From Hart to Hearts
A Message from Rev Linda Hart for the month of July 2009
In June a group of us worked together to write essays in the fashion of an American Radio programme called "This I Believe". Others shared their essays in a service on June 28. I share mine here.
I believe in trusting the future.
In 1995, I resigned from my ministry in Woodstock, Vermont, and moved to Oak Park, Illinois to be with my fiancé, the man I thought I would be spending the rest of my life with. We’d had a difficult 6 years of on and off relationship, and had talked about marriage, and finally had to get there or be finished. Leaving my work and giving it a real go was the only way our lives might change, that much was clear to me.
And change they did. Within 6 months, my fiancé ended our relationship. It was bad enough to be brokenhearted. Even more than that, though, the end of our relationship also left me with no job, no money and no place to live. I spent two or three sleepless nights, wept more tears than I knew I had and tried to see a way forward. The world seemed bleak and without hope.
Dear friends who were far away held me in their love and listened as I poured out my pain over telephone lines. Nearby friends offered couches to sleep on, and took me dancing to help ease the loss. Kind colleagues helped me to plot a path to the future I hadn’t until that moment imagined I would have.
After the shock wore off, I kept as my mantra that I needed to trust that the way forward would become clear. I centred in on my heart, and was calm. Every time my life had gone utterly awry, the path to what was next eventually turned up. I had the support and care of friends and family. I had my wits and my skills. And I knew how to survive.
Within a few weeks, an opportunity for an interim ministry appeared, and the congregation invited me to work with them for ten months. Without knowing how battered and lost I felt, they welcomed me, affirmed me, gave me comfort and support through the time until I was called as settled minister in a church all the way across the country.
My life has never taken me where I expected to be. I’ve always found that the twists and turns send me off in directions I’d never imagined, to futures with riches and troubles I couldn’t have guessed I would find. In it all, though, I have found that no matter the circumstance, I can trust the future. This I believe.
If you would like to try your hand at writing such an essay, I would be happy to provide an outline for you to use to help the process along. In the coming months, I hope we’ll publish other essays.
Happy Summer!
Linda