At My Best & At My Worst

This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength.”

—Isaiah 30:15

When I spent a semester in Britain during college, my very favorite professor, Heather, taught the semester course. One evening, we sat on a bench, looking out over the black branches in the fading light. She was worried about me, she said. She loved to hear my stories, about taking trains, staying out all night, drinking with strangers, and swimming in fountains, but she feared I was losing my ability to be contemplative. She told me that I was a leader, and the other students would follow me, and she didn’t think I was leading them anywhere worth going.

I wrote her words in my journal, and while they were accurate then, they were also prophetic: as I grow older, I see that same pattern throughout my life. When I am at my best, I can see and think and feel at a deep level, and when I am at my worst, I’m a tap-dancing, tipsy show-off, with funny stories and painfully little else.

She was brave with me, telling me the truth about myself, and I was a little bit brave with her, withstanding her disappointment and letting it reach down to the deepest parts of me and draw me up to a better self.