It doesn’t matter our age or season of life, a sense of being stopped, stuck, or standing still can hit us at anytime and hard. We’re not sure what to do with it. More questions than answers swirl through our days. A way forward seems caught in the shadows of ambivalence, confusion or restlessness.

When I experienced this kind of a season several years ago, I nodded in complete understanding when a coaching client described something similar and said, “I don’t stand still.” I so got that.

I really wanted to lean into my season of uncertainty expectant for what it might hold, open to what God was shaping. I didn’t realize this would involve slowing even to what would feel to me like a standstill. That part would take a while for me to notice and then to embrace.

As I pushed against what felt like an immovable wall of uncertainty, I began to sense God kneading and reshaping my perspective, and I longed to know his. “Lord,” I whispered, “what is your heart for me?”

“Come. Follow me,” he said.

I decided to learn what following him was really about, outside of what he had requested of his disciples and beyond what I had attempted so far. It wasn’t easy. I would start but then freeze right smack in the middle of the path when what was ahead in the following felt uncomfortable or unfamiliar. And yet I discovered that’s not such a bad place to hang out. When you pay attention to the uncomfortable or unfamiliar, you begin to ask new questions.

My favorite question had been What’s next?–along with many of its derivatives. I wanted to keep moving forward, use my gifts and passions, contribute and serve. I wanted to know I was headed in a good direction, even the “right” one. I wanted to see with certainty how and when.

Shifting my perspective to the one I was following meant discovering more of his heart. He showed me a new question: What’s now?

What’s now. It was as if I had been stretching to see an entire tree all at the same time, including its roots and the reaches of its top branches. Then one twig, with its unique, unfurling bud, came into focus, and that was all that was important, all I was meant to see in that moment.

Corita Kent, an American nun, activist and artist of the 70s and 80s, created bold prints with singular poignant thoughts, some about moments. Two of her quotes, often repeated today, are: “Life is a succession of moments. To live each one is to succeed,” and, “Accept the moment as the friend it is.” Good words.

When we are too busy looking ahead, we miss seeing the gifts of the present moment.

I’m still moving through that deeply still and ambivalent season of my life, still learning to welcome God’s pacing for me. At times, remnants of the old feelings of uncertainty stir. I ask again, “What’s now?” and open my hands to accept his invitation to embrace the present just as it is. I am often reminded of his words from Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know . . .”

It is in the stillness of the moment, the stillness of a season, that we discover God, the I AM (OT, Hebrew), in all his fullness. And it’s in the quiet—or the swirling storm—of that discovery that we are changed forever. It is also then that we might begin to see a way forward through the shadows of our season.

Where are you today in your season of uncertainty? What is your heart cry?

Corita Kent Art Collection: http://corita.org/collection