Be strong, and let your heart take courage,
all you who wait for the Lord.

-Psalm 31:24

My first year of graduate school, I had a particularly tumultuous fall. In the span of a few months, I started two graduate programs, went through a big break-up, had a major stomach bacteria, started a new job as youth director at a church, and lost my housing with 5 days notice.

Thankfully, one of my classes that semester was a spiritual care class in which we could check in, pray, and reflect together. One sunny Monday morning, I sat in a small classroom at my seminary, looking over the San Francisco Bay, and lamented about everything happening in my life and how overwhelmed I felt. After I shared, a Buddhist student knelt down next to me. She was probably 30 years my senior and looked like the free gentle spirit I wanted to be: with wispy hair, skin basked in sunshine, a wood-beaded meditation bracelet on her wrist, soft smile wrinkles around her eyes, and a wise smile.

She leaned in and said, “You’re going through a turbulent time. What I know is that, when you’re flying in an airplane, turbulence means you are headed for a higher elevation. If you ride this out, God will take you higher.”

I may have forgotten her name, but I will never forget her wisdom.

Several folks have shared with me lately that, as we emerge from the pandemic (though the pandemic is still real, my friends), they are experiencing a great deal of turbulence. After two years of hyper-focus and collective trauma, we are coming up for air only to realize that the air is different. Marriages that were placed on the back burner as we focused on home-schooling kids or big shifts in work are suddenly not the same as they used to be. Friendships that perhaps we did not invest in as much feel like they’re hanging on by a thread. Work that was once purpose-driven now feels lifeless. Everything just feels… turbulent.

What I know about turbulence is: 1) it is scary; and 2) it doesn’t mean the plane is going to crash; 3) it’s important to keep breathing. I also know that, in life, as we ride out the turbulence, some things will sift. As things get shaken up, what needs to fall through and be let go of, and what needs to stay?

The answer to that question is not always crystal clear. But eventually, some things will fall away, and some things will stay, and we will find that God has brought us up and out of the clouds and into the blue skies at a higher elevation.

Love,
A fellow passenger