I smiled as the trolley rolled to a gentle stop. I watched the doors exhale as they opened, a multitude of people descend the narrow steps, a few people ascended those same steps, the doors inhaled drawing the doors in to a close, and the trolley was off making its way down the tracks of the tunnel. Just a few weeks ago I too would have ascended the those trolley steps with the others, navigated the aisle for a seat, and made my way in the darkness until the trolley surfaced once more above ground and down the windy streets of west Philadelphia. But in a matter of weeks things changed, and what would once have helped me to get home would now render such a journey more cumbersome.
You see, I could only ride that and a few other trolleys because the routes unique to them were under construction. As long as the bridge several of the trolleys traveled over was being worked on I could ride the trolleys due to their detour. The minute the bridge had been restored and the trolleys thus permitted to travel the routes they were initially purposed for, riding them no longer served my purpose. As long as those trolleys weren’t fulfilling their initial purpose, as long as they were slightly altered, I benefitted. I didn’t have to wait for the trolley whose purposed route actually got me closest to home, I could settle for a trolley that was slightly off purpose because it got me closer to home….and I could avoid waiting.
I don’t know about you but I am learning that sometimes to avoid the wait we settle. We settle for our own dysfunction and the dysfunction of others. We enjoy what we perceive to be the benefit of closer, to avoid the necessary process of closest, and closest I am learning usually means waiting. Sometimes it includes watching and waiting.
We settle for the partner who is miserable in their job because for us to encourage them to pursue their dreams means they may have to take a position with another company that make less money so they can go to school or gain additional skills, and we like their current financial contributions to the relationship. Or we settle for the friend who is emotionally unavailable because we too aren’t particularly fond of emotions, being vulnerable, or inviting intimacy. We don’t tell our parents all is forgiven for the struggles and hurt hurled on us in our youth because their guilt laden expensive gifts for our own kids or the countless hours they will watch our kids while we go out feels owed. We don’t let our supervisors know we need more leadership from them because as long as they teeter on burn out and are over extended we don’t have to maximize be held accountable or challenged in order to grow, we can collect a check and rack up paid time off and plan to stay at the job one more year instead of growing and moving on. We linger in the slights because we will settle for the hope of a might than the work of faith to actualize. We cozy up to what we settle for, the slightly off base, because it never seems drastic enough or harmful enough. It always seems better than nothing and far less laborious than everything.
Grace never asks us for everything. It asks us for something while it handles everything. And usually, it asks us to wait. To hold out. To not settle. To grit it out in faith for the actualization of all that we were created for. It asks us not to lose sight of our initial purpose. It asks us not to be persuaded as we wait and watch others travel towards their purpose, to not become anxious on the platform of our lives when we look around and see that it is only us staring down the tunnel, hoping, waiting, listening, watching. It asks us not to find comfort in closer when it promises to deliver spot on (grace doesn’t even get us closest, it delivers door to door).
My prayer for you this week is that you remember you have been graced for this season in your life. That there is a perfect grace, fully aware of and capable of engaging you in all of your dysfunction as you process, progress, and heal. There is a grace that allows you not to settle in for or misperceive benefits from others’ dysfunction, able to instead wish them well on their own journey and process, progress, and healing. There is a grace that will enable you to do all that you were initially and uniquely purposed to do. And, that grace is available to you, right now (mhmm, like right now, as you read this on your train, in the bathroom, at the kitchen table, in the meeting, in class, on the date you’re not so sure about, waiting in line at Target, etc.), just as you are, as you stand the platform of your life, staring down the tunnel, hoping, waiting, listening, watching.
With Love,
Grit + Grace