Last night we got back to our apartment after a long and rather exhausting weekend in Heidelberg. My husband must have asked me the same question at least five times over the weekend: “Can you let it in?”
Some things are easier to let in than others. And I suspect that “which things” varies by person too. For me, a complement is hard to let in. And a complement about something that I don’t feel particularly competent in is even harder to let in.
So when Calvin and I stand in front of a group of couples we have never met before, in a church we’ve never visited before, in a strange city in a foreign country, and we tell our marriage stories and talk about what we learned from our journey, competent is not one of the words I would use to describe myself. I notice the awkward pauses in our delivery, and the repetition we accidentally left in our script, and the fact that we got off schedule a little and had to adapt on the fly. Those are the things I notice.
But then we break for lunch, or wrap up the day, and people go out of their way to come over and talk. People who had patiently listened to us and did not even look bored and who diligently engaged with the private discussion questions we provided. They tell me that our stories—a few that sometimes unexpectedly brought our own emotion to the surface—touched them as well. They tell me that they learned so much that they want to take home and try to apply in their own marriage. They tell me that they truly appreciate us coming all the way to Germany, to their church—and that we are making a real difference in their real lives. And as they walk away, my husband looks me in the eyes and says, “Can you let it in?”
My answer is, “I’m trying.”
My mind goes back to a small group leader’s mini-retreat we attended shortly before we got on the plane in August. During a group sharing time, we talked about sources of stress in our personal lives and I briefly described the marriage ministry we were heading into; what I was feeling under the stress was fear. But not fear of failure—fear of success! If this crazy adventure of ministry didn’t go well, it would be easy to step back into the safety and comfort of a more typical retirement lifestyle. But if God was really in it, and we saw fruit from our feeble attempts at service, then who knows what else He might have in mind next?!
The view from a walk in Heidelberg.
So to be brutally honest, letting in the feedback that God is using us is much weightier than simply accepting a complement. It might be accepting that God is doing something bigger than we can see or imagine. When the four British children first find themselves together in Narnia, Mr. and Mrs. Beaver try to explain the strange new world they’ve stumbled into, where it’s always winter but never Christmas. Except that now Aslan, the great lion, has returned to Narnia and the spell of winter is about to be broken. Lucy and Susan, nervous about meeting the lion, naively ask whether Aslan is safe. The reply is, “Safe? Who said anything about safe? ’Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good.”
That’s how this “great adventure” feels at times. It’s not safe and predictable. (I rather like safe and predictable.) But it’s good. And as long as we are trying to walk where God is leading us, it will be good. And good is better—and harder—than safe.