Finding Footing
Have you ever walked across a swinging bridge? We have done so a few times. It’s not one of Stan’s favorite things to do. It is unsettling to walk on something that moves. If you are on it by yourself, you have to figure out a way to walk with a sway and not fight the movement. If other people are also on the bridge with you, you must match their rhythm and sometimes sway in opposition. Firm footing does not always mean the path underneath you is firm.
I volunteer at a food and clothing ministry. I sort clothes. For months the shoe area had become chaotic after our valuable shoe-sorter volunteer could no longer serve. Each week I would look at the mess, feel completely overwhelmed, and go on to sort what I knew—the clothes. One day I decided it was time to tame the shoe tiger. It took me three hours to create an organized system of labeled totes. I would start, discover flaws, change my system, try again. Eventually, I created order from chaos. While I didn’t finish sorting all of them, there was structure in place for the next volunteer to finish. My system was different from the last one. I made a new way forward, and other volunteers adapted to the new way.
That evening during my prayer time, God showed me this quote:
“But this very confusion of thoughts and feelings is the place where we find God’s footprints. It’s the raw material for discernment.” –Father J. Michael Sparough, S.J. Jim Manney, Father Tim Hipskind, S.J., What’s Your Decision? How to Make Choices with Confidence and Clarity (underline emphasis mine).
While sorting shoes, I had not considered God walking alongside of me, leaving footprints. Yet this sentence jumped out at me as if God were saying, “I was there.” God is in us co-creating new ways forward in our lives and impacting the lives of others. When we are faced with difficulties and decisions, our minds can be racing in confusion over the circumstances and the potential options for action. God invites us forward step by step. In my little example of shoe sorting, God’s footprints were made by a pile of shoes! Sometimes we think God’s way forward is a single, unmovable path under our feet. Yet God moves. Discernment requires movement with God like a dance partner following God’s lead. Life moves in and out of chaos and order. We progress and grow in that movement. Sometimes our paths are predictable. Other times, we move forward in growth and the swinging bridge to our next point feels unstable. Trust God’s movement. Embrace the dance with God.
Beautiful word pictures of great truths!