I had already slept one night in my tiny, dormitory-style room and eaten my first cafeteria meal of the weekend when it hit me: I have no way out of here. 

It wasn’t that I wanted to leave. I had anticipated this weekend for more than a year, an artist’s retreat that had been postponed more than once due to the pandemic. I was ecstatic to finally be there, and the pilgrimage was long in both time and miles. A four-hour flight and two-hour shuttle ride lay between my home in the Pacific Northwest and the dorm room overlooking the parking lot of cars that did not belong to me. 

There was a time, on the other side of the months and miles, that one of those cars would have been mine. I would have arranged the trip in a way that ensured I had a way out, just in case. Being stuck was a condition I worked hard to avoid. 

So, when I realized that I had no way out of the Midwestern campus dotted with pine trees reminiscent of home, and that I was okay with it, I needed a moment. Why hadn’t I considered this until now? What had changed in me? And how? 

My only explanation was God. God had been working in me without me knowing, without me asking, even without me asking. I was ok with my aversion to being stuck. It seemed rational and I didn’t feel limited by it. In fact, I hardly ever thought about it.

But this moment of realization, on the other side of change, gave me pause. Transformation wasn’t always up to me and my hard work, my prayers or even my surrender. Sometimes, I have no idea it is happening until it is already done.