The Walking Stick Journal
Stepping Stones of Transformation
An Unfolding Manuscript
by
C. D. Baker
Chapter Twenty-Five: The Letter
I sent the following letter to three concerned friends. It seems like a good place to pause and offer it as a (hopefully) helpful recap, one that also marks a major moment along the Way.
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July 2024
Dear Mark, Alan, and Rock,
Hope all’s well with you three! And many thanks for your continued interest in my life and your support of my doctoral work. It’s been a little while, so I thought I’d bring you up to date:
My deep journey has just entered its official seventh year. Suffice it to say that I continue to deal with a great deal of spiritual and psychological turmoil as well as its physical effects.
As you may recall, this struggle has centered on the deconstruction of my ‘entangled self’— my protective, compensating, false identity. Over these recent years I’ve discovered that historic religious toxicity and some family systems have been key contributors to defensive adaptations. I’m sure you’ve witnessed this in others, since little about my story is particularly unique.
Anyway, the result was an investment of trust in my own competence that was/is grounded in a misplaced confidence in my own perception of reality. But as age and circumstances have worn at my self-reliance, I now face the added anxiety of reluctantly recognizing all of this as illusion, perhaps even deception.
The doctorate has added weight, as did this past springtime filled with other stressors. I found myself recently unable to process information easily, constantly exhausted, regularly anxious, waking with night sweats, and straining for resolution to this mystery of trust.
There have been moments when I thought I might lose my mind. How can I trust God given the misery so rampant all around? Does he even exist? What sort of Father is he? Then again, what sort of son am I? And exactly who is supposed to emerge from the debris?
Burned out, I went to my blessed Havenwood (my getaway in the Virginia mountains) this past week only to be confronted by the Spirit once again. On Thursday, she took me by the hair and lifted my face to see the glory and generosity of God’s goodness. She awakened me to see the beauty of Havenwood as God’s gift. A rush of so many other blessings then filled me to overflowing. What a life I have been given! Blessings and kindness and beauty at every turn. Like King David, ‘goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life.’ Have I really been this blind? I fell face forward on my deck and wept.
The next morning I walked down the mountain on my winding dirt lane. However, the tears of gratitude had not yet finished their work. I paused at the spring-filled cistern that was overflowing clear water into the deep ravine at my feet. Spirit-spent, I sat down and wondered who I was and what God expected from me. What was I to do?
I continued downhill until reaching the cindered road leading toward town. Taking a breath, I turned around and abruptly began the 1k ascent home. Trudging upward, my mind filled with memories of these past six years, this time highlighted by the trauma of that late night call informing me that Will would likely die. I stopped walking to shudder at how I had faithlessly railed against God on the shoulder of that dark North Carolina two-lane. And how faithful God remained as he later held me in his Presence. More goodness: more grace. I choked in regret and in broken gratitude.
I reached the cistern again and sat to catch my breath. Listening to the water, I stared into the shadowed ravine below and the steep green slopes on all sides. It was then when I realized that this God whom I have tried to figure out (control) and have tried to appease (obligate) has only ever responded with kindness. He has never demanded anything from me. He has always loved me as me...fears, resistance, rage, and all. There is wonder in that.
Now here he was, once again, gently sitting alongside me. It was then when I felt a simple—even childlike—invitation to just turn away from my self and trust him.
That was it? Six years of inward combat to be quietly asked to simply turn from one side to the other?
Something foundational then suddenly shifted. Right then and there I suddenly WANTED to trust Him. I could feel it. The wanting had changed and it really did happen just like that. The Spirit had elbowed my ego to one side and she touched my will.
I sat there, dumbstruck.
You might pray for me now, that this simple not-so-simple experience might continue to heal my heart so that the power of my desperately anxious old self begins to fade. I hope the Spirit will continue to work within my ‘want to’s;’ that she will continue to grace me with sacred gratitude so that I may take a step beyond the wanting.
I’d very much like to be rid of this terrible struggle, though I confess that I am thankful for what I am learning through it. I long to enter the ‘peace that passes all understanding.’ Pray that the moment by my mountain spring might be a beginning of a turn toward something more.
May Romans 2:4 continue to hold true for me: “God’s lovingkindness leads us to repentance.”
Grace in Abundance,
David
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