Lost and Found

Some weeks are easy to get lost in – this was one of those weeks for a variety of reasons I won’t go into.  Regardless, in the midst of the week I found something – a passage in a book that I had marked long ago and had forgotten.  It gave me much to think about, and my discovery of the passage made me realize that perhaps this had not been so much a “lost” week as a “life-shaping” week.  Let me share the passage with you – it comes from Henri Nouwen’s book The Genesee Diary:

“Did I really live my life or was it lived for me?  Did I really make the decisions that led me to this place at this time, or was I simply carried along by the stream, by sad as well as happy events?...”

“I don’t believe that my life is a long row of randomly chained incidents and accidents of which I am not much more than a passive victim.  No, I think that nothing is accidental but that God molded me through the events of my life and that I am called to recognize his molding hand and praise him in gratitude for the great things he has done to me.”

“I wonder if I really have listened carefully enough to the God of history, the God of my history, and have recognized him when he called me by my name, broke the bread, or asked me to cast out my nets after a fruitless day?  Maybe I have been living too fast, too restlessly, too feverishly, forgetting to pay attention to what is happening here and now, right under my nose.”

Feeling lost?  Try listening...