Mark Yaconelli - The Gift of Hard Things: Finding Grace in Unexpected Places

The Gift of Burnout

The Gift of Disappointment

The Gift of Difficult People

The Gift of Brokenness

The Gift of Anger

The Gift of Powerlessness

The Gift of Loss

The Gift of Suffering

The Gift of Darkness

The Gift of Death

I love the thing that I most wish had not happened.

Stephen Colbert

O ne April afternoon I sat in the backyard of a nineteenth-century farm house with my friend Eric watching our two ten-year-old daughters run and play across a green meadow dotted with wildflowers. Enjoying the smell of apple blossoms, the late afternoon light and cold iced tea, we became engaged in conversation and lost track of our daughters. Thirty minutes went by until Erics wife called from the house, Where are the girls?

Chagrined, we stood suddenly and scanned the field. To our surprise we spotted the girls atop two horses, riding along the far perimeter of the meadow. Eric did not own horses. Our daughters had no equine experience. Quickly, and without a word to Erics wife, we ran across the field where we spotted a woman in Wranglers and a straw cowboy hat standing in the shadow of an oak grove, shouting instructions to our daughters.

Her name was Jane and she worked a ranch up in the Green Springs Mountain area above our valley. She had rights to bring her horses down to the hundred-acre meadow for fresh grass, water and to stimulate their minds and hearts. Jane called herself a horse shrinka therapist for horses. She took in abandoned and abused animals, brought them back to their natural selves and then sold them to caring owners. We stood in the shade of the black oaks as Jane told us about her work. Sometimes I get horses who have spent their whole lives cooped up in a barn. Since birth they have lived in darkness, eating from an oat bucket, drinking from a trough. Theyve never seen the world, never had fresh water from a creek or eaten grass in a field or had space to run in the open. When Im given one of these horses I bring it down here to this meadow for a week or so. I set up a camping trailer and just let it go free.

What happens? I asked.

Well, the first day and night it stays next to my trailer whining for oats and water. Here it has over a hundred acres of green grass, and it stares at me like its starving, begging for food.

Do you feed it?

No. I walk it to the creek or take it out to the middle of the meadow, and still it whines and begs. Sometimes it stands in the creek, with water running over its hooves, crying with thirst! It is so routinized to buckets and troughs that it doesn't recognize anything, even when its nose smells water.

And then, out of sheer desperation, the horse will bow its head and brush its lips along the creek and stick out its tongue, and then suddenly drink and toss its head and whinny with happiness. And a day later, because its half-starved, it will reach down into the meadow and tear up a clump of grass and eat. Then, all of a sudden, it knows. I am surrounded by food!

Jane laughed.

What happens when the realization hits? I wondered.

It runs. The horse will take off and gallop and kick and run. Thats the moment I love most. Thats why I do this work. To see that moment when a creature realizes its free within a big beautiful world. Thats pure joy.

Standing at the edge of the meadow I felt I was hearing a parable for my own life. The horses experience was all too familiar: The safe, restricted, unending life of routine and predictability. The unexpected (and unwanted) disruption and accompanying fear. The overwhelming despair and grief at the loss of the familiar. The fixating on the past. The distress that blinds one to surrounding possibilities. The shock of joy when you realize that beneath the suffering lies verdant fields of life and freedom.

Watching my daughter atop that black horse striding calmly through the green grass, I had a deep awareness that one of the invitations in this life is to hold confusion, frustration and suffering as possibility. If only I could loosen my own expectations (of self, others, God) and embrace moments of disappointment and doubt, I might discover a field of green. Its not that we ought to look for suffering, but if it should find us there is a truth that lifes hardships, if were able to accept them, often contain unexpected gifts.

Of course, this is a recurring insight that I struggle to embrace. As a white, middle-class Westerner, I have been taught that the pursuit and realization of my individual desires and appetites are my birthright. I have been taught that with discipline, planning and hard work, life will conform to my expectations. Our society doesnt tolerate the idea that we (individually and collectively) lack control. Even in our spiritual lives we hold up teachers, books and spiritual practices that promise happiness, peace and health. And yet is there anything more destructive than human beings who believe they have life under control? Under this illusion we assume our every fortune is earned and every suffering deserved. How isolating.

We need to cultivate an ongoing awareness that we are small, sensitive creatures with short lifespans in a world that is often chaotic, capricious, mysterious, terrible and wonderful all at the same time. Failure, disappointment, loss and other difficult experiences call us to accept our humanity, feel grateful for what has been given, receive the care of others and seek guidance from the Holy Spirit.

To help us along, Christianity (with its stories, teachings, prayers and rituals) offers a kind of alchemy, a process by which the despairing heart, the anxious mind, the downcast spirit might be brought into the loving Presence and transformed. In this new place we find ourselves slowly made into the loving and creative people we have longed to be.

From Jesus perspective our sufferings provide an opportunity for awareness, insight and enlightenment. In the Beatitudes we hear Jesus claim that our disrupted plans, our broken faith, our poverty and sufferings, our grief and unmet longings can be held as gifts that make us more compassionate toward others and more open and available to Gods love.

Looking back on nearly five decades of life, it is still sometimes difficult for me to admit that my struggles, disappointments, doubts and failures in life and ministry have opened me to the very love, acceptance and peace that all my controlling behaviors sought to attain. Ultimately, grace can never be earned. Like all gifts it can only be received, requiring that I simply open my hands and trust. The more I accept difficulty as a natural part of the spiritual life, the more I find myself available to the deep gifts of the Spiritcompassion, trust, gratitude, humility, wonder, joy.

The question is how? How do we move toward trust when things fall apart? How do we receive the gifts of the Spirit when love fails us? How do we keep from sinking into despair, cynicism and apathy when injustice persists? What do we do when our faith dissipates, our friends turn to enemies, our self-worth transfigures into self-hatred? What do we do when we find ourselves enmeshed in shame, grief and judgment? How do we find Gods comfort and peace when our bodies churn with frustration and anxiety?

Its interesting that Jesus had no system for helping move people from despair to hope, from fear to trust. Jesus used a number of tacticshe told stories, he confronted, he led people into nature, he put his fingers in ears and smeared mud in eyes, he stayed silent, he asked questions, he challenged preconceptions. In all that he did he sought to shift perspective. His words and actions disoriented those around him, inviting listeners to step away from their fearfulness and suffering (sometimes just for a moment), remember their humanity, and become aware of Gods field of grace.