Not Until You���re Squashed Like a Grape
Answering a call to pursue something in your life that has no known path is rarely easy. First of all, this call is rarely a booming voice from the sky or a directive like your father would give you. Instead, it seems to come in forms like: being keenly interested in things most people have never heard of, or a severe inability to work in corporate jobs that you find easy but soul-killing, or a sense of purpose that feels anointed but vague.
I have pursued alternative ways of healing and living well since I was in my early twenties. Early on, my parents wanted me to get a nice, steady job with benefits and a regular paycheck. A beloved college professor even told me that what I was pursuing was ���counter-cultural.��� Yet, I just could not do these things that they wanted for me. It felt like trying to breathe water instead of air.
Despite me feeling anointed and called and all that, don���t get me wrong: there are times when I feel like an Israelite wandering aimlessly in the desert trying to reach the Promised Land. Even though I see a lot of miracles, I still want to turn around and go back to an imprisoned, but ���safe��� place, where at least I know what to expect. I also wonder if I have misinterpreted God���s calling and directions. I wonder if I have made a serious, 20 year mistake.
These dark nights of the soul are archetypal in nature, and happen to anyone who is on a spiritual quest. They arise to test our faith, to force us to do some practical quality control, and most of all, to help burn away all that is keeping us stuck. The dark night is a terrible, painful event, and you wonder if and when it will pass. When does it really stop? Not until you are squashed like a grape. That is when God and your angels can finally get in there and do some real work through you.
I recently went through one of these dark nights, and I can still feel the residuals of it. Yet, let me tell you, in those residuals, I feel the presence of God in ways that I never have before. I see moment by moment mini-miracles and I feel they are a sign that I am right where I am supposed to be. I feel the covenant of my calling. I am renewed and filled with hope again.
The next time you have a crisis of faith, remember the Promised Land. Remember that what you are going through is what so many before you have gone through, and it is a necessary part of the journey. You can get through this. Ride the contraction with Lamaze-style techniques of going with it instead of against it. You are being squashed for a reason: to be re-made and re-formed for even more light to come through you and what you are called to do.
