When I read this post by my new friend, Shawn Smucker, I cried. Not just oh my eyes blurred a little but full out, shaking shoulders, giant tears. Part of my life’s work is to teach people to pay attention to what makes them cry, because tears are tiny messengers sent from the deepest part of who we are. Trace them back and there you’ll find your deepest desires.
When we are aware of our deepest desire, we are one step closer to becoming more fully ourselves.
I’m grateful to Shawn for writing these words, for sharing them with our community here, and for giving me reason to reflect on those deep desires coming alive within me. I hope these words do the same for you.
Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay.
There are many wonderful spiritual disciplines. Silence. Meditation. Study. Celebration. Prayer. They are practices that will change us on a fundamental level, activities that tune us in to the direction of the Spirit.
And then there is what I like to call The Spiritual Discipline of Looking for Sammy’s Blanket in the Middle of the Night.
Because no matter how many times you remind a child to leave their blanket in their bed, and no matter how often during the day you direct them to return the blanket to the bed, once night falls, and the shadows gather around the house, the blanket is nowhere to be found.
When you are nearly asleep, and just as the cares of the world are melting away into a sleepy haze, this child will come to your room with a quivering lip and watery eyes and tell you that he was almost asleep when he realized Moe is not in the bed (Moe is the name of the blanket).
And, even though it’s the last thing on Earth you feel like doing, you will slowly walk the house with them, searching each and every room, glancing under tables and behind sofas, double- and triple-checking the laundry. You will wake other children to see if they know Moe’s whereabouts.
And most nights you will find it. But some nights you won’t.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something
unknown, something new.
And yet it is the law of all progress
that it is made by passing through
some stages of instability—
and that it may take a very long time.
For three months I’ve been waiting for something. You probably know what it’s like. You’ve waited, too, for many crucial (and not so crucial) things: a final diagnosis, an offer, a closing date, a yes or no, a call back, word on that promotion or potential adoption. Waiting to become pregnant. Waiting for your children to grow up. Waiting for retirement.
Waiting.
I’m nearly forty now, neither young nor old, but I know this: I could spend my whole life obsessing over THAT THING I’m currently waiting for. Because the waiting? The searching? The wondering?
It never ends. There’s always something OUT THERE. There’s always something just beyond my grasp. Maybe this is what it means to be alive: longing. There’s always something I’m looking for, and sometimes I find it. But often I don’t.
And so I think it is with you;
your ideas mature gradually—let them grow,
let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.
While we usually obsess over the thing we’re waiting for, the thing we want, what the waiting can do for us, can do in us, is never about that thing. I know, I know. I’m not making sense.
How about this:
While my son and I comb the house for his blanket, what’s happening in us during those late-night searches has nothing to do with the blanket. He is learning that I love him enough to go with him into the dark places. He is learning that I will leave my comfort in order to help him find his. He is learning, hopefully, that the best place to leave his blanket during the day is in his bed. He is learning, in his own childlike way, to “accept the anxiety of feeling himself in suspense and incomplete.”
While I continue to wait for this thing that may or may not happen, what’s happening in me has nothing to do with the end result. There is “a new spirit gradually forming within” me, especially if I can believe that I am not wandering this dark house alone.
Only God could say what this new spirit
gradually forming within you will be.
Give Our Lord the benefit of believing
that his hand is leading you,
and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
in suspense and incomplete.
Italicized sections by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Shawn is a pilgrim trying to grow beyond the noise of this world.
He is the co-writer and author of many books, including the young adult novel that grapples with the concept of death, The Day the Angels Fell.
He lives in the city of Lancaster, PA, with his wife and five (soon to be six) children.
You can connect with Shawn at his website, ShawnSmucker.com.
Pat says
July 21, 2016 at 9:53 AMOh my gosh–maybe not the ugly cry but definitely “OMG” weak knees.
Thank you Shawn for writing this for me 🙂 and sweet Emily for understanding it!
Shawn, I love your “I’m nearly 40, neither young nor old…imagine still GETTING THIS when you are 60 and definitely feeling “old”.
This–“It never ends. There’s always something OUT THERE. There’s always something just beyond my grasp. Maybe this is what it means to be alive: longing. There’s always something I’m looking for, and sometimes I find it. But often I don’t.”
Shawn, I wonder if you know of a pregnancy center in your city that I partner with and my friend Lisa Hosler?
Blessings,
Pat
Shawn says
July 24, 2016 at 3:07 PMThank you, Pat. I think it’s a reminder we all need, often, again and again. Lisa’s name sounds familiar, but I’m not sure?
Raynna says
July 21, 2016 at 10:03 AMYes! Well written and insightful. Thank you Shawn.
Shawn says
July 24, 2016 at 3:07 PMThank you, Raynna.
Kelli McKnight says
July 21, 2016 at 10:51 AMOh my word, so very good. Thank you for sharing your words. The call to slow acceptance of the beautiful unknown growing inside us cannot be stated enough.
Erin Etheridge says
July 21, 2016 at 11:11 AMFantastic integration of poetry. So much more effective than an epigraph. (The actual content was pretty great, too.)
Shawn says
July 24, 2016 at 3:08 PMThanks, Erin. I love that poem.
Melanie Horning says
July 21, 2016 at 1:14 PMThank you for putting into words a season I find myself in as well….waiting. Thank you for the word picture you created for me in sharing about the missing bedtime blankie. Thank you for using words from the “great cloud of witnesses” gone before us. Thank you for the gift of hope in this season.
Shawn says
July 24, 2016 at 3:08 PMMelanie, I think it does us some good to know we’re all waiting together.
Liz says
July 21, 2016 at 5:25 PMYes, and Amen
Crystal Storms says
July 21, 2016 at 5:30 PM“He is learning I will leave my comfort in order to help him find his.” A love that melts my heart — powerful!
Marian Vischer says
July 22, 2016 at 8:30 AMAnd just like that, I’m comforted as I wait, realizing that perhaps the work that happens during the in-between is the actual point.
Such a beautiful and timely post. Thank you both for sharing it with us.
Shawn says
July 24, 2016 at 3:09 PMYes! I think many times it is.
Sarah says
July 22, 2016 at 9:57 AMI read this once and then went back and read it again and went back to the top and read it once more. I can’t really shake it still- I need to sit with this one a bit as it has stirred some longings, some hurts, something I didn’t even know was beneath my desperately-trying-to-keep-it-together surface. Thanks for giving voice to our journey and hope that there is light within it.
Shawn says
July 24, 2016 at 3:09 PMThank you, Sarah. I think waiting often helps us get below the surface you’re talking about. Maybe that’s why it’s so important?
Keri says
July 22, 2016 at 10:14 AMI thought to myself when I started reading, this won’t make me cry…but oh, it so did! I am a big crier myself, but I’m starting to try to determine what it is that makes me cry – much of the time it’s obvious, but sometimes it’s really not at all. Thank you for sharing this post…it was beautiful and I loved his sum up at the end…
“While my son and I comb the house for his blanket, what’s happening in us during those late-night searches has nothing to do with the blanket. He is learning that I love him enough to go with him into the dark places. He is learning that I will leave my comfort in order to help him find his. He is learning, hopefully, that the best place to leave his blanket during the day is in his bed. He is learning, in his own childlike way, to “accept the anxiety of feeling himself in suspense and incomplete.”
Shawn says
July 24, 2016 at 3:10 PMThank you, Keri.
Elli Zeamer says
July 25, 2016 at 8:11 AMOh Shawn. I am old. I am 68 years old, a woman of age. And I wait, I wait…knowing each day that I have such little control. Knowing who is really in charge. And I wait to be ok with it, not always patiently, but knowing that it’s my best choice and that I am in the best hands of all.
Shawn says
July 25, 2016 at 5:30 PMIn my mind, Elli, you will always be a successful woman in her early 40s, helping people and sending out positive vibes into the world. Not that there’s anything wrong with 68. But when I think of you, that’s the Elli that comes to mind. You’re a wonderful human being.
Marcy says
July 28, 2016 at 8:27 AMMy eyes were out-to-someday this morning, deep lament for loneliness in the middle of summer chaos. Thanks for drawing them back to my feet, my day, the redemption offered within becoming.
…and then the 16 year old half-man with his self-conscious arrogance, thank you for the reminder that he cannot be today what he isn’t….
Don’t try to force them on,
as though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances
acting on your own good will)
will make of you tomorrow.
Shawn says
August 5, 2016 at 10:42 PMYes! That’s a good word. Thanks, Marcy.
Anni says
July 31, 2016 at 3:45 AMYes. Oh, yes! God got my attention in this area last year as I was caring for my mother on hospice. She kept apologizing for being sick and causing me and my daughters such bother. I talked with her, though, asking her to stop. I explained that God was using her illness to teach my girls how to love family even when it’s really hard. I told her that she was helping me train them to someday take care of me and their daddy.
But I guess my words didn’t penetrate my own heart because when November came, and Mom spent almost all the time in bed, I began begging God to take her quickly. Someone challenged me to trust God’s timing, to use that time to focus on Him, to encourage Mom in her final days, and to make sure my girls (ages 12 and 15) were thinking Biblically in this trial. It was true! Even after Mom became unconscious, God continued to work on my heart with this truth: My mom wasn’t the only one He was shaping through that trial. Once she was unconscious, it was clear that God’s focus had turned to us.
She died on December 23rd, just over seven months ago. And God continues to shape our hearts from this trial.
emily p freeman says
July 31, 2016 at 6:24 AMThank you for sharing this, Anni. Beautiful.
Shawn says
August 5, 2016 at 10:43 PMThanks for your encouragement, Anni. You’re so right.
Salento says
September 16, 2016 at 11:31 AMBeautiful as you described in this post , but above all thanks
pescoluse says
September 19, 2016 at 7:46 AMComplimenti!
Alison McLennan says
July 25, 2017 at 1:34 PMYou did it again, Shawn. Somehow you always manage to bring us along on your journey in a way that helps us feel our own more deeply. So very thankful to have read this.
C Ampil says
August 1, 2020 at 10:44 AMHello! I have a special needs son. And he has taught me to appreciate the slow work of God. My eyes and heart see even the minutest sign of development or growth. I have become a treasurer of blessings. But the dissonance between that movement and the 21st century speed of tech/agile business is something I have to live with everyday. Sometimes the clash in values is deep. I think your piece is resonating with many because it’s the reassurance we all need, to hear: it’s ok to live in the in-between and embrace the grace of that Holy Saturday, which is where we live most of our life. Blessings to you and your loved ones!