Interruption Into Opportunity

Photo & Writing By Lauren K. Juenger

A day has yet to go by when it doesn’t happen.  Maybe, it happens when I’m trying to finish my morning coffee before it loses its delightful scorch.  Some days, it occurs during a much needed shower.  Or, it might take place during a meaningful conversation with a dear friend.  It also often happens while I answer the phone, wash dishes, or try to write.  Really, it can (and usually does) come to pass when I am trying to get pretty much anything accomplished.  And when I sleep.  Definitely when I sleep.

What is it, you ask? 

Oh, just that daily (sometimes, hourly–nay, minutely) visitor: Interruption.

Yes, Interruption comes from all around.  It can come from my kids–oh boy, can it come from my kids.  But, I also get it from my phone, my doorbell (which is now also my phone), the TV, and the dog.  Other people frequently interrupt, as well–usually without meaning to.  Maybe, the weather interrupts a day at the beach.  Health conditions cut short a vacation.  I can definitely count on traffic to interrupt my plans almost daily.

Strangely enough, I even interrupt myself.  All those squirrely thoughts and impulses distract me from finishing a project, and, BAM, I’m off to something new without finishing the first.

Technically, anything that disturbs the vision of my plans I tend to deem as an interruption.  

I think how a person handles these so-called interruptions can really tell us a good chunk about him or her.  If I’m being honest, I’m not exactly loving the way my chunk is looking.  

I think, for the most part, I would classify myself as a pretty go-with-the-flow kind of person.  Just ignore my husband’s exaggerated laughter in the background.  I will say, though, that when it comes to my home and everyone in it, my feet are a little more firmly planted.  I am not so easily moved when it comes to something I love or care about deeply. 

But, you want to change plans last minute? I’m cool with that.  Randomly walk into that restaurant and order a completely strange dish?  SO down.  While we’re at it, let’s go see a movie afterwards without reading the reviews, and then walk the streets, following the music to the next stop.

I love spontaneity, and I don’t mind switching things up.  But, now that I’m a mom, wife, and homemaker? That did something to me.  I hold onto that control panel way more tightly than all the other things life brings.  As far as home and family go, I have a fairly certain plan for things, I have specific ways I like to get things done, and intentionally curated routes I’ve mapped out in my mind, from which I really don’t want to stray.  

It’s like I’m flying an aircraft (or what I think it would be like).  When I’m in the middle of cleaning or cooking and I’ve got this destination in mind, lights and sounds flash and blare whenever I get off course.  As if something in my bones tells me that I MUST finish, and anything pulling me away from that accomplishment is a threat to the mission.  When my body senses that the accomplishment of my task is at risk, I begin feeling a tightness in my chest.  Complaints rise in my throat.  An annoyance prickles in my jawline and hardens there.  What once started in my heart as doing something to serve the people whom I love, has now transformed into annoyance, leaving my mouth as abrupt words and audible huffs–all because I’m having to halt my work, unable to finish in the time I’d hoped.

Interrupted.  Again.

One way in which I can assuredly get interrupted almost every day is when I’m doing the dishes at night.  I like to listen to an audiobook while cleaning the kitchen after Jack goes to bed.  It’s my way of decompressing while still getting in some accomplishment.  But, this is also when the “big” kids crave my attention.  We have nowhere to be and nothing to do, so they usually come and go from the kitchen, talking to me about everything and nothing; demanding I “watch this!”; and trying to somehow include me in their imaginary games.  

I love this so much.  I do.  I love that they want to come to me.  That they want to tell me things and show me what they are working on.  I know there might be a day when I will beg them to talk to me.  I hope not, but from what I hear it’s a possibility that teenagers can get…teenagery.  

My head knows these things.  I know I’m grateful for everyone’s health and for these dishes to wash that are evidence of full bellies.  I know that I love our home and these nights together.  I know that life is so wildly beautiful, because it is so dang fragile and nothing is guaranteed.  

I just can’t always get that information to the other part of my body that really wants to get the dishes done and listen to my book.  Some sort of connection is broken and that gratitude and joy doesn’t quite get through.  My hope for quiet and a finished task win out over my desire to hear my children and be there for them.

I turn off the faucet, looking away from the sink that still houses a small mountain (or is it a mole hill?) of dirty dishes, and I place the kitchen towel on the honey-crusted counter with a little extra force than one needs to place a towel, in case my child didn’t quite catch my flat tone prior.

This is my response more often than I care to admit.

In these small moments, it can sometimes feel like they are not very small at all.  Sometimes, it can feel like it’s all a little too much and a little too big.  Like these are in fact mountains, rather than mole hills.  But, after these moments pass I always look back—whether it’s that night after I put the kids in bed and I’m sitting there reviewing the day or it’s years down the road—and I almost mourn that moment. 

I mourn, because it’s gone. Because, I can’t get it back. But, I also mourn, because I feel like I let that moment slip through my fingertips.  I mourn that bit of precious life that I lived without realizing how precious it really was.  I mourn the missed opportunity to cherish and to love and to guide these little humans that have been entrusted into my care.  I mourn the unlived and the unloved.

My grief and guilt are heavy, but I remember I don’t have to be burdened with them.  I allow them to lead me to the feet of Jesus where He will hold them and me.  I don’t always do this with the quickness that I’d hope.  But, I do eventually hear His promises to carry me, grow me, and sustain me.  It’s in times like these that I reflect on my mistakes, who I want to become, and how I can get there.  

A major road that I believe can take me there is asking questions.  I once heard someone say, “Change your questions, change your life.”   

So I ask.

“What is the root of my frustration these days?  Why do I get so set off by these tiny, little things?”

For, anger is merely a “check engine” light–a warning of an existing issue that needs to be righted as soon as possible, before it gets worse or causes other problems.

As I dig through the garden of my heart, searching for the bottom of this all too large weed, I come across a few thick roots that have twisted their long, slender fingers throughout my plot.  

Namely, one is overstimulation.  When too much is going on all at once, anger is often my response.  Why, though?  Am I mad that it is not more peaceful?  Am I frustrated that those around me choose to ignore my need for a life of less and go on creating so much loudness and excess?  Or is it my unquenchable desire for control rearing up its starving head again?

Could be a little of all that.  The perfect storm.

I’ve also recognized that if there’s too many needs around me that require me to meet them, too much happening all at once, I usually shut down.  (Hah! Well, that’s basically motherhood in a nutshell.)  

When this happens, I tend to seek an escape, any at all.  When I can’t reach one, anger offers a deceptive doorway, giving false promises to ease my pain if I enter.  However, every time I choose to walk through it I always leave feeling worse than I had come.  (Isn’t this the description of all worldly cures?)

Another deeply entangled root I discover is the condition of the outside world.  This used to be something that held its distance from me.  Except, now, it is accessible at every moment.  A portal to the rest of the Earth (and even beyond) resides in my back pocket.  I’ll unlock my phone to order trash bags on Amazon, and then suddenly, I’m scrolling through hateful, angry, and trauma-filled posts on Facebook.  Or maybe, I’m gazing longingly at a friend’s Instagram, reading through her stories of luscious travel, fulfilling her lifelong dreams, or establishing her seemingly perfect homeschool for her always calm, smiling children.

Whether it’s a news article, social media, or an unexpected terse email, my phone tends to leave me wanting.  Wanting more, wanting less, wanting an escape, wanting better, wanting different.  How rare it is to put down my phone and feel lighter and more satisfied. 

Maybe, both of these factors–overstimulation and the ways of this world–can all simmer down into one big variable: “the noise of life”.  The world can get a little bit loud, can’t it?  Especially if you have young humans living in your home.

And, then there’s that hunk of a root to my anger weed–interruption.  Interruption is another huge reason for my frustration and/or discontent.  This brings me to my original question–Why does interruption trigger me so?  Is it because it also feels like more noise?  More to deal with or feeling like I’m being given more than I bargained for?  Could it be that my expectations did me dirty once again?  

Quite possibly, this could be another curious case of the perfect storm.  I begin to analyze what goes through my mind during those times I’m interrupted, trying to figure out why it is so grating on my nerves.  So, God decides to have a little fun and interrupts me as I am currently writing this very sentence.  Charlie shouts over the slow indie folk music playing in my earbuds, pulling me out of reverie, only to ask me questions that remind me I have more to do tomorrow than I was prepared to undertake.  Sweet girl.  I know she doesn’t mean anything by it.  Nonetheless, knots form in my chest.  Patience is hard when I’m not getting what I want, escaping my heart like a vapor through poor window seals.

And then I realize–maybe that’s it.  Maybe, it all comes down to what I want.  What I desire.  What my motives are.   Could this be at the very end of my anger?  Maybe even the main root of all the life-draining weeds?  Might this be why I get annoyed, frustrated, distraught, angry, anxious, sad, etc.?

Simply because I have certain desires and, for whatever reason, they don’t get met?

I find it funny though that I didn’t really notice these things about myself UNTIL motherhood.  Yes, it totally wounds my pride to confront my own weaknesses, but I am also strangely grateful for these revelations.  That the tilling of this soil brought forth these dormant seeds I hadn’t even known rested in my soul taking up space and soaking up nutrients.  

I turn to scripture to look into the times Jesus was interrupted. And man, this homie got interrupted in almost every chapter.  I once read a book in which the author pointed out that Jesus didn’t usually respond negatively to being interrupted, unless of course it was stemming from sin, evil, pride, or death (which all might very well be one and the same).  

Jesus was always going somewhere or in the middle of doing something, even if that something looked like nothing to passersby.  He was always up to something.  

And yet, He made time for people.

He made time for the beggars, the sick, the lonely, the outcasts.  He even made time for the proud and the haughty and the stone throwers.  He gave them all a sliver of Him.  Sometimes more.  And then, there was a time He gave all of Himself for all of us.  

He’d listen, He’d wait, He’d even pursue.  

He had compassion for people.  Even when the disciples proposed to ignore the hungry crowds, even when Jesus was exhausted and spent–He made time and prepared His heart to really listen, to actually show up for people.  

He did miracles for people on His way to go do miracles for people.  

He even made time for the dying sinners beside Him while He hanged there dying a sinner’s death, despite His sinless divinity.

One of the many things I love about Him is that He never treated these people or events as inconvenient interruptions, but always as the main event.  

Yes, He did have feelings of despair, sadness, grief, and heartbreak–because even though He was 100% God, He was also 100% man during his life here on Earth.  He felt everything we feel.  He felt the pressure of time and all the undone waiting for Him to arrive and make the most out of it.  But, that wasn’t His sole drive.  He didn’t let HIs emotions get in the captain’s chair and never let His feelings dictate how He treated others.

He didn’t live to get things done, unless it was His Father’s will.  He didn’t let the times or society rule over His actions or get in His way.  

While He did do many things here on Earth, He came for one reason: to pay the penalty for sin once and for all. A price none of us could pay.  He did it knowingly and from a place of total, complete, and absolutely radical love.  

He died so we could live.  And, when He rose again from the grave three days later, defeating “Eternal Death” forevermore, He gave us all an invite into Heaven and the gift of His Holy Spirit as a deposit until that day.  A reunion with the God from whom we have separated ourselves since the day of our very first sinful thought.  He stepped in the gap for us–a divide so wide no imperfect man could ever bridge, no matter how “good” he would be considered by our standards.  It HAD to be Jesus.  And so He did it.  

He didn’t let interruption take Him from this purpose.  Even though He so badly wanted out of this fate that He sweat blood from the “agony” (Luke 22:44).

That’s so wild to me–that right before His death, when He knew Judas’ kiss was not far off, He pleaded with God, that if there was any other way God could reconcile us to Him, that the Father would let this “cup” pass from Him (Matthew 26:39).  Jesus prayed this three times according to scripture.  But, who knows how many other times He prayed that prayer.  Did He pray it as a boy?  Before beginning His ministry?  Did He pray it hundreds of times before that night?

God did not answer that prayer the way most of us would have wished Him to if we were in Jesus' shoes.  But, God did answer it.  When He did not deliver His Son from the crucifixion, it was as if He was saying, “No, Son.  There is no other way back to Me, except through You.”

Man.  Thank God for God. That He didn’t see death as the ultimate interruption to His personal dreams of pursuing His own happiness. No, instead, He saw death, He looked it straight in the eye, and said, “No more.”  He drew a line in the desert sands declaring that Death must stop there.

He showed the deepest form of love there is. Obedience to the Father and self sacrifice for those whom He loved with an everlasting love that we could never truly begin to understand. 

Why do I bring this all into my little writing snippet about the annoyance of interruption, you might ask?  

Well, because what is life but mostly detours and a small stretch of main road?  Is it not mostly a string of unexpected events interrupting all our grand plans?  And who best to learn from than God Himself?

Looking at how Jesus dealt with interruption, I’m left with three questions about this inevitable visitor who comes to us all:

1. How do we define interruption?

2. What is it we really want that makes us define interruption as such?

3. How do we respond to it?

Interruption will come.  It always does.  We want things as humans.  And things get in our way.  That’s just life.  

But, we get to decide what we do about it.  Do we see interruption as a rusty wrench in our gears?  As a reason to huff exaggeratingly for those around us to notice?  Is interruption for us an opportunity to lose our cool, to give up, to let loose all our built up emotions?

Or, is interruption something we have grown to expect?  Like a family member prone to unannounced visits.  We’re not ready, but we’re also always ready.  I mean, we could pretend we’re not home.  We could say we’re busy, to come back later.  But, we all know that if they’ve come this far, they’re staying for at least one meal.  No sense in trying to evade.  Might as well invite them in, make them a plate, and ask about all their stories.  Who knows? Maybe, they’re an answered prayer in disguise.  Maybe, all along, we needed the interruption.  The company.  The reason to press pause on whatever we thought we ought to be doing.

We just can’t usually see the eternal purpose of things when they’re playing out.  Sometimes, yes, but many times, no.  It’s not until later when we can confidently say, “Ah, yes Lord, I see what You were doing there.”

And then there’s those things that we might not understand until we see God face to face. 

So, it seems I am faced with not the ability to choose whether or not I get interrupted, but instead, how I will respond.  Will I choose to trust that this interruption might actually not be an interruption at all? It might be one to us and our plans, but is it to God?  

Absolutely not.  To me, interruption implies it is something unexpected.  And, for an all-knowing God there is no such thing as the “unexpected.”  For an almighty, sovereign God who has a plan for everything, there is no such thing as “accidental.”  

Will I choose to believe that if He brings me to it He will in fact bring me through it?

Not to sound trite, but will I choose to hope in the fact that this has indeed happened for a reason?  Even the hardest, most heartbreaking things in life that we really can’t understand.  If, for nothing else, because it is far more painful to think even just for a second that it has happened for no reason at all. 

What reason could possibly ever be good enough to justify such a hard thing, you might ask.  I can’t pretend to know the answers.  I will not speak for God.

But, I do know this.  He does not let anything go to waste unless it chooses to go there.  And even then, He tends to use that for some sort of good or glory.  I know that He loves us enough to grow us to look more like Him.  And I know that I want to let Him no matter the cost.  Because, He who made this world gets to decide the best way to live in it.  And I know that sometimes it’s the harder things in life that wake us up and lead us to the stairway of change and a holy reconciliation and true, unshakeable peace and joy. 

I also know that sometimes interruption is exactly what I need. I know that sometimes there’s so many more important things than this thing I chose to do.  

Yes, the dishes are important.  Work can be a blessing from the Lord if timed and apportioned according to His will.  I honestly can’t stand those social media influencers who shame people for choosing to do the chores and the necessary tasks.  Housekeeping, yard work, income–all of these things must happen in life.  However, we also ought to be able to say, “Not right now,” to these things in order to partake in other important things, such as: connecting with our loved ones, resting on the Sabbath, caring for others or ourselves, abiding in the Lord, or just going out to enjoy God’s creation and all the ways we can benefit from it.

We could also invite our loved ones in on our tasks, even though it might be messier or take longer this way.

All of this to say:

What if I could choose to respond to interruption differently? Not as an unpre3dictable guest, but as a planned companion.  

Maybe, I need to just dare to slow down.  To slow down long enough, to take a step back, so that I can see all the wonder and opportunity lying in wait for me to notice it and cherish it.  I think it’s time I swim against the rushing current of productivity and self-centeredness and start to welcome the “unexpected.”  Because, it’s all a part of life.  If God’s will is to mold me to look more like Him and to glorify Him, then anything He allows into my life has the potential to do just that. 

When I slow down, when I stop the rush, pause, take a look around, like really look around, I remember what this is all for. I remember the beauty, the blessings, and my purpose in it all. 

I remember what I want.  What I should want.  Not that what I want is most important, but that what I want, what my motives are, will determine my destination. And all of my steps will be toward trying to get me there. 

Due to what I want in each moment, everything kind of falls into one of two categories:

Something that gets me there or something that stands in my way. 

Maybe, if I change what I want, then the way I see interruption will change, and ultimately so will the way I respond to them.

Motives.  Slowing Down.  Perspective.  Choosing to welcome interruption, especially when it’s Jesus interrupting.  Just like when he entered the lives of those fishermen.  Will I drop my nets (my self-reliance) and follow Him?

I see now it’s all in the letting go–

surrendering my desires of making it about me and my comfort and happiness.  Realizing it’s so much bigger than that.  Bigger than me.

In surrendering to God’s plan, I discover the freest kinda free there could ever be.

And, there’s nothing that could ever interrupt that.