God Knows: Looking Back at One's Work as a Fly Fishing Guide, Teacher and Counselor

Sometimes I try to evaluate my life, my work as a teacher, counselor and fly fishing guide. Perhaps like most, I want my life to have mattered.  I wonder if it has all been in vain or did my work accomplish some purpose? Perhaps I brought some new meaning to someone. Perhaps I helped someone catch their first fish on a fly or helped someone catch the largest trout ever. Or, perhaps some in-depth conversation left some one pondering for years. Or, maybe a story I told children lingers in the heart of a young person for decades to come.

Strangely, it is not as though I have not received some feed back in regard to these questions I ponder. Some times, I run into former students and fishing clients.  Some times meaningful memories and stories are shared. There have been personal thank you letters.  There have been guide trips and field trips with both kids and adults when they expressed, “This was the most exciting moment of my life”, or “You were the best teacher/guide ever”, or, “This was by far the best I ever did fly fishing”. Sometimes I felt if even in the smallest way as though I was partially responsible for those positive experiences.  

But on most days, in spite of this feedback I do not feel so highly of myself. My conclusion to my own self evaluation tends to lean toward not feeling very adequate. Most often it feels as though my life and work did not matter, that I was quite dispensable,  which in the big scheme of things is probably closer to the truth. Perhaps I am being hard on myself.  Maybe, not. Probably not.  Who knows?

It is only most recently that I am finding some comfort in letting go of my self worth  based on my own self evaluation because the only truthful answer to the question, “Who knows”? is God.  God is the only one who knows. God knows the truth. God knows and that is something. It is enough. It has to be enough.

This may sound terribly simplistic.  And I tend to dislike simplistic thinking. But there is something powerful and satisfying in the truth, “God knows”.  I can let it be. I can let it go. I can let go of any evaluation of my life.  In fact, perhaps the truth is that there is no other way to let it go.  To not let it go would be to forever try to please others spinning on some hamster wheel. 

So, it does not really matter how much I think I have helped people or how many lives I think I may have made a difference in. At the same time it also does not really matter how much I think I messed up or how many failures I think I made in not reaching people. Maybe it doesn’t matter how I feel I failed in counseling people or in helping people catch fish.  Maybe at times I was the worst guide/teacher/counselor and perhaps other times I was the best. Who knows?

In the end, my own assessments of who I am do not really matter. Only God knows the truth about how I have lived my life.  And that is enough to escape the judgment of others  and more importantly, of myself. That is all that really matters.

God only knows.