The train moved through the dark subway tunnels of Boston, before entering Park Street Station. This was my stop. I got off the train and made my way to the stairs. Rather than heading up to fresh air, and the sun setting on Park Street Church, I descended further to where I’d catch the Red Line Train.
As I reached the bottom of the steps, on the platform between the tracks, I saw a man playing a white electric guitar. Crooning into a microphone, he stood with a small amp at his side. An open guitar case lay at his feet. He finished up his song as I walked over to the spot where I usually waited for the train. A minute or two went by, then he started to sing again.
Now I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing “Hallelujah”
Hallelujah, Hallelujah*
I’d heard the song before, but I couldn’t place it. The platform began to fill with people getting out of work. I looked down at my feet, where the cuffs of my business pants fell in folds around my sneakers.
When my manager assigned me to the text book floor full time, I was thrilled. Before then I had been entering book orders into the computer everyday. Only, working out on the floor, I quickly discovered dress shoes weren’t going to cut it. Hence this fashion choice that spoke to more than simply my occupation. As much as I hated to admit it, my sneakers/business pants combo revealed the truth: I was stuck somewhere between childhood and adulthood.
Mere months after graduating college, I felt as lost as I’d ever been with no clue how to find my way out. And it seemed as if I spent my life in those dark subway tunnels. It took me over an hour to get to work every morning, and then over an hour home. I also worked in a basement bookstore, so I rarely saw sunlight. Only, what was worse, I knew
I wasn’t supposed to be hauling text books.
That hadn’t been the plan. Not only was it not my plan, but it wasn’t God’s plan. At least that is what I believed.
In college, I had discovered my purpose, my calling. The thing I was born to do. The thing I felt the most alive doing. And though by many standards it wasn’t practical, and so few women did it as a career, the inward pull I had toward spending my life doing this thing was inescapable.
Throughout my college years I wrestled with this calling. I prayed about it constantly. I wanted to be sure it was real. And in response, God kept opening doors for me to learn and grow.
Only when I graduated, the doors stopped opening. At least the ones I thought were supposed to open. I so was confused. Why would God show me the mountain top—the thing I felt made to do—then, open the door for me to work at a college bookstore?
Waiting for the train, the ache of all that wasn’t seemed as palpable as the pain in my feet from standing all day. Though there were so many people on the platform now, and I could no longer see the singer from where I was standing, I could hear him. Suddenly he sang a line that spoke to my situation. He sang,
“Love is not a victory march, it’s a cold and it’s a broken Hallelujah”*
Often the journey toward doing the thing you love, the thing you feel made to do, is anything but victorious. It is dark, sometimes literally, but definitely emotionally. It’s confusing, and at times enough to make you want to give up. But what I was to learn that year was that if you really love something and you know you were made to do it, you have to walk that broken road until you find the light. You have to stick to the path.
Where does your journey feel anything but victorious?
Where do you need to stick to the path?
This month on the blog we are doing something different. In the coming months, I would like to take my stories from the year I worked in a bookstore in Boston, and put them in a book. But before I do, I want to share a few of the stories with you. Every Monday, and some Thursdays in March, look for these stories and please let me know if any of them resonate with your story.
*I later discovered the Song is Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen
Are you in the midst of making a hard decision? Contemplating a big life change? If so, you may be interested in my FREE Making Changes Checklist that I give to all my email friends. Want your free copy? subscribe here.
