Defining moment…it’s a phrase used to describe winning seasons and military victory and political decisions as well as a million other decisions, both big and small, that act as turning points in life. To me, these are the moments where one decision changes my path and where one decision demonstrates more about who I am and who I’ll become than years of education or self-study could ever provide.
I think that most of the time we view defining moments as places where we overcome great adversity and triumph over difficulties. Perhaps those are the moments that we remember best: come-from-behind wins over the league champions or battling and beating a deadly disease, reaching the literal or figurative top of the mountain after a challenging climb, meeting the person or place that could change a life. Each of these moments is filled with powerful emotions and elements of the heroic. A breast-cancer patient who defeats cancer must remember vividly the delivery of the good news, the positive prognosis, clearly. The athlete that strives to be the best, standing on a podium accepting a medal, has reached the pinnacle. But what about the first moment, the decision to follow through with a routine check up or to step up on the balance beam for the first time?
The truth about defining moments is that we often don’t know we’re in them. Defining moments are most clearly visible through the lens of hindsight or reflection. These kinds of defining moments surround us in the everyday. Maybe it’s just an after dinner discussion where I calmly prayed a prayer and declared myself a follower of Christ. Clearly, I had no idea where that choice would lead, but in that moment, I made the decision that put me on the path to this place in time. Because of that one, quiet, unassuming and momentous occasion, I’ve never been alone in a defining moment since. In the Message translation, Psalm 139:5 says, “I look behind me and you're there, then up ahead and you're there, too— your reassuring presence, coming and going.” The lesson that I’m continually learning is that, when it comes to the big moments of life, I can relax. The God who loves me and calls me His is already there.
More than once I’ve said that I could be happy with God’s plan for my life if I only knew where it was headed, if I could just be sure of what my future held. I think this desire to read the future is a symptom of youth. Aging teaches the benefits of not being able to see past today. If I had known the outcomes of some of the decisions that I’ve made before I made them, making the right choice would have been nearly impossible. Thankfully, although I do not know the future, I know the One who does. And He is with me in the moments where I worry, rationalize, plot and plan and in the moments where I choose.
Conversion stories don’t really come any more mundane than mine. Similarly, I had no idea the day that I succumbed to the pressure of a friend to join her workplace Bible study that I was facing a decision that someday I’d look back on and say, “Yes, that’s where this whole thing started.” God met me in that Bible study, the God that was already working on my heart, my angry heart. Another symptom of my youth was a conviction that life would be fair. And as I stepped into that Bible study, I was slowly recovering from the trauma caused by the realization that, indeed, life often seems shatteringly unfair. Even when you pray the prayer, firm in your trust and belief, sometimes the cure doesn’t come and dealing with the pain of loss is difficult and the bitterness of disillusionment only compounds that. Still, in those 40 days, I heard God speak clearly, even through my bitter complaint and the tears of a hurt child. Like stacked dominos that fall one right after the other, each day built on the last until I felt God’s call more clearly than I ever had before or since.
As a result, I did something that I’d feared my entire Christian life. I went on a short-term mission trip. As a citizen of the fast-food nation, my biggest concern was over the lack of French fries. And it’s really funny now to think about all my reservations: raising money, not speaking the language, having to eat unidentified objects. It was tough to make the decision to go and I threw up as many roadblocks as I could to try to derail God. And through it all, I learned. I learned about who God is, what He can do, and what He accomplishes through His people. And then I faced the really difficult decision, the one that required me to know what God had already been teaching me.
My mom, the person I loved best in the world, didn’t really want me to go to Peru, but she never said that. And while I was preparing to go, she was going through doctor visits and tests. And just before my trip, she was diagnosed with lung cancer. Her surgery to remove the grapefruit sized tumor in her lung was scheduled for a Wednesday, the day I’d be half a world away, out of touch.
I’m not a doctor. I’m not a surgeon, but I was convinced that something terrible would happen if I weren’t there to control the situation. In my comfortable world, there is always a right answer and success is just a matter of working hard enough. I got on the plane anyway and I went to Peru, a place I had no desire to go with people I didn’t know, called by a God I didn’t trust to take care of the person who meant more to me than the world.
On that Wednesday, my whole group made the trip to another town to find a public phone. Everyone made calls, but I knew that trip was for me. And I called. I called every number I could to try to find a family member with an update. And because I don’t control this world, I was unsuccessful. I went out to wait for everyone to finish and sat on a bench, next to a very small park, in the middle of a deserted town high in the Andes and just tried to keep it together. I sat there and tried to keep it together, too out of control to even pray for an answer or my mom or my own sanity.
And my God, knowing my needs even when I can’t express them, sent an answer. Angie, my friend on the trip, had spoken to her dad, a pastor at our church. One of the staff had been to the hospital and had gotten an update on my mom and my family. She was out of surgery and in recovery and my family was fine. And on that same bench, I learned invaluable lessons. I am not the keeper of my universe. Thankfully, because of a decision I made years ago, I have a God who loves me and wants good things for me, things like trust in Him, knowledge of Him, the wisdom that comes from learning the difficult and unfair lessons of life. I sat there on the bench, surrounded by people who cared for me, not because I could work hard or make a funny joke, but because that simple decision to follow Christ brought us together, even to this place so far away from home.
That was the summer of 2004. I went again to Peru in the summer of 2005, hoping to rekindle the flame of faith that burned so brightly after I made it home from the first trip. And my mother’s cancer treatment came to an end when the doctors said they could do no more in 2006. Then my prayer was for mercy, not for healing, and God’s answer to my prayer was clear and unmistakable.
Looking back, I can see the small decisions that had enormous impact. When I think of what God sees when He looks at my life, I imagine a sort of road map, with my twists and turns, marked by the towns of College and Career and large cities of Pain and Loss and Fear and Joy and Blessing. And as I write this, I’m curious to see which things that seem so commonplace today will actually shape my tomorrow. Looking back, I can see God’s hand at work. And looking forward, I can know that, although I can’t see Him from here, He’s already there, waiting for me in that defining moment.
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