There are moments in life when your heart skips a beat; that moment when you realize something is wrong.
- Your mind goes blank as soon as the test hits your desk.
- A loved one faints before your eyes.
- The dog isn’t moving.
- The internet is out.
- Someone backs out of a deal you thought was done.
- Your friend looks at you with that particular look that just can’t be described except with the word “goodbye.”
- You suddenly realize that guy/girl has been playing you all along.
- As you walk up to your car, it registers that something isn’t right, but you don’t quite understand until you hear glass falling to the ground.
- Someone has stolen some food at the church during service and you see the door open to the chapel where you left your ipod.
You can’t remember. It’s time to go to the emergency room. She’s dead. There’s homework to be done. You feel betrayed. He’s really leaving you. He had a girlfriend already. You try not to panic and call the police. It’s gone.
The last two moments have happened to me within the week, but all of them have happened in my lifetime. I hate to bring to mind those moments from your own life. We’ve all been there; that moment of undefined time right before you know for sure that there is a problem, but your instincts are screaming at you so loudly you can hardly stand upright.
It’s the moments that follow that make it worse. I’ve been paranoid over the last few days since someone broke into my car parked across the street from the church where I work. Today, I was at the church and my ipod was stolen during services. I was paranoid before, and now I’m really worried that my attitude will be adversely affected. I walked up to my apartment door this afternoon and was immediately worried I hadn’t locked the door and all my possessions would be gone.
I really appreciate everyone’s advice on how to prevent these events from happening again. Truly, I know you love me and you don’t want me to get hurt. It occurs to me, though, that while I can always be more careful, it isn’t my fault that someone saw that bag of library books and hoped it was more than commentaries. I won’t be walking away from any unlocked room at the church in the future, don’t worry that I’m not learning anything. Nevertheless, the fact that I choose to trust, does not place the blame on me; someone else did the stealing.
My mentor made an astute comment the other day, picking up something I had once written in a paper. I had been talking about making yourself vulnerable to the place you serve. It is in becoming vulnerable to those around you that real service is done. Swooping in to change a community’s situation is not nearly as good a solution as moving into the community and letting the problems of the community become yours as well. In response, my mentor commented that I had indeed made myself vulnerable. My response is, not enough. Until I am hungry and walk into a church seeking whatever I can find to feed myself, I have not made myself vulnerable enough. Until I start breaking the windows of parked cars hoping to find something to sell, I have not made myself vulnerable enough.
It is these next few days that will determine how I look back on these last few days. Will I remember this experience as the point I became paranoid and closed myself off? Will this be the moment that changes an already scarred church? Am I going to choose to be hurt and run away? Can I look past the money and keep moving toward vulnerability in ministry? What about you? How have you handled these moments in life where trust pulls the rug out from under you? How do we lives as Christians in a world that is clearly broken and not become cynics? I must believe this is possible. So, I hope and pray.
