It’s Monday morning and I’m on my drive to work. A few blocks from my job there is a woman, butterball naked, with arms raised high in the middle of the street — in my lane, to be exact. Later that same evening, on my way to a fitness class at a nearby community center, a little bitty dog runs out  and I have to slam my brakes. No less than ten minutes later, a random woman with a leaf blower, fully aware of my car, moves away from the sidewalk and further into the street. I swerve a little and keep going. Days later, again on my way to work, a man I’ve never seen running in this particular neighborhood seems unaware of his surroundings. Instead of running on the sidewalk, he runs into my driving lane. 

Why are all these people in my lane?! 

After some reflection, I thought wayment, Lord, are you trying to tell me something?? I considered what the potential message could be. With people consistently in my lane, maybe the message was simple: stay in your lane!

I quickly remembered a time I was frustrated at the rate at which leadership in an organization I volunteered with was moving on a serious issue — one that impacted children’s wellbeing. During this season, I felt God speaking to me through dreams, and I had a dream that encouraged me. I was feeling discouraged, frustrated, and defeated, knowing something had to be done but not knowing what to do. I saw solutions and could’ve recommended actions and steps to take, but they weren’t my steps to take. I was also just getting my bearings in my own role. The dream I had was an encouragement for me to stay in my lane. To remember my why, my role, and to focus on those things and pray for the things I had no control over. 

Can you guess what kind of week I’ve recently had? That’s right, a week where things have felt out of control. A week where I am able to see solutions and what could be done, but they are not done. Dealing with daily frustration with work, then leaving work for the day and re-entering the world, and seeing greater frustration nationally. Being a teacher in DC, at the city’s only juvenile detention center, there’s constant overlap with national and local issues that have more recently had a day-to-day impact. 

In the midst of the frustrations, everyone is loud. 

Social media is loud. The news is loud. Liberals are loud. Conservative Republicans are loud. Christian Nationalists are loud. And when everyone is loud, I have to get quiet. I need to hear. Sometimes it’s the hardest time to hear when it’s so loud. Everyone has conviction when they speak. Everyone is “right.” Everyone needs to listen to what “they” say. And that’s when I throw up deuces. 

I was the child who put themselves to bed. I can sleep at random times at random places. So when my sleep is jacked, I know I’ve got to slow down and release things. To find the source of my stress. When I put together the experiences and emotions of the week, I realized maybe God was speaking in a whisper through it, and I knew I needed to pay attention. 

Things that were significant from my dream all those years ago remain significant now. I never felt as if God asked me not to care about what was going on. I never felt like he asked me to be quiet about it either, but I felt him draw me in. I believe it was an opportunity to get clarity on what I was supposed to do within my role. In that organization, it was for me to watch and pray. It was for me to support my friend who was closer to the issue. I was surprised when, weeks later, the issue changed. It didn’t resolve itself, but was moved to a better space for it to be resolved. I know it sounds cryptic as I try to keep information confidential. But the bottom line was that there was divine intervention and change. 

Remembering that change came and God stepped in helped me rest and think through what I could do in my current role. What was my responsibility? What specific prayers could I pray?

As I was discerning how God might have been speaking, the icing on the cake might have been a class discussion in the same week that also planted a seed in my own heart. 

My students have the opportunity to participate in Youth Justice Action Month, a campaign to raise awareness for justice-involved youth during October. To help students think through what art they’d like to create, they learned about different artists like Pablo Picasso, Jean Michel Basquiat, Shamsia Hassani, and more, on how they used their art to advocate for things they were concerned about. In the course of the conversation, one student questioned whether he could make a difference. In creating art or whatever he contributes, could he actually effect change? I encouraged him that whatever he was good at, however small or large, it could effect change. I hit him with the ‘you never know who could see it or be impacted by it.’ He was listening intently, and so was I. 

With so many things happening in our world and the ability to hear about multiple places and multiple problems all at once, it can paralyze us. 

The message I almost missed is my encouragement to you: take time for stillness, quietness, and listening. We often need to drown out the loudest voices to hear the smallest whispers. Settle in and THEN act, remembering you are capable of creating change in your own lane.  

Photo by Unsplash.