It was a profound moment for me. As I sat staring at my peanut butter-smudged computer screen, wincing from the glare to try to look her as directly in the eyes as possible, I wondered to myself: What little suns does my life orbit around?
Spiritual direction is new for me. As I progress through training in direction myself, I am finding this new experience of a spiritual companion a very foreign concept. Part of me is wondering if my Enneagram 3-ness struggles with the type of vulnerability that spiritual direction invites me into.
So, you’re saying that I can be 100% honest about God’s movement or lack of movement in my life with this person whom I’ve never actually met in person? You’re saying that my spiritual director wants me to bring my full self, my questions, my doubts, my tensions of being a wanderer in the evangelical world, my hesitancy about Scripture, and even my wrestlings with my own ego and sense of self? You’re saying I can talk about how I’ve both seen the face of God in my child but have also wondered why mothering brings me to the end of myself at the same time?
All the questions I’m asking about what it means to live in the world I am learning to bring to this spiritual companion that I didn’t know my soul needed. It’s been a breath of fresh air to a soul burdened by the weight of evangelicalism, the weight of motherhood, the weight of being the only person of color in a white institution, the weight of being deemed a heretic for wondering if there is a different way of understanding the world.
As I processed those weights that I carry within my session with Nish, I couldn’t help but wonder if I was orbiting my life around all those things instead of around the life-giving, sustaining, true, welcoming, abiding love of God that is present to me in the very air I breathe.
My life was orbiting so deeply around the questions—which are important to attend to and ask—but the questions, the tension, and the frustration were the little suns that ruled my life.
I was beginning to forget about the God who actually attends to me within them.
I do believe there is transformation and healing when we wrestle, or make sense of our evolving faith. I, however, had begun worshiping, striving, and attending to wrestling as the center of my life, and losing sense of the love of God amidst it all.
So I took a breath.
I tried as much as I could muster to imagine the Spirit-breath, the Ruach, simply washing over me and filling every inch of my body with the steadfast, unconditional, overwhelming love of God.
Haley Wiggers is passionate about discovering how the messy, painful, and unexpected gifts that come with being human connect and relate to and offer understanding of how God relates to and cares for us. She’s been married to her husband Tyson for 4.5 years, and together they just welcomed their first little into the world. His name is Theo, and he is the cutest. United by undeserved grace, they’ve created a life centered around table fellowship with others and long walks with their puppy.
