This whole week has been an abject lesson in why one shouldn't get too attached to outcomes. Primarily, this lesson comes to me in the form of clients who cancel or reschedule at the last minute. This and similar stuff in the last week has caused me to reflect on the challenges of life. Regardless of how good our intentions are, we can never control outcomes. Things go wrong.
A few days ago, a friend of mine bent my ear for quite some time - telling me about personal difficulties he was having. He is just coming out of a divorce and is pretty much strapped for cash. He is trying to get his practice going as a healer but at the same time has tremendous financial and emotional drains. At the moment, for him, times look pretty grim.
He asked me to do some NLP work with him to help him feel less overwhelmed and I think I was able to help him. It was a small favor to grant. Years ago, another friend did the same for me back when I was going through some of my darkest hours and now I am honored to be able to help this guy in the same way.
I did some guided imagery with him, inviting him to recall a time when he was on top of the world, confident and successful. We anchored it, repeating the procedure several times. We then went down the metaphorical path, surmounting obstacles, challenges, etc. Following that, I think he had gotten back some of the old confidence I've seen in him during the time I've known him.
While the work seems to have given him a much-needed confidence boost, I was left with questions most of us seem to wrestle with at some point or another. Just because you place your faith in God, doesn't mean everything will go as you hope. We often get overwhelmed and discouraged. Yet somehow, we live on. Our faith is tested and hopefully it comes out stronger than ever before. Why do bad things happen to good people?
I am reminded of times in scripture when God pulls through for us - the parable of the lilies of the field, the crumbling of the walls of Jericho and the story of the empty tomb. All these are examples of where God intervenes in the most unexpected ways. At times when life seems the most hopeless, that is when God comes through.
I often wonder, perhaps we need to go through those bottom times - the dark times in the wilderness - to strip away that veneer of "success" that takes us away from God. It's easy to be spiritual when times are good. Yet the true test - the forge of God - comes when we find our backs to the wall, lives reduced to the bare earth. We wonder where the next meal is coming from.
Ten to fifteen years ago, I found my job situation to be at its darkest, when life seemed to hold little hope. I wondered how I would survive the stress of the workplace and a hostile boss. But what I couldn't see at the time is that you do get through it. Similar case for other times of challenge in my life - dark as they seemed at that moment, I can now look back and see that they were directly responsible for leading me to this point, the here and now. It is a time when I can now pursue my dream of being a healer, writer and explorer - a blessed time that even a few years ago, I never would have believed would come.
Now, my friend is in a similar situation, although certainly not identical. What he is going through is more difficult than anything I ever faced. Yet the lesson is the same. One day he will be through it. And like the lilies of the field, like Christ's 40 days in the wilderness, my friend will survive. And whatever path he takes in life, his days in the forge of God will do much to turn him into the healer he is destined to be.
