these are the days: october

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Last month’s “these are the days” post inspired me to continue this practice, maybe monthly. There is something helpful about being still for long enough to mull over what life looks like, here and now.

These are the days of rather ambivalent weather, true to a Pacific Northwest October’s form. My weather app has been forecasting rain for the last week, but each day it holds off just a little longer. That’s all supposed to change tomorrow, but in the meantime I’m enjoying my near-daily walks and watching the evolution of the trees. A few of them are all but bare, with puddles of crinkly brown leaves around their trunks, but most are somewhere in the awkward stage of half-green, half-golden foliage. My favorites are the ones that fade from green to golden to brilliant red at the tips all at once.

They are days of stretching myself outside the comfortable space I’ve existed within up until this point. Some of this stretching has been ideological, some of it theological, some of it relational, some of it social. I am developing a taste for deliberately making myself uncomfortable in many areas so that I can become stronger, much like exercising my body, only now it’s my whole self. I auditioned for a play. I started listening to a podcast that makes me think - and rethink. I’ve been reading and researching the role of women in the Church, on both local and global levels, and thinking critically about what it means for me to be a disciple of Jesus in the exact time, place, and situation He has me. These are the days of asking many questions, especially, “Are there other ways to think about this, or is there something I’m missing because of the bubble I live in?” (The Enneagram 5 is strong with this one...)

And they are days of lots of hours spent working at my desk with my Bible at hand, deep in the throes of preparing another year of Bible180 to begin on January 1st. I’m also working on an upcoming series of resources on how to study the Bible that I hope you will all find helpful, and have been adding to our free resource library. So although the blog has been a little quiet in recent weeks, rest assured there is a lot going on behind the scenes.

Suggested thinking:

I’m adding a new section this month. “Suggested reading” and “suggested listening” seemed a bit too narrow, because I tend to do a little of everything, so I’m just going to call it my Suggested Thinking list. These might be books, podcasts, videos, articles, pretty much anything that has been making me think lately. I’m inviting you to think with me. :)

What do the days of October look like for you?

these are the days: september

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(This post is inspired by Emily P. Freeman and her recent podcast episode, “Point and Call”.)

It’s September, suddenly - one of my favorite months of the year, and I’m concerned that today is already day three. Ten percent of the month is already behind us. The days go so fast, in a blur, so I feel the need to mark time here before it gets away from me.

These are the days of long, hard shadows in morning light, angled across all my flowers and filtering through their petals like tiny stained-glass windows. These are the days of cold nights, as evidenced by the chill in the lake water when we spent last week together at the cabin, and sometimes even a layer of fog to mute the world on my way to work in the morning.

They are days of learning many random things I never thought I’d need to know: how to stack russet potatoes, the best way to rotate the new produce in with the old, a hundred four-digit PLU codes. All those little things that make a shelf look nice? Someone does them - they don’t just happen by magic. I guess I knew that, but it didn’t mean anything until I became the one turning milk cartons to face the right way in the cooler.

And they’re days of learning many deeper things - the kind that have to be learned again and again, day in and day out. Like learning to set my eyes on Jesus, who has already endured and overcome every heartbreak and struggle I face. Learning to take refuge in who He says I am, and remember that He alone (not my feelings, not my mistakes, not my perceptions, not another person) gets to name me. Learning that He doesn’t always disclose the destination, or even the goal, but He does faithfully take the next step forward with me.

Welcome, September; don’t go too soon. I want to enjoy these days with you.

summertime reflections

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It’s mid-July already, and I find myself lost in a rather reflective mood. These long summer days have been sticky and temperamental, a shower here and a sunburst there; I strained my lower back doing too many burpees and so I’m relegated now to long daily walks and short core-strengthening sessions, and in a way, I’m glad - glad to have been pushed to enjoy the out-of-doors more intentionally while the weather is mild and the world is green. I love to go outside and say hello to my flowers and walk barefoot in the yard and pick raspberries and marionberries straight off the vines. I love to find new trails and routes to explore, places where I can feel small under the towering firs or the vast sky. Summer, somehow, always serves to jolt me out of step with the rest of the world’s clip and strip away the superfluous and remind me of who God says I am.

I am seen. “Then [Hagar] called the name of the LORD who spoke to her, ‘You are a God who sees’” (Genesis 16:13a). I’ve joked before (all too seriously) that invisibility is my superpower. I’ve always been the kind of person to think carefully before I speak, and to speak only if I had something truly valuable to say - which is a trait quickly passed off as quietness or shyness, and makes it spectacularly easy to fly under the radar. I’ve spent years trying to figure out how to do something worthy of notice with my life, but I am learning - slowly - that I am already seen. There is never a time when I am out of God’s sight - the recognition that I crave, He generously gives, and I need not do anything to gain or deserve it.

I am significant. “Your eyes have seen my unformed substance; and in Your book were all written the days that were ordained for me, when as yet there was not one of them” (Psalm 139:16). The loudest voices tell us that significance can be quantified in numbers - the number of people reached, the number of dollars made, the number of successes won, etc. But the Bible says true significance is sourced from a much humbler place, because it is a gift, not an achievement. I try to imagine God, as He was creating the masterpiece we call the Universe, painstakingly writing every one of my life’s days into His script. Somehow, while He was placing stars into position and setting planets into orbit, the tiny detail of Hallie’s life on July 16, 2019 did not escape Him - nor did the 9,312 days before it, or the unknown number that may come after it. For some reason He wanted me here, now. For some reason I’m a piece of His story, called into His family. For some reason - known and quantifiable only by Him - I am significant.

I am cared for. “Why do you say, O Jacob, and assert, O Israel, ‘My way is hidden from the Lord, and the justice due me escapes the notice of my God’? Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth does not become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable” (Isaiah 40:27-28). The same God who sees me and declares me significant proves these things true with His tireless love and care for me. Even when I’m complaining and blind to the work He’s doing, like the nation of Israel in this passage, God is not wearied in the pursuit of ultimate justice and goodness for the child He loves. I can rest in Him because He never rests; He keeps fighting for me, loving me, and winning the victory for me regardless of my failure, discouragement, or forgetfulness.

These are the truths He keeps reminding me of during these slow, but rapidly slipping, days of summer. Life is such a paradox - it’s small as well as important, simultaneously fleeting and everlasting. Like the flowers in my front garden, I may occupy only a small space for a short time, never to be celebrated by the masses, but I still have the opportunity to beautify the lives of a few passersby with the Truth for a moment. Perhaps that is enough.