I watched a movie last summer that really moved and inspired me. I was so entertained. Enthralled really. Honestly, it was one of those movies where I was supposed to be doing something else, but I got pulled into the plot instead. I meant to get up and finish a task, but two hours later I was still sitting on the couch wiping away tears, enraptured by good acting, good storytelling, and a compelling plot.
The movie was called Burnt. And it stars Bradley Cooper as a washed up but super talented chef. At the pinnacle of his success, he became a drug addict and crashed and burned in a fairly epic way. He lost his restaurant, his reputation, his world. He failed himself, his restaurant, his staff, his friends. And he did it all publicly.
The movie begins on the other side of sobriety. He’s clean now, he’s healed. Or, er, healing at least. And he’s ready to reclaim the life he threw away.
There was a lot I could relate to. Without making this post a total pity party, I can admit I know this journey. Okay, sure, I’ve never been a drug addict—which is an unimaginable and daunting hardship to bear. And my failure can’t be blamed so easily on external factors. But I know what it’s like to have immense success. And I know acutely what it is to fail, to lose it all, to have to start over.
I’ve thought about that movie many times since I finished it. It moved me in a soul-deep sort of way. It made me feel seen. It gave me hope. But no scene has stuck with me more than the opening one.
Burnt begins with Bradley Cooper prying open oysters. Dozens of them. His fingers are calloused and deft. His knife sharp. His skill obvious. And while the movie sort of montages back and forth between opening oysters and tallying each one up in his book while his voice narrates, we see that he’s not a simple kitchenhand, working for someone else. This man, this chef, is working toward something. His job has a deep purpose which he is executing with purpose.
And then he hits it. One million oysters.
He pauses right there, right at that one millionth oyster, and eats it himself. Savors it really. Then he walks out of the restaurant. The other people in the kitchen call out to him, wondering where he’s going, what he’s up to. But he doesn’t even glance back. He’s ready to move on.
You realize quickly that he’d put himself in purgatory. He’d sentenced himself to one million oysters, and a lowly, humble job, so that he would never forget where he started and how far he’d come. Or how far he’d fallen.
In the movie, he goes on to grab his dreams with two fists and accomplish the impossible. Sure, there’re difficulties and trials and he fails a lot more times. But from that moment on, he’s on a sure-footed path, determined to succeed, single-minded in his hope to live.
It’s a fantastic movie. You should definitely watch it.
But now that’s it’s over, I keep going back to those one million oysters.
Probably because I can relate there the most. I’m in my One Million Oyster Era. I’m painstakingly prying them open one hard shell at a time. My knife is sharp and crafted for the task, but my fingers are bloodied and blistered. I haven’t figured out the process yet, I haven’t mastered the skill.
I got a job recently. A not-writing job. It’s a fine job for a fine company. There’s really very little to complain about. I chose it for its sheer lack of responsibility. I needed something that made money, but that I would be able to leave behind at the end of the day. (I have an unfortunate addiction to high levels of responsibility.) And so, I intentionally went after a job that would make me move my body, make space for multi-tasking with things I love (aka listening to audiobooks), and remain low maintenance enough for me to set it down and walk away whenever I clocked out.
But it’s been a much harder thing than I imagined. Don’t get me wrong, the job is all that I wanted it to be. But it’s also 40 hours of my life (plus travel and preparation and lost minutes for whatever reason) that are not spent pursuing my dreams. 40 hours I’m giving to something that feels like it’s in exact opposition to what I really want to do with my life. 40 hours of not writing, not plotting, not creating.
It has been a death of sorts. The death of the life I have known and lived my entire adult life thus far. The death of the way I thought my life would go. The death of my expectations and hopes and dreams over my career. The death of my self-esteem. My pride. My . . . idea of success.
It has been my one million oysters. My reset. My . . . humbling.
(Hang with me here because I know that even though things die, they can also be reborn. I know that these deaths aren’t final, but they are, for whatever reason, my current reality. There will be a second life to these precious things, a reimagining of what I thought they would be into the things they were meant to be. But death, in all its forms, is still painful. It still forces us to grieve.)
The thing is, I have pursued humility for a large part of my life. I’ve prayed for it, grasped for it, hoped for it. And I’ve even experienced it in varying degrees. What I didn’t expect is that to fully step into true humility—for a life that’s soaked in it, for a soul to know it in a bone-deep, unshakable sort of way—you must be truly humbled.
Does that sound obvious? Did you all know that already? Because I genuinely didn’t. I thought it was a rather easy and unremarkable thing to grasp. All I had to do was think little of myself and a lot of God and voila—Humility.
It sounds so good. It floats overhead like such a worthy pursuit. It is right and worthy and holy. But as it turns out, humility also feels like actual death. To possess humility is to be humble. And the words can be so pretty and righteous and right. But to live them out . . . good grief does it sting and ache and cut deep.
Humility, real humility, is to die to oneself. In the most honest way possible.
So, as I stepped into this new season of death and learning and humility, I lost sight of that good Christian girl goal. I turned my one million oysters into a badge of shame. I struggled to swallow the reality, I felt failure and heartache and suffering and nothing else.
And then this sweet little truth found me one day. In my quiet time—time that is rarer and more precious with this new responsibility of a job—God reminded me that humility is not a punishment . . . Humility is the reward.
The reward for pressing into Jesus in the midst of struggles and suffering. The reward for refusing to give up when things get really hard. When life gets unbearable. The reward for letting those pieces of prideful self and hard edges of entitlement and scarcity mindset die. The reward for unclenching our fists of expectations and letting God do His mighty work in and through us.
Humility is the reward. The beautiful, lasting, lovely reward.
One million oysters are not for nothing. They’re not an ugly punishment or pessimism’s self-fulfilling prophecy. They’re not the death of my career and end of the road for all my hopes and dreams.
One million oysters are a gift. They are the next depth as Jesus pulls me deeper into the ocean of His Love. They are a beautiful, worthy banner over this life of mine that has been specifically designed for me since the beginning of time. They are hard and sometimes disheartening and always more work than I want them to be. But they are good.
This season of life is good.
This God I love and serve and hope in is so very good.
Humility isn’t a punishment. Humility is a gift. A reward. A treasure.
And if you are in a season of one million oysters. If your fingers are cut and bloodied, blistered and raw. If your hands ache from the grueling work and the long, lightless days. If your soul is weary. And your spirit tired of dying. So very tired. Just know that there is purpose in this work. There is beauty in these ashes. Diamonds being mined in this rough. These oysters we’re shucking are producing pearls of great worth. Pearls for your good. And God’s glory. And all of it is hard and beautiful and so very worth it.
Don’t lose hope. Don’t give up.
One million oysters. One million pearls. One million moments to rest in and hope in and trust in Him.
Thank you