A theologian by the name of Walter Bruggeman speaks about the Biblical pattern of personal and corporate growth in the three stages of Orientation – Disorientation – Reorientation.

Everyone loves it when life is bliss and going according to our own plans, but how often throughout Scripture we see that it is in the disorientation stage where God is seen to be wanting to use something, or show something to us that will illuminate [such a great word] areas within ourselves that need healing/correcting; a mindset rewiring of sorts.

The saying goes that the Israelites spent 40 years wandering around the desert, not because the Promised Land wasn’t ready for them, but because they weren’t ready for the Promised Land. They needed to get ‘Egypt’ out of them before they unwittingly took parts of the old with them into the new. In the same way, periods of disorientation, while uncomfortable, help us to grieve the old while preparing us for the new.

In our lives we may find ourselves in any one of the three stages simultaneously. For example, in our family life we may feel like we are in a place of orientation – things are good, as expected and going well, there is a sense of peace and harmony. While in other areas of our lives, say business and vocation, we may find ourselves in a place of disorientation, where there is upheaval through a job loss or a redundancy, no pathways forward, or no sense of meaning/purpose in our work.

While unusual to experience disorientation in all three key areas of our lives at the same time – the three key areas being faith, family, vocation – it does happen. It happened to me.

Generally speaking, if your faith is solid and your family life is healthy then you will process disorientation in your vocation easier and faster, because while you are experiencing crisis in one area the two other key areas are solid enough to keep you grounded with a sense of forward movement. Likewise with any other combination of the three.

But when it’s all three – when your faith, family and vocation are all linked together and there is significant upheaval, then the sense of disorientation will take its time as essentially you feel life grind to a holt until you grieve and learn to reestablish your foundations.

I used to think the Israelites were idiots for staying in the wilderness for so long….but if it takes one person a significant time to journey along the path of healing, and to a new way of thinking/understanding, imagine that process for a whole village/nation.

Why I am writing about all of this? A few weeks back at church I realised I wasn’t as tense as I normally am. The church journey over the last year has been difficult for me as I have shared already…and because of that it’s easy to feel resentment towards the ‘whole’ when grieving the loss of a ‘part’.

Anyway, so I’m in church and feeling relaxed, feeling present, feeling peace about being there, and I was reminded of the three stages.

Orientation | Disorientation | Reorientation

Knowing I’ve been sitting in this disorientation space for a while, I had the overwhelming sense/realisation that I was now moving into reorientation. Life was no longer about what I have ‘lost’, where I ‘used to be’, or what I am ‘not’, neither did the future feel foggy, unclear, or unsafe.

When you are in a place of disorientation you need tangible hope. You need to be able to imagine/dream of a better day, you need a vision of the ‘good life’ that is still possible ahead to keep you moving.

The hope that must be spoken is hope rooted in the assurance that God does not quit even when the evidence warrants his quitting.

Walter Brueggemann

If you can’t speak or see that hope, get people around you who can. I will be forever grateful for the hope givers in my life.

Jeremiah, faithful to Moses, understood what numb people will never know, that only grievers can experience their experiences and move on.

Walter Brueggemann

If you don’t have hope, you will numb yourself to the pain and remain stuck where you are. Hope allows people to grieve and to feel, to acknowledge the reality of their experiences so they can then wholeheartedly move on.

Hope helps people to see that the wilderness is not the final destination, so rather than fight against it, they become present to it. They journey through the pain rather than resigning themselves to it.

How do you know you are no longer in disorientation and now moving into reorientation? Peace. A sense of contentment, the reemergence of joy and the lessening of angst and pain through forgiveness.

When the joy of where you are at, and the excitement of what is before you fills your life more than grief did. When you realise your thoughts are directed towards that end, you realise that the direction of your life has shifted.

There is a sense of forward movement again. And it is invigorating.