All week, I have been participating in the Your Turn Challenge where bloggers from all over the world are committing to blogging every day for 7 days. This is today’s submission.
I have an actual dictionary on the bookshelf in my dining room. And for the first time in ages, I looked a word up in that dictionary rather than looking it up online. Interesting exercise. Anyway, here’s what I found.
Stuck: to become stopped or delayed. To come to a standstill.
I think for most of us, myself included, the concept of being stuck is incredibly pejorative. It means lack of progress. Not moving forward. Becoming stale.
But I find myself wondering if periods of “stuckness” might actually have a purpose and meaning in and of themselves. Not as just a rough period to be hurried through as quickly as possible, but rather as a pause to refresh. And reflect. And not produce.
My whole life, prior to counseling anyway, I felt my purpose on earth was to produce. Produce joy in others, produce financial stability for myself and my family, produce children, produce a lovely home in which to raise the children. I could go on and on.
My value was inexorably linked to my production.
I have, however, grown out of that. I now realize that my worth, my value, my very “humanness” is not valid because of what I produce. It is valid because of who made me.
If we decide, collectively, that only those who are unstuck and moving forward have value, what are we then forced to believe about the invalid? The sick and home bound? The bereaved unable to move or even speak because of their pain?
I’m fearful that when we make being stuck the worst thing that can happen, we forget about all the ways being stuck teaches us. Joseph from the bible, imprisoned for 11 years, and yet all the while hoping that God would use him: stuck. Moses, in the desert, wondering in circles unable to find the path to the promised land: stuck. Mary, pregnant and with a wild story about a baby that was the child of God waiting for 9 months: stuck.
So if you’re stuck today, rather than fighting it with every fiber of your being, why not just pause and thank God for the “stuckness”. Because he may be up to something powerful. And he may need you to sit still and wait.