Deconstructing Church

I’ve had enough change for a while.

My soul is often restless. Before I complete one thing, I’m focusing on the next. Years of moving through the education system, then entering the teaching profession which values reflective practice and continuing professional development. Retraining, building a business, diversifying due to Covid. I’ve been through a lot of change, and that’s just in the professional aspect of my life.

It has been exhausting. And it has caught up with me.

We don’t talk about the cost of professional development enough. The constant need to gain promotions, get to the next level, make more progress. More, more, more. Yet while we are focusing on the next point on the pay scale, the next qualification HR require or the next degree necessary to validate gained expertise in an area, what are we not focusing on? What do we leave untended?

I came to a crossroads recently having faced multiple knockbacks in a row seeking my next big change. One of them would work out, right? I was due a new challenge, and all the work I was doing was building towards something? Well, apprently not. Everything fell at the final hurdle. Decision time – to push harder, or to stop? Thing is, stopping is not in my nature, whereas pushing myself very much is.

Yet wisdom comes with age, or perhaps I am just worn out. This time it was right to stop. This time it was right to just stay exactly where I was. ‘Do you want to write about my call on your life or do you want to act upon it?’ God asked me as I prayed over my next move. I want to do act upon it, was my instant response. I want to serve, and if that meant stepping away from pursuing longer term goals and into the daily grind, then that is what I must do.

The gift has been in what I have found there. Peace. Respite. A sense of partnership with God free of distractions or demands. A confidence and security in my faith as the foundation of all things, not my own works or efforts. My soul is well, when the world is not. It is quite a new experience, and I rather like it!

I’ll aways be open to what arises, as I aways have been. This attitude plus prayerful discernment has brought me this far. But perhaps I’ll be less hungry for change in the future, and more willing to settle for the status quo. Let God work their change in me as I stay still long enough to let them …

Peace be with you.