The Slow Work of God

On taking the flying leap, one year later

One year ago, in the middle of the global pandemic, I quit my job.

A quick, declarative verb sounds definitive, but it was a drawn-out discernment. Months and months of asking where I was going and what I was doing. Ironically I had been working on a theological research project on vocation for over a decade—precisely what led me to question my own callings.

Leaving good work to write and speak full-time felt like a crazy risk. But whenever I pondered the constellation of my skills and gifts, my family’s needs, and the suffering I saw in the world, the choice became clear—if not easy.

So I thought and prayed and wrote and talked about it (ad nauseum, thank you again to the friends who patiently midwifed this birth of a dream for years). You can read that story here.

What I learned from taking the flying leap are 5 simple truths.

I’d love if you’d add your own at the end: what have you learned from the last big change you’ve made?

1. Humans need collaboration.

When I daydreamed about becoming a full-time writer, I pictured sweet solitude. Me alone in my office, all the time in the world.

But creativity thrives in community.

What kept me going through the countless stuck places of the past year was the company of good friends: the walks in the parks, the late-night Voxer exchanges, the prayers and emails and emoji-riddled texts flown between us.

None of us can work alone.

Read more about 6 vocation stories disrupted by the pandemic and how vital our connections are, even if they are virtual.

2. Change means cost.

I miss colleagues, even regularly scheduled meetings and the rhythm they bring. I romanticize in hindsight, but you know this: even life’s welcome transitions bring loss. A joyful wedding or the arrival of a new child or an empty nest means the former family unit ceases to be in the same way as before.

Being self-employed is thrilling and terrifying, but steady paychecks and solid benefits are terrific, too. In the dark hours before dawn and countless watches of the night spent nursing the newborn, I traced the edges of doubt: did I make the right decision?

But whenever I found flow and words came and others reached back, I returned to the consolation of confirmation: this is where I’m meant to be, no matter how challenging or costly.

Sit with this powerful essay: “In 2020, like many others, I realized how often love calls us to take frightful, beautiful risks.”

3. The Spirit is a wild goose.

Time after time, I felt the Spirit’s nudge urging me to set aside my plans and create something new—for this time and place and people.

Surprisingly, the part of my work that brought me the most energy over the past 12 months had not blipped on my radar when I left my job. The online retreats I shared with a wide-reaching community were a creation born of pandemic constraints and a common hunger to gather in life-giving ways.

As a writer with a theologian’s heart, I’ve wondered time and time over the months: what am I learning about God through this sea change?

I’m noticing the Holy Spirit is wilder than we realize, more creative than we imagine.

Dive into that unruly, ancient metaphor here.

“Balanced” by Kim A. Rivera. Originally posted here. Used with artist’s permission.

4. Discernment never ends.

Christians have clichés for every situation, and leaving a job you loved is one of them. “God will be there to catch you!” countless well-wishers assured me.

But the leap was only the beginning. Turns out the harder work was to keep trusting every day after.

After the big decision is made, a thousand small steps follow. I long ago learned how discernment is a life-long process, but entrepreneurial work teaches you fast that reflection, revision, and reevaluation are core to creation if you want to keep going.

Many days I still feel like I don’t know what I’m doing, but keeping close to prayer (and keeping a loose grip on my plans) helps me feel my way forward.

In the wise words of this essay, sometimes the call of vocation is something you discover slowly.

5. God’s work takes time.

Years ago, as part of that good work I left (to take up good work ahead), I wrote a book of prayers, poems, and hymns. An ecumenical collection to celebrate the callings of everyone in the Christian community.

Thanks to the generosity of the Jesuits, I was able to include the prayer below in the book. It speaks of deep, slow truth: the long work of God and our own impatience. The power of holding tension and feeling the unknown stretch us.

Wherever you are right now, I have a hunch that trusting the slow work of God is part of it.

May you take whatever inching step or lunging leap you’ve been pondering in prayer.

Patient Trust

Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
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.

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.

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.

—Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ (from Hearts on Fire, as reprinted with permission in To Bless Our Callings: Prayers, Poems, and Hymns to Celebrate Vocation)

Peace,

Laura

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Find my books here: Everyday Sacrament | Grieving Together | Prayers for Pregnancy & Birth | To Bless Our Callings | Living Your Discipleship

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