The second in a three-part series of reflections on the gifts and lessons that come from seasons of darkness…
What does it look like to honor God when you’re at the utter end of yourself?
I thought about this question a lot during my last season of darkness. On this occasion, it was an experience of loss that had brought me to my knees. As a pastor, I’d sat with many people in grief. But I’d never truly felt it myself before—not this sort of grief, a black hole that swallowed the sun.
God didn’t feel absent. Quite the contrary. God felt quietly near, full of love and mysterious intention. The problem was me. I had broken. I was completely hollowed out. I mean, what are you supposed to offer God when you’ve got no words or songs left in your mouth and nothing in your hands?
Sometime in the depths of grief, I stumbled on a battered book of prayers by a woman named Macrina Wiederkehr. One of the first pages I read was a poetic meditation on lessons learned from an autumn tree that has lost its leaves. I read it perhaps a thousand times that year.
Truth be told, I’ve always hated autumn. Some people are enchanted by the vibrant colors and pumpkin spice lattes and crisp air and bulky sweaters. Not me. To me, the Grinch of Autumn, fall smells like the pending doom of ugly, exposed branches and dirty slush and cold, endless nights. In short, it smells like death.
The image of the autumn tree somehow perfectly captured the sensation of grief. You can remember a time—could it be just weeks ago?—when you were bursting with green, verdant life. And then suddenly, like in one great wind, every leaf drops off. Now here you stand, stripped to your bones. Empty. Frozen. Bare. Hardly sure if you’re dead or alive. Hardly sure if you care.
How do you worship as an autumn tree?
In this state, there was a line in Macrina’s meditation that I kept returning to: “Once we discover that we already possess enough grace to let go, trust begins to form in the center of who we are. Then we can take off our shoes and stand empty and vulnerable, eager to receive God’s next gift.”*
What can you offer God when you’ve lost all your leaves, when you have nothing left to give? You can offer empty, open hands. You can stand in the silent night with your naked branches reaching, stretching, outward, upward. You can reach, and you can wait. You can wait for God’s next gift to come. The one you can currently neither yet identify nor even imagine wanting.
It seems strange at first to think that empty reaching, silent waiting, could be an act of worship. But consider what Jesus says about God: “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him” (Matthew 7:11). The God of Jesus above all wants to be known for infinite goodness, believed as the Giver of good gifts.
When we are empty, when we’ve been hollowed out, when we are bare as the trees in November, we yet have the one thing to offer that God most desires. We can stand there, naked and vulnerable and with our arms held wide. Heck, we can lie on the ground like a pile of mush, as long as our arms are open. We can use our last ounce of strength to look up at the skies. And we can wait. We can wait there for God’s next gift to come, sudden as the spring.
A prayer for autumn seasons: God, I don’t have anything to offer. I don’t even have anything to ask. I am broken, naked, empty. My open hands will be my prayer until the words come back. For however long this season lasts, I’ll be here with my arms extended, waiting. Waiting in the reckless hope that you are still what Jesus says, a God who never stops giving.
*Seasons of Your Heart: Prayers and Reflections by Macrina Wiederkehr (revised edition, HarperOne, 1991)
