A Change of Plans

Do you like to be interrupted?

I don’t. The “performative/productive” side of me likes to get things done — and usually within the schedule or timetable I’ve created to do so. But how often does life abide within our calendars? Do things ever really go as we plan? No, they do not.

I guess I should differentiate between the types of interruptions, because some are not bad. Some can be quite enjoyable. The phone call of a dear friend you haven’t talked to in months (or years). Someone stopping you in public because you dropped your wallet. An impromptu coffee-run with your coworkers to get through the rest of the day. Sometimes an interruption is just what you need.

But then there’s the not-so-good interruptions. The person stopping you in the mall to ask if you’ve ever considered purchasing a timeshare. Telemarketers calling or door-to-door salespersons ringing the doorbell right when you sit down to eat dinner. A detour from construction that will add half an hour to your commute. These interruptions grate our nerves, but we can manage through them.

Then there’s the really bad interruptions, the kind you hope you never get. The tragic news that a loved one unexpectedly passed. A diagnosis that changes the way you imagined living. A natural disaster that takes everything from you. These interruptions can turn our whole worlds upside down.

I’ve been thinking about interruptions a lot this past week. I woke up Tuesday with significant abdominal pain and by the evening, I was crumpled in the floor crying, saying that I wanted to die. Because of the pain, I had to leave work early and cancel an evening meeting. Things that needed to happen were left dangling in the air because of this interruption.

After seeing the doctor and getting a CT scan and ultrasound, we learned my gallbladder was very inflamed and filled with gallstones and fluid (it was called “sludge” on the medical report and it is both funny and disgusting to me that sludge is the scientific term). By Wednesday night I was in the emergency room and Thursday morning I was being prepped for surgery.

Not at all how I expected my week to go. Needless to say, even more things that were supposed to happen, didn’t.

I am grateful that I listened to my body. I knew something was wrong and we were able to get it taken care of. But I have to be honest, after a few days in the hospital and now a week of recovery at home, I can’t help but focus on all of the things I wasn’t able to do. The things that will have to get shuffled to someone else’s desk. The extra work that other people will have to pull to pick up my slack. I hate that feeling. I hate feeling unproductive.

This is what the Spirit is working on in my soul: why is my worth tied to what I can produce?

It is good that I had surgery, because if not, the surgeon said my gallbladder was so infected, had it ruptured I would have been septic and things could have been significantly worse. This was a needed interruption. And there are other times when interruptions stir up, kicking our plans to the side, to show us what might be more important. What have we left untended in our lives because our attention has been elsewhere?

Please hear me say loud and clear: I do not believe God causes bad things to happen to teach us a lesson. There is no divine reason children get cancer or civilians die in war or wildfires consume entire regions. I do believe that when we are faced with an interruption, often one companioned by pain, suffering, and loss, our entire lives become resorted. Like everything we’ve been carrying gets thrust through a sieve, and what remains are the only things we can truly bear.

Our priorities might become reevaluated. Our time reallocated. Our loves reignited. Our precious hope repaired.

When the thunder of negative self-talk begins crashing inside my head this week, I am trying to name gratitude to counter its message.

You are not doing enough.

I am grateful for the rest so that I can truly recover.

You are burdening others.

I am grateful to have community, colleagues, family, and friends who offer their help.

You are falling behind.

I am grateful that my ministry is not actually mine, and that God’s work is bigger than me.

When life brings its interruptions, I hope we can face them with curiosity, asking what they might show us about ourselves. That we would offer open hands, if only to carry what little remains after the storm, without letting go of what truly matters most. That we might resist the stinging venom of “not being enough” by naming all that we are grateful for in the here and now.

In all things, planned and unplanned, God is with us. You are not alone.

We are being made new, together.