Absolutely beautiful morning on the beach. I have warm sun, sparkling waves, and even a couple of soaring parasailors. In front of me, just on the shoreline, a piping plover skips and flitters along the water’s edge. I know it’s an adult because the babies are still incubating in their eggs in the nests on the sand behind me. They won’t be born until early July. Until then huge stretches of the beach will stay cordoned off to protect the fragile nests. On some beaches this causes a lot of disgruntlement among the tourists and natives alike, as the beaches are closed to car access until mid-July. There is no hurrying it. A plover takes what it takes to grow and hatch. As I thought about this, it occurred to me that even this plover/closed beach thing is a process. You can’t mess with it. It takes what it takes.
We, like the plover, are products of the process also. Sometimes in a difficult relationship I shake my fist at God yelling, “Fix this!”. I don’t realize the person at the other end of the relationship is also a product of their own process. As time goes by, I think God is ignoring me. Then the pieces start falling into place for both of us at exactly the right time, but in very different ways. We each have our own unique process.
In the hot room I heard “trust the process” from day 1. I don’t understand what the poses are doing inside me from day to day, but I know I’ve grown, changed, and learned over the year that I’ve done them diligently. My friend at teacher training just posted about how she had no trouble and felt great after a 140 minute class at 135 degrees, in a room with 700 people. I, myself, can’t even fathom that. BUT she is a product of her current process. She’s been there for four weeks and had a lot of problems along the way. Did she give up? No. Did she question it? Not too much. She just got up everyday and went to class twice a day with no expectations. She was trusting the process. As week 5 approaches, she is going to be just where she’s supposed to be. But there was no hurrying to there. She trusted the process. (Go Shirley! You’re my hero!)
Plovers, people, the hot room….the process is not meant to be understood or hurried ….just trust it. God has a timetable and we’re not going to change it. Eggs, hearts, and bodies are not transformed overnight. What it takes, it takes.
And so, as another day goes by, I think I finally, after 21 months, own it now, and…I have written.
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