Who Died?

People spend a lifetime trying to figure out who they are. The few people who know me well know that 10 years ago I was a virtual stranger to the person I am today. What changed? And how did it happen?

Cognitive researchers have concluded that in our makeup, we are really a bunch of habits, and a person displays observable change when old habits are modified or replaced.

Ten years ago, I was an exhausted, bereaved, remarried, financially distressed, really worried Aussie who, with the help of my BWC coach and its “Design a Decade” program began an uncertain journey to an unknown destination.

But as it is for most, crisis becomes the great catalyst for change. Only when most of us are reduced to survival mode, and our circumstances become intolerable, will we willingly embrace the pain and challenge of changing habits; habits that have been formed thought by thought and action by repeated action over time. And though we may have been in various stages of crisis for some time, it’s only when we realize we are, and we are stressed or depressed, that we make desperate decisions to fight our way out of the coils of our pythonic, suffocating circumstances.

Ten years later, I have received acknowledgements and compliments for my “re-invention.” It sounded like a good title for a new book to accompany my increasingly popular first book “Grieve Upwards.”

However, when I began writing it occurred to me that “Reinvention” was far too an insipid word to describe my last decade. “Deconstruction and Reconstruction” far better described my experience. But still it didn’t hit the mark.

I belong to a God who specializes in transforming lives by a far more ruthless exercise than deconstruction and reconstruction.

Let me ask you, on the day of the crucifixion, who died? On the pivotal moment of all of history, who died?

Well, obviously, Jesus.

But the night before during the kangaroo court where he was convicted, another drama was being played out. Mr Muscle, Simon Peter himself, was sinking into an abyss of weakness, one denial after another. And as Jesus was being led away to crucifixion, Peter, in a black and worsening depression, was clawing and stumbling his way over the Kidron ravine.

Two people died that day. Both needed a resurrection. Jesus was resurrected three days later, and Peter about three weeks later. One to eternal life, the other to the next season of his mortal life.

Our amazing God offers nothing as insipid as a reinvention. His plan, if we will embrace it is nothing short of a brilliant resurrection after a “death” we neither asked for nor understood.

But that was his plan then, and still is his plan now. For those who won’t quit, get ready for the ride of your life. Literally.