“Space has a spiritual equivalent and can heal what is divided and burdensome in us. My grandchildren will probably use space shuttles for a honeymoon trip or to recover from heart attacks, but closer to home we might also learn how to carry space inside ourselves in the effortless way we carry our skins. Space represents sanity, not a life purified, dull, or ‘spaced out’ but one that might accommodate intelligently any idea or situation”

Gretel Ehrlich, The Solace of Open Spaces

Where books are mentioned in this post, affiliate links are used.

Last spring, after leading a women’s weekend in Southern California, John and I stayed a few days longer in Carlsbad for some rest before we headed back east. On a slow walk through town, we wandered into a local book shop, the kind where the bookstore owner watches you as you browse the shelves of books that seem to have been placed there since the dawn of time.

It was as if the whole bookshop might fall apart if we removed one book from the shelves so I felt more comfortable right outside the doors where some discounted books were stacked on carts. One marked a dollar caught my eye based on the title alone. It was called The Solace of Open Spaces.

I’d never heard of the author, Gretel Ehrlich, but I bought the book based on the title and a short endorsement by Annie Dillard. It’s only a dollar, I thought. If nothing else, the title alone had already brought me at least a dollars worth of thoughtful reflection.

For over 13 years I’ve been writing under the headline creating space for your soul to breathe. I stand by it as a foundational practice for all of us, not just those of us with introverted personalities or who gravitate toward the contemplative tradition.

Creating space for the soul is part of being a healthy human. Still, I understand while for some of us that phrase sounds delightful, for others, well. Not so much.

What does it mean to create space for the soul and why does it matter?

John and our son were on an evening drive together (they do that sometimes) and I got a text from them telling me to go outside and look at the moon. They know how much I love to see the moon in all her stages but especially when she’s close to full and that night, she was.

But trees surround our house on all sides and by the time the moon rises high enough to see, she’s lost all illusions of grandeur. Still, I went outside and looked.

I love those lush green trees. But I long for open space. Most of the time. 

For all the ways I crave space in my surroundings, I have a tendency to avoid it in my soul. When it comes to confronting the reality of our inner life, it’s not all full moons and rolling hills is what I’m saying.

I’m sure you’ve heard the mantras people like to say: be yourself, take care of yourself, protect yourself, love yourself, defend yourself, and express yourself. But, in the words of John Ortberg in his book Soul Keeping:

“What if your self is a train wreck? What do you do then? The more obsessed we are with our selves, the more we neglect our souls.”

Creating space for your soul is not self-obsession. It’s self-awareness in the presence of God.

Soul whiplash is real and it happens to the most faithful and spiritually mature among us.

If what’s going on in my life right now is at the center, that’s what my soul will revolve around, as evidenced by the shame and anxiety I feel when I’m behind, rejected, embarrassed, you name it.

Good circumstance leads to good feelings and experience. Bad circumstance leads to bad feelings and bad experience. It’s a cycle and we’re all caught up in it. And that is what leads to soul whiplash.

“If your soul is healthy, no external circumstance can destroy your life. If your soul is unhealthy, no external circumstance can redeem your life.”

John Ortberg, Soul Keeping

To keep our soul healthy, first we have to admit that invisible things are real, as real as love, hope, loyalty, and excitement.

You can’t touch them or point to them, but we experience them every single day because they’re as real as your living room sofa or the trees in your front yard.

Yes, invisible things are real, but real in a different way. We can’t easily diagnose a sick soul and give it a spoonful of medicine to fix it. When your arm is broken, it’s obvious you need help. What about when your heart is broken? 

It’s easy to get tangled up in a fast-paced world: driven, distracted, and productive. But that’s a language the soul doesn’t speak. We can go on that way for many years. Many of us do.

Our invisible soul is often forgotten beneath the demands of everyday life. Creating space for your soul is simply your invitation to remember it. We can decide on purpose to create space so that we remember where we live: in the strong and unshakeable kingdom of God.

It’s about respecting the daily pauses we need to be fully ourselves so that we can be present with God and faithful in our home, our work, and our community.

If you feel like creating space for your soul seems too much like being lazy and doing nothing, the truth is it actually takes more work to create margin than it does to stay busy.

Busy is the default. Margin takes intention.

Here’s the secret that’s hard to believe: there’s still value in creating space for the soul even if you have nothing to show for it. Spending time in the presence of God without an agenda does not come naturally for most of us. But how desperately we need it. 

***

I’m nearly finished with Gretel Erlich’s book. It’s her story but not so much a chronological one. It’s organized more as a collection of essays and for some there may be too much meandering in her writing. As for me, I like her style though it takes some time to settle into. Once I do, I’m always glad.

As I read about her life in Wyoming, I’m struck by the personality of this open space she writes about. It’s romantic in thought but gritty, earthy, and dangerous in reality. It’s offensive, this western space, filled with wild animals and death and harsh extremes; too much snow in winter, not enough water in summer. Almost everything is abundant, but not always in the right direction. 

Erlich points out when we see space as Americans, we gravitate toward filling it.

“We Americans are great on fillers, as if what we have, what we are, is not enough. We have a cultural tendency toward denial, but, being affluent, we strangle ourselves with what we can buy. We have only to look at the houses we build to see how we build against space, the way we drink against pain and loneliness.”

Gretel Erlich

Facing the space on the inside can feel that way, too. We’ll see the all the extremes of our own shortcomings, all the ways we aren’t quite living the life we long to live. Why would we choose to face all that on purpose?

Because if we turn our back on the shadows within us, we’re also turning our back on the light. If we refuse to see the extreme of our own shortcomings, we’ll also miss the abundance of God’s full-hearted love, the comfort of his presence, the peace that goes beyond what makes sense to us.

As we begin to turn inward, we may first see empty nothingness. But in time, it may turn into sacred space instead. This practice of a transformed perspective does not come quickly.

“As a people, we are not comfortable with waiting. We see it as wasted time and try to avoid it, or at least fill it with trivial busyness. We value action for its own sake. It is hard to trust in the slow work of God.”

Margaret Guenther, Holy Listening

There’s a line from Dallas Willard I’ve heard repeated several times over the years where he says, “If you don’t come apart for a while you will come apart after a while.” We are made in the image of God so what did God do as a human? The life of Jesus makes it so we don’t have to wonder.

When God came to earth in the person of Jesus, he got away alone, took time apart from the crowds. Even though he remained in constant communion with his Father when he walked along the road and had lunch with his neighbors and taught on the mountainside, he still found it necessary to get away.

If God himself set an intention to come away for a while, how much more is it necessary for us? And what does that look like in our regular life?

***

It’s true the traditionally contemplative people among us may see the need for time away more quickly and may find it easier to prioritize, but as people who live in the kingdom of God, we are all praying people. And prayer is a reminder that God is not in a hurry. His work is often painfully inefficient, at least according to my timetable. Especially in times of decision and discernment, coming away to listen and simply be is not a luxury but a necessity. 

This need for us to come away is recognized by not only by churches but other people as well in other fields.

Author of the book Quiet by Susan Cain told Scientific American this about solitude: “Solitude is a crucial and underrated ingredient for creativity . . . From Darwin to Picasso to Dr. Seuss, our greatest thinkers have often worked in solitude.”

The words we use are important.

There are many ways to create space and I’ve learned definitions matter. When I say create space for your soul or come away for a while, there are many words and concepts that might come to mind for you as there are for me. 

1. Vacation

Usually this is scheduled, has an agenda with either tickets, appointments or excursions. We’ve made plans for a long time, we bring family, or friends or whomever. It is a time to get away for recreation. But how many times have we gone away for a vacation and we come home exhausted?

2. Church Weekend

Most churches will call this a “retreat” but I prefer to use the phrase church weekend because that word retreat can get wrapped up in all kinds of definitions. A time away with church members can be a beautiful time of connection and community but also time when several people share a room, you listen to a speaker or several speakers, you follow someone else’s agenda, you have to engage in weird and uncomfortable icebreakers, stay up way too late, and come home tired.

3. A Break

When my kids were small, this is what I called a trip to Target. I needed a break from the questions, the needs, the being on point-ness of being a young mom with young kids. Self-care is so important. But that is more like a spa or a massage or time alone in the car than a spiritual encounter with God.

Can a spiritual encounter happen on a vacation, a church weekend, or a break? Absolutely.

Can you create space for your soul in these first three? Of course, but if your purpose is soul space, these three scenarios are not ideal.

Still, these take place in our regular life where we live, and one of the reasons I created this blog and the podcast is to offer ways to help you create space in regular life, including on vacation with family, in community with church members, and that much needed break you get in your car while running errands.

But there’s another kind of coming away when the walls are closing in, and that’s the kind we do on purpose with God.

4. Sabbath

Sabbath rest can be a weekly part of the rhythm of life and we are invited to keep it. If you want to learn more about that, listen (or download the transcript) to Episode 40: Keep Your Rest. It could be argued when we don’t keep the sabbath weekly, our need for time away may come more quickly, but that is one way to come away with God weekly, regularly, part of our rhythm of life.

5. Retreat

This is a scheduled time apart from daily life where we come away on purpose to connect with God for a short but extended period of time, from a full day to a couple of days. If you’re tired, take a nap. If you want to read, do it slowly. My friend and teacher Keas Keasler emphasizes the importance of getting out of your zip code for this.

If you want more information or guidance on what a true retreat might look like, check out Ruth Haley Barton’s book,  Invitation to Retreat. She talks about the importance of retreat and how to practice it in your actual life. She started this practice of coming away with God on retreat when her kids were young, but it wasn’t fancy and it probably wasn’t for super long periods of time.

6. Sabbatical

This is a longer span of time that includes a leave from work, sometimes associated with education but also in ministry, generally given after 7 years of work a time of rest, renewal, sometimes study. It could be anything you want it to be as long as it’s restful and fits with your life stage. 

Creating consistent space for your soul is available to each of us, and it doesn’t depend on our planner, it depends on our heart. And it might not take as much time as you think.

A note on sabbaticals: I recognize the remarkable privilege it is to be in a position to receive a sabbatical. I thought about this a lot last summer during my History and Traditions of Christian Spiritual Formation class because our teacher, AJ Swoboda, was entering into a time of sabbatical himself right after our class was over.

He acknowledged the discomfort this sometimes brings up – like how come you get to take a break from work when so many people around the world have to work 2 jobs just to get the bare necessities and sometimes not even that? Where is their sabbatical?

His response to this has stayed with me. He simply said, “The problem isn’t that the rich get a sabbatical but that the poor don’t. And the poor won’t get one until the rich start taking them because these are the times when we have our best ideas.”

Dr. Swoboda has some beautiful things to say about living a sabbath keeping life, pointing out that rest is not something “that comes with getting our lives in order. Rest is something God finds on our behalf.”

He mentions that nowhere in the Bible are we asked to create or make Sabbath. Instead, we protect it and enter into it. It’s not something we make up, it’s something we’ve been asked to take care of. We’re invited to do that in any capacity that works for our season of life. God is always beckoning, always ready for us to come away. Not forever, just for a while.

Soul space is not an end in itself, but it is a way for us to place ourselves in the presence of God.

We can find him anywhere, even beneath the piles of busy, everyday life. But sometimes we need something drastic. Something longer, something that will allow spacious places for deep work that can only happen in the silence.

As for me, July will be a time for me to come away for awhile.

I’ll do some traveling at the beginning of the month but then it’s home for reading, for listening, for being with my people after maybe the busiest two years of my life so far. My girls have two summers left at home after this one. My home needs my attention. I want to take longer walks around the neighborhood.

I plan to rest and as I do, I’ll be carrying some questions along the way. What does it mean for us to, as David Fitch says in his book, Faithful Presence, live together in Christ’s kingdom? And what does it mean for me vocationally to bring the world along?

What is my next right thing?

Discerning our next right thing is a question we’ll always be asking.

I don’t necessarily expect to come away with answers but I do hope to come away as more fully myself. In order to do my job with any amount of integrity, I also have to create space for myself. So this will be my last post on the blog until mid-August. That’s also when podcast episodes will return.

Until then, I hope you’ll catch up on any posts you may have missed.

• What to Do When You’re Offended
• 3 Things to Do When Things End
• This is More Important Than Your Decision
• There’s No Wrong Way to Grieve
• 10 Things I Learned This Spring

More, though, I hope you’ll find ways that make sense for you in this season of your life and in your own way to create a little space for your own soul to breathe, whether that be 10 minutes in the morning, 10 hours on a weekend, or 10 days unplugged from all distractions.

Father, may you be our vision as we walk into the darkness.

Transform our emptiness into sacred space.

Be our patience as we trust in your slow work and simply do our next right thing in love.

“Perhaps silence makes you uncomfortable. Gradually you may learn to welcome silence, understand that it is a time of great fertility and growth, not of emptiness. Silence cultivates vulnerability toward God, because silence is an outward form of an inward surrender.”

Jan Johnson, Meeting God in Scripture

***

We’ll be back with new podcast episodes mid-August but in it’s place, you can always download the audio version of The Next Right Thing for less than 10 dollars. Happy listening and happy reading to you.

I recently finished reading a book called Visions of Vocation where author Steven Garber dives deep into the implications our vocation has on the wholeness of our lives, not only our work like we often think, but also our relationships and responsibilities in the world.

As I read, I found myself continuing to take notes about decisions and the decision-making process, a subject that is becoming a pillar of my own vocation and one I’m endlessly fascinated by.

At the most basic level, making decisions in a better way starts with understanding that we don’t make decisions in a vacuum. There are too many factors at play that give color, texture, and nuance to every single decision we make, even the small ones. As much as we may think otherwise, it’s impossible to approach decisions apart from who we are because our choices are born out of our character.

What we decide is tied to the person we are and the person we’re becoming.

Toward the end of Visions of Vocation, Garber brings up Victor Hugo’s novel, Les Miserables. He points out the life of the bishop in the novel. While the play and the movies that have come after the book only show the part of his life that intersects with Jean Valjean, the novel spends over a hundred pages to show the reader who the bishop was and the story that shaped his life in such a way that he saw the needs of the world and what was his to care for. 

What we don’t know about the history of the bishop, we can infer from the choices he makes. First, he opens his door to a stranger. Then, he shares his table, his home, and his trust. And in the morning, when the bishop discovers his guest has stolen the silverware, he discerns his next right thing is to offer the candlesticks, too.

As Garber points out, “When you get to know the man, you understand why his instinct was to show mercy.”

I guess that’s what’s standing out to me today. Not necessarily the choice itself although his generosity is radical to the point of seeming foolish, but what stands out is the instinct that made the choice so obvious for the bishop. 

Left to myself, my instincts don’t tend toward sharing and generosity. That has to be groomed and shaped. Just like being a writer or a basketball player or a pianist doesn’t happen overnight, neither does being kind, generous, trusting or trustworthy. 

In the fake high school curriculum I often design in my head, I wish, in addition to algebra and history, we might also include Humanity 101: How to become a person whose instinct it is to show mercy to people who don’t deserve it.

That class I’m sure would be standing room only. I joke about it, in a way, but this is the important stuff in life. 

Is it possible to move through a broken world as broken people without wanting to break everything in our path?

How can we learn to pay attention to the pain around us without letting the pain control us?

In Garber’s book, he asks a similar question: Can you know the world and still love it?

These are not simple questions and I don’t intend to resolve them in a short blog post. But when the answers aren’t simple, it may be even more important to continue to ask the questions.

When it comes to pivotal moments in my own life, what does my instinct lead me to do?

“At crucial moments of choice, most of the business of choosing is already over.” — Iris Murdoch

She said succinctly what I’ve been trying to say in 83 episodes — that the decision is rarely the point. The point is the person I’m becoming.

The point is how the decision-making process informs and shapes me in such a way that my instinctual choice is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The point is to understand that the habits in my life, the way I spend my time, the things I choose to focus on — these things are shaping me. And they will always impact my decisions for better or for worse. 

We can’t live our lives distracted, angry, hurt, overwhelmed, afraid, and exhausted and then expect to somehow be able to make a thoughtful, wise, wholehearted decision about our job, our family, or our children’s future. 

As Iris Murdoch said, At crucial moments of choice, most of the business of choosing is already over.

Again, I don’t have easy answers. But I do have simple encouragement. The person you are becoming matters.

The faith that’s being built within you as you move into an unknown future might seem invisible now, but as you continue to move into the world, your faith will be for you a foundation to lean on in times of difficulty.

The patience you’re cultivating with your two year old might seem endless and forgettable now, but it matters. 

That late night conversation with your teenage daughter, the one that only seems to happen exactly four hours after your preferred bedtime but you stay up with her anyway? That matters.

The years you’ve been waiting for answers that seem to never, ever, ever come, every second of those years matter.

The choice to sit in silence with Jesus even though you don’t have words to pray because everything just feels so hard, that matters.

Making the cake, folding the laundry, tending the garden, driving the carpool, writing the proposal, asking the question, cleaning the toilet again. It all matters.

It’s important what job you take, which house you live in, which volunteer opportunities you say yes and no too. But these are secondary in comparison to the person you’re becoming. 

The person you’re becoming will carry on beyond you, in the minds and hearts of the people you love and the people who love you.

May we be people whose instinct it is to move through the world as ones who live in the kingdom of God so that our choices always reflect the love of the Father, the power of the Son, and the compassion of the Holy Spirit as we continue to do our next right thing in love.

 

“As the poet, Bob Dylan once sang, ‘Everything is broken.’ And so we must not be romantics. But the story of sorrow is not the whole story of life either. There is also wonder and glory, joy and meaning, in the vocations that are ours.

There is good work to be done by every son of Adam and every daughter of Eve all over the face of the earth. There are flowers to be grown, songs to be sung, bread to be baked, justice to be done, mercy to be shown, beauty to be created, good stories to be told, fields to farm and children to educate. All day, every day, there are both wounds and wonders at the very heart of life, if we have eyes to see. And seeing is where vocation begins.”

Steven Garber, Visions of Vocation

 

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This post is an adapted version of this week’s episode of The Next Right Thing: Episode 83 and you can listen to it right here. And if you want even more help with discernment and decision-making in your own life, grab a copy of The Next Right Thing  book.

As is becoming our weekly practice, this post is modified from this weeks podcast episode 82: Find the Beginning in the Ending. If you want to listen instead, have at it! Meanwhile, this post includes a few affiliate links where books are mentioned. Glad you’re here!

After two years, I’ve finally earned my Masters in Christian Spiritual Formation and Leadership. Well, almost. Because what my fellow students and I all lamented as we stood in our caps and gowns together before the ceremony as though we were being hooded that day, our assignments weren’t completely over.

We still have two papers due before the end of the month. Talk about pomp and circumstance. More like womp and circumstance. 

(Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.)

After the ceremony, some of us went out for burgers and ice cream (as the Lord intended) and then I made my way back to my room to figure out how to pack a mortarboard cap into my suitcase. The next day, John and I flew back to life and to business as usual.

But, I carried a little secret with me and I’m almost embarrassed to admit it to you and that is after two years of assignments, tons of reading, endless papers, and four-week-long residencies, I should be relieved that it’s almost over and frustrated about those two final papers hanging over my head but the truth I’m going to tell you right now is I’m secretly glad I still have these papers left to write.

I know it’s so weird and I quite possibly might have a strange addiction to learning, but once those papers are turned in, then this experience really is over. And while that is the point, it’s also a little sad.

Maybe you’re facing down an ending today and that ending has a few loose ends left to tie up. Are you a little hesitant to move forward too? Are you dragging your feet to the finish line, concerned about what might come after? Or maybe you’ve already ended a thing but it went by without acknowledgment and now, you find yourself a little bit stuck with what to do next.

Today I’ll offer 3 simple things to consider as you discern your next right thing.

1. Put a period on the experience.

Marking the ending of things is embedded into our culture. The parties, finales, celebrations, and farewells are all part of our regular rhythm of life. Even our birthdays technically celebrate an ending. When a baby turns 1, we mark the end of her first year, not the beginning of it. 

When an ending is communal, involving families or groups, the likelihood of us marking it might be greater simply because more people are involved. But just because the group marks a thing doesn’t mean you owned that ending for yourself. Not to mention, that if an ending is more personal or quiet, it might be even easier to overlook. 

It’s important to not rush through the ending, but we still have to have one. One way to do that is to find a period to end things as best we can.

On the last day of school last week, one of our teachers James Bryan Smith gave a short lecture about the ending of our time together. I really appreciated his intentionality to say This is over and it cannot be duplicated. That’s helpful for those who may tend to expect things to carry on as they have been when in fact, circumstances have changed and so must our expectations.

We’ve all been to events done well and events done not so well. For example, at a wedding we love it when the pastor pronounces the couple husband and wife, the bride is kissed, the couple is announced as Mr. and Mrs. for the very first time, the crowd cheers, and the music starts right on time while the bride and groom rush down the aisle together.

What we don’t love at weddings is when the pastor pronounces the couple husband and wife, the bride is kissed, the couple is announced for the very first time, the crowd cheers and then the music doesn’t start right away. The couple doesn’t want to walk awkwardly down the aisle in silence, so they look around and wait, and then everyone is quiet and then when the music does finally start it’s too quiet but they go down anyway. It’s a whole thing and it’s the worst.

In a small way and for the sake of this illustration, the music is the period the ceremony needs. When every part falls into place, when the crescendo comes at the right moment and the rhythm fits the expectation and everyone plays their part, there’s a sense of completion, of joy, and a settled satisfaction.

Maybe one reason you’ve not been able to move forward into your next right thing is because there’s an ending lingering in your life that never ended with a period. Maybe it’s even been years. So instead, you just kept on going without acknowledging the thing was even over at all. 

Maybe it ended abruptly and there was no time to recognize it, much less grieve it.

Perhaps it ended badly and it was too painful to look at so instead you chose not to.

Or maybe it’s simply that life got busy. Yes, you met that goal, reached that finish line, or achieved that accomplishment, but there was dinner to make and errands to run and you never had a chance to mark the moment. 

All of these things could be reasons why we are having trouble of moving on to the next right thing. We’ve been unwilling, unable, or maybe simply unaware that we needed to put a period on an ending.

2. Don’t let the stuff outweigh the sacred.

In high school, my best friend Heather and I started to hang out with two guys who were also best friends. When she and one of the guys started to date, it only “made sense” the other guy and I hung out a lot more and started to date as well.

(It was high school so you know, the things that make sense in high school might not make sense when we are grownups, but have mercy.)

Eventually, we all went to prom together and for a few months we had the best time laughing, going to soccer and baseball games, and hanging out at each other’s houses. 

For a while the four of us were inseparable. But our days were numbered together and we knew it because that summer, one of the guys had to move away. I held on to notes, photo albums, journal entries, and other memorabilia from that fun spring and that was my way of trying to hang on to the experience. But those things were not the experience, they were the evidence that the experience was real.

In other words, they were the stuff.

But, I was young and my brain wasn’t fully developed so I focused only on the loss and the memories lived mainly in the stuff that I couldn’t bear to get rid of.

There’s nothing wrong with keeping the stuff, but I didn’t yet understand the importance of letting the stuff lead me to the sacred — specifically how my experience with my friends changed me, how it formed me, and what I was grateful for as a result. So I kept the stuff but because it was sad to go through it, I put it all in a box in the top of my closet which resulted in memory clutter and deferred grief.

For much of my life, I’ve allowed the stuff to swallow up the sacred.

Who can teach us how to let the stuff lead us to what really matters? Sometimes I wish it was my job to design a few classes that every student has to pass before graduating high school — how to do online banking, how to structure your day as a working adult, how to say a healthy goodbye. There’s so much we have to learn on our own, isn’t there?

3. Hints of your next right thing can be found in your last right thing.

I have always found this to be true. Every book I’ve written has seeds of the next book embedded within it. If you look closely and have nothing better to do with your time, you can find all of those hints because endings always also carry the first string of new beginnings. 

We celebrate the first year of a baby but it heralds in her second year, too. We celebrate the wedding that ends the engagement but begins a lifetime together. We celebrate a graduation that ends the time of structured study but begins a time of continued learning in the world.

The sacred things we mark from the ending will be brought forth into our beginnings, not necessarily because of an external thing we bring with us, but because of the person we have become. 

When things end, we come forth changed.

We would do well to take some time to pay attention to those changes, to mark them, to honor them and see how they might lead us forward.

When I’m facing, or in the midst of, or just beyond an ending,

Have I become more confident?

Has my heart expanded as a result of my experience?

Do I see gifts in small things?

What corner of the kingdom do I feel drawn to most?

When I look at people, do I see the image of God more quickly now?

In some ways for me and my own ending, school is safer than not school. School means someone else tells me what to focus on, where to spend my time, and what is important to remember. And while I’ve been a grown up for quite a long time by now and I know how to do things, I admit it’s been nice for these last few years to trust someone else to design my learning curriculum. Because not school means now I have questions to answer, pathways to choose, and more decisions to make. 

It always comes back to that, doesn’t it? Decisions, choices, this path or that one, which way to go?

God is always forming us. And so often he uses the decision making process to do it.

Can you think of something in your life that ended without fanfare or acknowledgment? Maybe it’s time to name it.

Is there a small thing you can put a period on an ending in a life-giving, appropriate way? 

Maybe its time to say a formal goodbye, have a small (or big!) celebration, or even simply to light a candle to mark a memory.

What about all your stuff?

Have you put the stuff of your experience into a box to go through later? 

Might it be time to pull the box out and allow the stuff to lead you to the sacred gifts the experience has to bring your way — the transformation that happened in your mind, your body, and your heart as a result of that time in your life?

If you’re not ready, that’s okay too. Our friend Jesus can help you to know when the time is right. You can trust him with that.

Maybe you’ve marked the ending, you’ve allowed the stuff to lead you to the sacred work, but you’re still wondering what your next right thing might be.

Take a little time to be silent and to be still. To be watchful. To bear witness. 

If you can’t yet see a new spark, a small shoot, or the start of a new thing, take heart. Ask Jesus what you are to look for. Remain open to seeing things in a way you might not expect. 

If nothing comes, be gentle with yourself. We don’t stop living just because we are unsure. We continue on, trusting in the King of the Kingdom as we simply do our next right thing in love.

“Everyone has lost sight of your heart And you can see nowhere to put your trust; you know you have to make your own way through. As far as you can, hold your confidence.

Do not allow your confusion to squander this call which is loosening your roots in false ground, that you might come free from all you have outgrown.

What is being transfigured here is your mind, and it is difficult and slow to become new.

The more faithfully you can endure here, the more refined your heart will become for your arrival in the new dawn.”

John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us

If you want even more help to discern your next steps, grab a copy of my new book The Next Right Thing.

In an effort so serve those who aren’t podcast listeners I’m sharing the majority of this week’s episode of The Next Right Thing Podcast here on the blog. If you’d prefer to listen, tune in to Episode 79: Find Relief From Regret. Where books are listed here, I’ve used my affiliate links.

We talk a lot here about making decisions always with the simple mantra of doing the next right thing.

One thing we haven’t talked a lot about? What if you try to do the next right thing but later you look back and realize it wasn’t the right thing after all? What do we do when our next right thing turns out to be wrong? And how do we deal with regret?

If you’ve struggled with this question in your own decision-making, I hope to offer a little relief today.

Maybe you don’t struggle much with regret. It could be because you haven’t made regrettable choices in your life. But it could also be because regret can only be uncovered upon reflection and you’re not a person who lives in the past.

This could be a function of your personality or your own coping skills, and being a forward-looking person has its gifts, to be sure. But there may also be regrets that linger beneath the surface for you that you’re running from and you don’t even realize it.

There’s also the other extreme. You may be someone who is so wrapped up in regret that you can’t see straight, can’t find the joy, and can’t untangle yourself enough to move forward in a healthy way. Regret is holding you hostage and I hope your next right thing is to be set free today.

I want to invite you to simply listen in to a couple of stories I have to tell. They’re both about regret — one that belongs to someone else, and one that belongs to me. In both, there’s hope. And during this Holy Week, I hope you see it and can find a little hope of your own.

***

My dad drank beer every day until I was ten years old. I didn’t have to go to college to learn what ‘passed out drunk’ looked like. He snored on the floor in the early evenings while we watched TV. We tossed a shoe or twenty in his direction during Little House on the Prairie because his snoring was so loud we couldn’t hear the details of what was happening in Walnut Grove.

I thought all the world’s dads came home and fell asleep on the floor. It was normal and it didn’t feel like a big deal. It was only years later, that I realized the reason for his long evening naps.

Beer was as much a part of my family growing up as stockings at Christmas, white cake on our birthdays, and the kittens living in our shed. I didn’t question it, didn’t wonder about it, and didn’t know to blame it for my own insecurities.

Dad stopped drinking when he was thirty-five and I was maybe around ten or eleven. He didn’t stop because someone said the right thing, lectured the right way or loved him enough. He didn’t stop because I was a good girl or because mom made his favorite breakfast or because any of us asked him to. He made the choice to stop drinking because he wanted to stop.

I see it as a miracle.

Even though addiction is part of our family story, it isn’t the whole story. And it isn’t the finished story. Addiction didn’t win. But for years, it seemed like it would.

If you talked to Dad today and asked him if he regretted those years, I’m not sure he could find the words to tell you how much.

Today, my parents have been married for over 45 years. We look to them for wisdom and for counsel. We consider them friends. We laugh together. We plan together. We work together. We’ve dreamed together.

The same God who turned water into wine turns alcoholics into dreamers.

It doesn’t make sense and those two things don’t seem to go together, but they do, somehow. And I don’t have to understand it for it to change my life.

The regret didn’t turn to hope overnight. But it did turn. And that’s where the hope comes in. That’s the first story.

Here’s story number two.

***

My husband’s dad, Frank, was diagnosed with lung cancer in October 2010. By spring, it was clear the treatment could only prolong his life by months, not years, and we started to approach his care from the perspective of peace and comfort rather than any expectation for long-term remission.

During this time I was preparing for the launch of my very first book. I was setting meetings, creating a launch plan the best I knew how to do at the time as a new author, and I was making plans as it related to that book. Part of my marketing plan for that book was to partner with a marketing team who lived out of state so I made plans to fly them into Charlotte and have a day together.

I bought their plane tickets on my own dime and scheduled the hour and a half drive to Charlotte for a day that worked both for them and for us in late July. John and I talked about it and we both felt like this date would work. We knew his Dad wasn’t well, but there was no way of knowing how well he would be doing a few months from now and besides, we couldn’t put everything on hold could we? We still had to make some plans.

The date came for the team to arrive and it was during a week when John’s dad had taken a turn. Still, the doctors and nurses said he could go on like this for many weeks even a month, and so we carried on with our plans as normal and I just did the next right thing I knew to do at the time. The team flew in, I drove down to Charlotte, and we had our meeting. I stayed in touch with John throughout the day.

But as our meeting came to a close, John’s messages became more dire. I left the meeting to try to make it home, but as I sat at a stoplight still in Charlotte, behind a line of cars headed toward the on ramp to the highway, my phone rang and I knew what John would say on the other end of the line.

Frank had died just minutes before as the family stayed beside him in his hospital room. I still had an hour and a half drive in front of me. The sadness and regret descended on me like a weight and if I think about it too long right now, I can still feel it in my chest nearly 8 years later. 

I should have been there. I should have canceled my meeting and stayed home. Why didn’t I cancel? What was I thinking?

Regret always shows up pointing a finger, chanting a string of unanswerable, impossible questions. The questions repeat their minor chord, refusing to resolve, stuck in your head on a loop.

If you could sit and talk with Dad, I’m sure he could tell you how much he regrets those years he sacrificed at the altar of addiction. He wishes he could go back and choose differently.

And if you could talk with me right now, I’ll tell you plainly how desperately I wish I could take back my decision to drive to Charlotte that day. I wish I could go back and choose differently.

These are different kinds of regrets, but the feeling is similar: time lost that you can’t get back, choices made that you wish were different, steps taken you wish you could undo.

Regret can take on many forms.

It can be a result of a poor or immoral choice, an uninformed choice, or simply a choice or direction that was maybe innocent on it’s own but it ended up leading to a complication, an embarrassment, a difficulty you wish you could have avoided or a grief you wish you could have helped ease.

When it comes to life decisions that we regret or wish turned out differently, I want to gently invite you to turn with me to the only place that offers any hope at all. And that is into the presence of God.

Here in the midst of this week before Easter, it’s one thing to consider the events of the crucifixion from history, that this is something that really did happen to an innocent man all those many years ago. It was a historical event and this is one way to see the crucifixion.

In one of my Lenten devotionals, Bread and Wine, Barbara Brown Taylor says this:

“He offered himself as a mirror they could see themselves in, and they were so appalled by what they saw that they smashed it. They smashed him every way they could.”

This is the second way to see the crucifixion that is also true. Not only was the crucifixion a historical event, it was also a personal one. Many pastors and teachers this time of year point out that because of our own sin, we are the ones calling for him to be crucified. Like Taylor says, we smash the truth we see of ourselves in His presence. We can’t look upon our own inadequacy with any peace. It’s just too terrible.

Sometimes regret feels like that. Rather than face it, we want to smash it and refuse to look at the consequences, or we dwell so deeply in regret that we can’t find our way out.

But there’s a third perspective and too often we stop short of getting there. Because it’s another thing altogether to look at the truth of scripture and remember this: When he died, I died with him.

Instead of the impersonal observer watching from thousands of years later or imagining myself among the dirty crowd who killed him, Jesus brings me closer. 

He puts me on the cross with him. He hid me within him and absorbed the punishment on my behalf — my poor choices, my uninformed choices, my flat out wrong choices — and there, in that place, he sets me free.

In a very real, very strange and mysterious way? Our life perspective as believers is one of a people who have died. And when Jesus rose again, we rose up, too.

Even while we walk the dusty roads of this gritty, beautiful, heartbroken world, we have been made new.

This Holy Week, let’s not simply remember something that happened to Jesus. Let’s remember something that happened to us.

“If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin, because anyone who has died has been freed from sin.” Romans 6:5-7

Good Friday promises that nothing can separate us from the love of God because love chose to be separated from Himself instead.

God turned on himself for our sake. 

He tore himself apart so that our brokenness, our betrayal, our addiction, our mistakes, our poor judgments, our regrets and our if only’s wouldn’t be the end of our story.

Jesus was separated so you will never have to be separate again. 

Even when it seems like you’re fighting a losing battle. 

Even when it seems like hope is dead.

Hope did die. But Hope didn’t stay dead.

You don’t have to undo things.

You don’t have to pay for your own wrongs.

You don’t have to wallow anymore.

You may be in the valley of the shadow of death but you do not have to slow down, lie down, or stop. In Christ, you walk through. There is hope. And you are free. 

Be relentlessly gentle with yourself today. Starting now, what is your next right thing?

If you’re struggling with regret and can’t seem to shake it, my prayer for you is that during this Holy Week, our friend Jesus would be the kindest of companions for you, with you, around you, and within you. His hand extended toward you is not one that holds a grudge, a list, or a reprimand. 

He just wants to be with you.

“I hope you see hope and good where you are right now. I hope you accept that each moment is a step on a journey and part of a bigger and better thing, but the journey can be scary. I hope you grow in connecting the dots between the moments, the scary journey, and the bigger, better thing.

I hope you think and dream, but pursue your hope with faith and action. I hope you spend more time pursuing than regretting, second-guessing and woe-is-me’ing. I hope you accept confusion, questions, crooked lines, fatigue, fog, loneliness, darkness, rejection, and low self-esteem as part of the journey of hope . . .

Finding strength in the Lord your God is no guarantee your hope will be fulfilled. But it is strength for one more step than you think is possible. Sometimes the next step is all you’ve got. Take it.”

— this is from a little e-book called Scary Hope that Dad wrote years ago. In fact, my dad Gary Morland, the now sober alcoholic wrote down our family story in a whole book called A Family Shaped By Grace. 

We all approach decision-making in uniquely different ways. Want to know your decision-making style? Visit this page and take the short quiz by clicking quiz in the top navigation.

If you’re curious about what went on during the book launch party, you can listen in right here! Learn more about The Next Right Thing right here.

Okay so it may not be a comprehensive list that everyone can follow.

But after 5 published books I finally figured out to have a launch party that works for me. In some ways this list is applicable to every book but for the most part, it’s super specific to this book. And me. And my friends. I’m sorry! But also you’re welcome because some of these ideas are definitely replicable!

1. Have the party the night before the book releases.

I’ve done this all kind of ways and so far this was my favorite way. We had a party to celebrate and then we still had the next day (launch day) to look forward to! Plus it gave the book a lot of momentum going into release week.

2. Stay in your lane.

My lane, as the author, is the message of the book, setting the tone for the evening, creating the content, and hosting the night. My lane was to drive the ship. But that doesn’t mean I had to build the ship.

My assistant Traci organized all of the details, including finding artists and a support team who could make everything happen.

3. Hire people to help you and say yes when people volunteer.

These photographs are (almost) all courtesy of Barrie Johnson of Barrier Photography who sent me a message a few weeks before the party and offered to take photos for free. My friend Jason Winsdor did the same thing, offering to bring a little camera and take some footage.

Megan Mazzucco did the balloon arch. My sister was all-around consultant and flower provider. Cookies of the night were from Sweet Stuff by Meredith and Morenike Fox.

4. Make the gathering shareable beyond the guests who can come in person.

As I mentioned before, this is my 5th book. Here’s how we celebrated the first 4 books:

• Grace for the Good Girl: We hosted a private dinner at a restaurant for close friends and family (no public photos of this one) but my sister and mom also hosted a beautiful book signing event at my sister’s house (this was back in 2011!)
• Graceful: I brought in two musicians to our church and we hosted a night for the high school girls and their moms a few weeks after the book came out (it was a book for teen girls)
• A Million Little Ways: We planned a half-day workshop type event a few months after the book released
• Simply Tuesday: We had a fun event at my sister’s barn in Charlotte (I loved this party)

These were all absolutely lovely ways to celebrate the releases of my previous four books. And having a private party is wonderful.

But for a book launch party, it was important for me this time for it to serve two purposes: celebrate and sell. Sell-abrate? No that’s too much. Too much!

The way we shared it with readers and listeners of the podcast was two-fold: we live streamed it through Instagram and we recorded the whole thing and made it available as a bonus episode of the podcast (that you can listen to at the top of this post.)

That’s my friend Alisa on the front row. She held my phone for the Instagram Live for the whole hour! She’s a rock star with a forearm of steel.

Caleb Peavey of Unmutable drove to and from Atalanta in one day just to record the night for the podcast for us. He’s  not only my marketing partner in crime, he’s become a dear friend and I’m grateful.

5. Celebrate people as much as you can.

It’s a book launch, but it’s also a way to thank everyone who has helped shepherd the book up to this point. If you listen to the live show, you won’t hear all the thank you’s as we cut those out of the recording, but rest assured there were thank you’s at the actual event.

The above photo is a small group of our hope*writer members who joined us to celebrate and below is a group of The Next Right Thing launch team members. What a lovely crew!

6. Sell books at your launch party.

Over the years I’ve done many books signings at our local Barnes & Noble so we’ve made connections with some of the staff there. For this party, we weren’t sure if they would, but we asked if Barnes & Noble would be willing to come to the party and sell books for us.

In the past I’ve always sold them myself but it was one less thing to fiddle with. And lucky for us, Barnes & Noble said yes! They brought a giant cash register and sold books all night.

7. Read a portion of your book.

Leave a little time to read a short chapter or a few pages of your book at your launch party. For me, this was a sweet time to settle in and enjoy the room but not have to think about what I was going to say next because all I had to do was read.

8. Get a photo with your family.

With events like this, often the people you love the most stay on the sidelines and you forget to capture their presence. Put it on the schedule and make sure to get a picture of you with your closest people before the night is over.

9. When it comes to the decor, a few bigs are better than lots of smalls.

My sister can speak to this way better than I can, but basically she always says if you have a few statement or large pieces, then you can get away with less stuff. We were able to host this event at the Cadillac Service Garage which, as you can see, makes a statement all by itself. Plus the floors matched the book so . . .

The giant windows, tall ceiling, exposed brick and stellar floors did a lot of the talking. We just brought in a giant green balloon arch and some lovely flowers and that’s about all it took.

10. Don’t expect a party to do everything.

Know the reason why you want to have a book launch party and then stick to it. The publisher doesn’t require you to have a party. (And also they don’t pay for it). You can do it on actual launch day or two months later (or not at all). It can be private or public. You can sell tickets or make it free.

There’s no wrong, but just know why you want to do it and then let that be what it is.

What a fun night!

I’m grateful to everyone who helped make this night happen as well as all of the guests who showed up.

After the hard work of writing and preparing to launch a book, a book launch/live show felt just right.

The Next Right Thing is available now! Grab a copy on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or wherever you like to buy books.