I attended an Elizabeth Kubler-Ross "Life, Death and Transition" workshop twenty-five years ago. It was transforming mainly in the "little" things I learned.
It was from that workshop that I learned the Big Little Thing: Unless we are asked, never offer a Kleenex to a person who is sharing and crying. She or he might be right at the point of breakthrough, of finally being able to speak her secret...the secret that she herself most likely did not know. And here comes a big old hand with a Kleenex waving in her face. Totally distracting her, while telling her, in effect, her breakthrough is secondary to her runny nose.
That Kleenex is for our benefit, not hers. The runny nose is embarrassing to us...she's unaware of it since she is on the brink of realizing that which may set her free.
This was such an important lesson to me because I identified it completely with God's will for us. We think we know what God's will is when an apparent need is right in front of us...without blinking or thinking, we go for what we perceive as necessary. And when it turns out less than wonderful, we doubt God...doubt he's on our side, doubt his very existence.
A need that is apparent to our reasoning mind is more often than not a want that we'd best pass on by.
Sit and wait on the Lord. Listen. Give thanks for butterflies and rainbows. If we have a need, it will be fulfilled through us...not by our self-determined objective, but by God guiding our feet, our hands, our tongue...our very self. That's what he's there for.
Thank you.
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