From “What Makes You Come Alive: A Spiritual Walk with Howard Thurman” by Lerita Coleman Brown
For years I rarely thought to confer with anyone – let alone God – about my plans. I was goal driven, and I made major decisions about potential jobs and where to live based on my aims and the set of facts before me. Yet my faulty decision-making often yielded undesirable results, and I’d regret choices I’d made soon after making them. Over time, I began to see counsel from the inside and to see the important role of discernment in decision-making. I began to rebalance the way I made choices, spending time in silence and prayer instead of just rushing forward into plans based on what appeared to yield the most success or status.
Once, having spent time in reflection in the quietness of the evergreens of the Great Smokey Mountains, I turned down an offer for an academic position at Swarthmore College. The answer I received during that time – a clear sense that I was not to take the job – made little sense to my family, friends, and colleagues. Some even questioned my mental health. Why would I turn down an excellent position without any guarantee that another would appear? Yet my Inner Guidance felt very forceful. I knew something about the move to Swarthmore didn’t feel right even though I could not provide anyone with a logical reason.
Five years later, having accepted a job at the University of Colorado, Boulder, I sat in the examination room of a transplant surgeon, Dr. David Martin, in Denver. He explained to me what heart transplant surgery might entail. Casually he added, “Well, I guess you’re lucky you’re not living on the East Coast.”
What? I inquired why. “On the East Coast, there are several transplant centers vying for the same organs. Out here there is less competition because the next transplant center is UCLA. The heart cannot live outside of the body for more than four hours. Given the high donor rate in Colorado and your blood type and body size, your wait shouldn’t be long. If you were living in the Northeast, you might not receive an organ in time.”
I sat there, speechless. I had turned down a job at Strathmore in Pennsylvania not knowing at the time that I would ever need a heart transplant. Was this a remarkable coincidence or the result of the spiritual discernment I pursued in the mountains? I suspect that if I shared this story with Howard Thurman, he might add that the Spirit of God dances with each of us daily. It is our role to follow, like a partner.