I woke understanding that although my day was underway, dawn was still several hours away. This was going to be a third major launch. Given the past forty-eight hours, there were many reasons to be concerned. The uncertainty of last week had moved aside. In its place, one could see the reality of things not working, exhausted staff, and a challenge everyone faced in handling the truth. Even though it was a quickly emerging situation, it fell as though “it had been many days since we had seen either sun or stars.” (Acts 27.19)
I realized that I was living Fuller’s old cliché; it is darkest just before dawn. Languages have their own variations. Each twists the cliché in a slightly different direction, yet the feeling we share is the same; despair, aloneness, and a sense of impending doom.
My reflection came with sense of light.
Life is never about me. Today’s darkness was not of my making. We had arrived here for a wide range of reasons, many beyond our control, yet some of our own making.
Chaos, uncertainty, and failure are a part of living. It is a reflection of our humanness. We cannot see everything. We cannot do everything. Life is not perfect. Life is a call to live and respond.
Communities have a way of absorbing the chaos of life that transcends any individual’s ability and capacity. The team was working. They were tacking bits and pieces. They were taking on the impossible with an attitude of possible.
The process of getting to a destination is the heart of living. Each step, the rest that precedes it, the act of moving, the rest that follows, is a definition of what it means to live. Destinations are merely an account of where we are aiming or where we have arrived. They are not life itself.
Hope lies in being present and willing to act. In the morning’s darkness, I could see examples of Hope alive and moving. I knew the storm was on us. It would be rough. I know we will survive.
