that during the winter, there isn’t enough water or light for producing food, so the trees take a rest. As they do that, the green chlorophyll disappears from the leaves, revealing bits of yellow and orange that have been there all along. We just can’t see those colors in the summer because they’re covered up by the green.” Katherine paused, meeting Hannah’s eyes. “Isn’t it interesting how bright and beautiful colors emerge only when productivity shuts down?”

  Shutting down.

  Hannah chewed on those words a long time before she responded. “Shutting down,” she echoed. “That’s exactly what this sabbatical is all about.” She exhaled slowly. “It’s all about the death of my productivity. I’ve been cut back to a stump so that what’s true about who I am can emerge, without me being so focused on my work.”

  She was right back to Steve’s question again. Who was she when she wasn’t serving? Who was she when she wasn’t playing a role? Who was Hannah Shepley?

  “You know the sad thing about all of this?” Hannah continued, staring at the Christ candle again. “For years I’ve taught people all about the ‘false self’—all the ways we wrap our identities around how much we achieve, or how well we perform, or what other people think of us. All the ways we base our sense of significance and worth in all these secondary things. I’ve even led retreats on living out of our true self—living out of our true identity as children of God. And here I am, talking about how I’m grieving and struggling over not doing, not performing, not serving.” She lowered her voice. “No wonder God had to strip everything away.”

  Katherine leaned toward her. “Hannah, the Lord is not condemning or punishing you,” she said gently. “This is his love, pursuing you and enfolding you, tenderly drawing you near to heal and restore.”

  Hannah’s thoughts were whirling and clamoring. She had been living as a hypocrite, teaching others what she had refused to embrace for herself. She hardly heard what Katherine said next.

  “Hannah, Jesus loves you too much to let you root your identity in what you do for him, rather than who you are to him. He loves you too much to let you wrap yourself in anything other than his love for you—his deep, uncontainable, extravagant love for you.”

  Hannah pressed her palms against her eyes. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it clearly before,” she murmured. “Steve saw it. He saw how I’d fallen in love with being used by God, how I was wrapping my life around my work. I just can’t believe I didn’t see it.” She slowly shook her head back and forth, remembering Steve digging in his heels and tugging on the pastoral rope. “All this time, I thought I was loving God through my work. But honestly”—though it pained her to confess it, she spoke the fresh revelation out loud—“I’m beginning to think I started to love my work more than I loved God. Dear God—when did that happen?”

  Hannah tried to swallow her tears. Since she couldn’t bear the expression of deep compassion on Katherine’s face, she looked away.

  Katherine said, “Your tr
ue self will be emerging with new strength and even more beauty than before. I’m confident of that. That’s the gift and promise when God strips away layers of the false self.”

  Hannah waited until she had control over her voice before she spoke again. “So where do I go from here?” she asked. “If this is all about shutting down my productivity so that I can refocus, then what am I supposed to do with my sabbatical?”

  Katherine smiled gently. “Maybe the Spirit is inviting you to let go of your desire to make even your resting productive,” she offered. “Let go of trying to purify your own love for God, Hannah, and just let this be a season of exploring how deeply God treasures you. Let this be a time of being open and receptive to Jesus pouring his love into you, apart from anything you do for him, apart from your work or your roles.”

  Hannah’s recent conversation with Meg came to mind. Meg was asking the right questions: Who am I? What do I want? Hannah was going to need to ask herself the same questions. Was it going to take her nine months to answer them?

  “It sounds like you’ve spent years calling yourself ‘servant,’” Katherine observed quietly. “And Jesus calls you ‘friend,’ Hannah. More than that. You are the one Jesus loves.”

  As she sat in the silence of the room, Hannah remembered a women’s retreat she had led years ago. She had finished the retreat by having the women gather in a circle. Then she passed around a mirror, inviting them to gaze at their own reflections and speak the words, “I am God’s beloved, the one Jesus loves.” When the mirror was passed to her, Hannah set it down on her podium without looking into it.

  Funny. She hadn’t thought about it at the time. She was just the facilitator of the exercise, not a participant.

  She shifted forward on the couch and planted her elbows on her knees. “Thinking of all the things that have died,” Hannah continued slowly, “I realized the other day that my first image of God died a long time ago.”

  Katherine was still leaning forward in her chair, listening attentively.

  “My dad was a fixer. Whenever anything broke, I took it to him, and he fixed it. So when I first came to know God, that was my image: my Heavenly Father, the fixer of broken things. But I’ve watched too many people suffer to hold that image anymore. God doesn’t fix.” Her voice quivered, and she felt her eyes sting with tears. “And honestly, I’m not even sure what images of God I hold right now.” They sat a long time in silence before Hannah spoke again. “You know how you listed those images of God on the board and asked us to pay attention to our responses?”

  Katherine nodded.

  “The one I had the strongest reaction to was ‘Lover.’ A really strong, negative reaction. God as Lover makes me extremely uncomfortable.”

  Katherine’s voice was soothing. “Stay with what stirs you,” she said slowly. “Our areas of resistance and avoidance can provide a wealth of information about our inner life. Don’t be afraid to go deep, Hannah. It sounds like the Spirit is revealing something significant that’s worth paying attention to.”

  Pay attention. Pay attention. Pay attention.

  Hannah was hearing an echo in the room.

  Meg and Mara were so deeply engrossed in conversation on the corner bench that they didn’t hear Hannah approach. She greeted them just as Mara was showing Meg her wrist.

  “I was just showing Meg my tattoo,” Mara explained, holding out her wrist for Hannah to see. “I got it years ago to remind myself that God was watching over me. But then it started feeling like God was watching me and judging me. And I started feeling even more guilty. But something happened when I was with Katherine this morning. Like it all started to shift somehow. She was sitting there with tears in her eyes, listening to my story, and I started to think about how maybe God’s eyes aren’t eyes of judgment after all. I don’t know . . . There’s so much stuff I don’t know. I feel like I’ve got to start over. Like I’m this little kid who doesn’t know anything. ’Course, given where I’ve been, starting over’s not a bad thing.” She stopped to take a breath. “Is it really possible for a fifty-year-old woman to be born again, again?”

  Thirty-nine-year-old women too, Hannah thought. Dying, dying, dying in order to be born again and again and again. But she didn’t say that. This wasn’t about her.

  Instead, Hannah the Pastor replied, “Every day is a chance for new beginnings as old things die and new things are born. After all, that’s what being born again is about, right? The old self dies, and the new self in Christ is given. And that doesn’t happen only once, does it? The apostle Paul said he died every day. It’s a lifelong process of dying to sin and self and rising again with Christ.”

  Mara whistled. “Too deep for me, Reverend,” she said, chuckling. “Gotta keep it simple, or you’ll lose me. Not that that’s hard.” She stood up and stretched. “So, are we gonna do this?” She looked down at Meg’s feet. “Cute boots, sister! You look like you’re ready for walkin’!”

  Meg cast Hannah a distinctly perceptive glance and said, “Ready.”

  Hannah couldn’t help wondering what Meg had seen.

  Meg

  Meg and Jim celebrated their high school graduation by having dinner at their favorite restaurant in Kingsbury—the Timber Creek Inn. As the two of them sat at the table, sipping soft drinks in the candlelight, Meg thought about their three years together. Jim was the light of her life, her dearest friend, her deepest joy. Her eyes welled up with tears as she looked at him.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked, taking her hand.

  “Nothing. I’m just happy.”

  He smiled at her and reached into his coat pocket. “In that case . . . Will you make me the happiest guy in the whole world?” He pulled out the ring he had been saving for months to buy. “I love you, Meg. Will you marry me?”

  Meg began to cry harder, unable to speak for joy. When the words finally came, she simply said yes. Again and again.

  Meg had spent the past three days contemplating two questions: Who am I? What do I want? Hannah had given her advice about how to seek answers. “Try to discover who you are apart from the roles you play or the relationships you have,” Hannah had said.

  Meg was confused. “But what does that leave me with? If you take away work and relationships, what do you have left? ‘Woman’?”

  Hannah had laughed without offering an answer.

  Now as Meg traveled the inward path of the labyrinth, she confessed her frustration. She simply couldn’t come up with any meaningful answers. Every time she tried to answer, who am I? she responded in the past tense. She had been Jim Crane’s wife. She had been Ruth Fowler’s daughter. Yes, she was still Becca’s mom; but that relationship was shifting, and she hadn’t found new equilibrium yet. She didn’t know how to mother a daughter with wings.

  Pastor Dave often described grief as amputation. Everything familiar in Meg’s life had been hewn away, not with the careful precision of sterile scalpels, but with the raw violence of a chainsaw. Meg felt shaped only by what had been removed. She had been formed only by all the identities she had lost. Pastor Dave was right. She lived as an amputee, severed from herself. Some days the phantom pains of her former life were so strong they overpowered her.

  As Meg followed the meandering path toward the center, her mother’s voice rang in her ears: “You’re pathetic, Meg. You just can’t do anything on your own, can you?”

  Mother was right. Meg had never been able to do anything without other people helping her, and now she couldn’t even figure out who she was without wanting someone else to give her the answer.

  Who am I?

  How pathetic that the only word she could come up with was woman. Totally pathetic. But since she didn’t know what else to do, she took Katherine’s previous advice and waited to see if her single word would take her anywhere while she walked and prayed.

  Woman.

  It went nowhere. Absolutely nowhere.

  Nothing clicked. Nothing.

  But then—

  Woman. Woman. Wo
man I love.

  The small, incidental whisper of a single word crescendoed into a bigger, louder declaration as a long-forgotten, long-buried phrase rose from the depths of her subconscious. If she listened carefully, she could almost hear his voice saying it again: “How’s the woman I love?” It had been his favorite description of her. Meg had been the woman Jim loved.

  She stopped walking the path and stared toward the courtyard bench, where the pink roses were still in bloom. She and Jim used to sit together in a bower of pink roses at their little house. He had built the arbor for her on their first wedding anniversary, and he had planted fragrant climbing pink roses.

  Her eyes filled with tears.

  Could she really let Jim live a moment in her memory without trying to bury him again?

  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me.

  If she was going to walk through the valley of the shadow, she would need to do it now before her courage failed again. She glanced at Mara and Hannah journeying with her on the labyrinth and made her decision. She needed to stop listening to her mother’s voice telling her she couldn’t afford the luxury of grief: “You have a baby to take care of, Margaret, and I can only do so much. If you and Becca are going to stay here under my roof, you’re going to have to act like a grown woman. I am not going to tolerate self-pity. You need to pull yourself together and move on.”

  Pull yourself together and move on.

  Meg had needed her mother’s help and approval, and her mother had not approved of weakness or tears. So Meg made her choice. She locked her husband away and chose her mother.

  Move on.

  But what if moving on now meant choosing Jim? Just for a moment. Just for one moment . . .