it's september

I remember sitting in the doctor’s office in mid-January thinking how far, far away September felt. Half of a very long winter, an entirely unprecedented spring, and most of an exhausting summer lay ahead before I’d meet the baby I had only just learned existed.

Most years, I get to September and wonder where the time has gone. And I still definitely have a sense of “We’re already here?”—but it’s dwarfed a bit by the overwhelming feeling that I’m still powering through the last hundred yards of a marathon. And not just because I’m enormously pregnant. I think 2020 has felt that way for a lot of us, and maybe it’ll be awhile before we catch our breaths.

I have heard from many parents who have gone before me that new babies slow life down, in a way. Things take longer to accomplish. There’s a lot of sitting, feeding, watching. A lot of repetition and routine. I didn’t used to like the sound of that, but after this year of chaos and uncertainty and busyness, I think I’m ready for slow.

Tomorrow is one week away from our due date. Everything is about to change. I tend to hate change, because it usually feels like a tornado ripping through the middle of life—but there have so many such storms in the last few years that I think, or I hope, I’m getting to be a little more resilient. (And with any luck, my cats are, too…)

on church, faithfulness, and 2020

I wanted to write some sort of mid-year reflection post at the end of June, but with all that has happened in 2020 I had trouble knowing where to start. I’ve been pregnant for all of 2020 so far (and then some), for example; I lost my mother-in-law to cancer when the New Year was just 12 days old. This, on top of the chaos and crisis worldwide and nationally and individually and personally that none of us is quite unaffected by. So here we are in August, and I’m still gathering my thoughts.

I would describe this year so far as one long, existential earthquake. Life is being shaken up, and even as I brace for more aftershocks, I’m looking around to see what’s still standing, what’s crumbled, and what has fallen into place in a new way. Some of the things that have been broken or altered must be grieved, but maybe others had been outstaying their welcome, and it’s high time we celebrate letting them go? Maybe somewhere in the rubble we’ll find the perfect space to build something new?

I think this conversation is happening everywhere in some capacity, but my real prayer is that it will happen in the Church, and in the individuals who make up the Church. I’m praying that one of the goodbyes of this era will be the dismantling of some of the worn-in traditions of how we “do church” so that space can be made for us to BE the Church.

I’m convicted by the fact that so much of what we’ve preserved of church through the pandemic has been the least important parts, while what really matters has been lost. Some of that is merely the nature of social distancing, but some of it is also laziness, consumerism, and poor priorities. I speak for myself as much as anyone: when it became possible to tick the “go to church” box by merely opening a Facebook tab, without even the accountability of looking into someone’s face and saying hello, that’s all I did—and sometimes, not even that.

COVID-19 has starkly revealed that in the United States of America at least, our deficiency is not access. It’s abiding in Jesus. Even before there was a virus to require it, we could “go to church” remotely anywhere we wanted; we could choose any preacher or message we wanted; we could even round it out with our personal favorite style of worship music. But we have little understanding of how to love one another, meet each other’s needs, commit our time to prayer or fasting or feasting together, confess our sins to one another, reprove and forgive and reconcile with each other, serve the community together, have difficult conversations that matter, or teach one another the Word. And showing up for an hour and a half on Sundays to sing and hear a sermon isn’t teaching us any of it.

We have scrambled to hold onto the man-made structure of church, but it’s the real stuff of following Jesus that gets lost along the way.

What better time than our current upside-down reality to take stock of what is really important and to let go of what isn’t?

Jesus didn’t teach church. He taught abiding. He taught obedience. He taught love.

He didn’t ask us to prove our dedication by showing up and checking the box once a week—He asked us to follow His example and lay down our lives, every single day.

If that sounds as overwhelming for you as it does for me, take heart: We are not called to lay down our lives for everyone in the world, or even everyone in our church. Jesus already did that (hallelujah!). Our call, instead, is to lay our lives at His feet, and allow Him to use them in the specific places and for the specific people He has given to us. When He Himself was finite and human, limited by the same time and energy that limits us, He didn’t do everything for everyone—rather, He faithfully led and served the twelve disciples that God gave Him (John 17:6). He showed love and compassion for multitudes of others along His way, but always He prioritized and protected His call to the twelve.

Likewise, most of us are called to something far smaller and humbler than we often expect, like the handful of souls that make up our own families, not the hundreds who make up our church or the thousands who make up our city or the millions who make up our nation.

But faithfulness in even these very little things can explode into worldwide impact. We have countless Scriptural examples of rich harvest coming from a few small seeds—and the twelve disciples of Jesus, with you and I here 2,000 years later as their disciple-descendants, are just one of them.

life lately

Thinking

nonstop, about everything. As is usual for me—and the more thinking I do, sometimes, the harder it is to sort through all the thoughts and write them out. So this has been a very quiet site for the last month or so. I figured a list like this would give me just enough structure to brain-dump a bit, and maybe the clarity to write with more focus will follow.

Feeling

weird. That seems like the best word to describe the feeling of being pregnant. It’s weird to have a stomach sticking out in front of me and pulling on my back, and it’s weird to be unable to tighten up my abs like usual. It’s weird to feel the thuds and thunks against my insides. It’s weird when I can see them from the outside. It’s weird to get the app updates every week that tell me how big the baby is using fruit or vegetable illustrations—right now she’s as big as a head of lettuce. How in the world does a head of lettuce fit in there?

Eating

a lot of fruit. Strawberries and cherries are in season and I eat so many of them at work! I also just discovered New Zealand sungold kiwis, and I don’t know how something round and yellow and egg-like can taste exactly like the best raspberry I’ve ever had, but I love them.

Noticing

that there’s a very fine line between “Bible student” and “Bible snob.” I love talking and learning about the Bible, so I gravitate toward Facebook groups and podcasts that share my enthusiasm, but I’m often turned off by the way some scholars seem to lord their knowledge over others, or make a mockery of those who try to share in it. It seems to become a competition over who is the better Pharisee rather than a celebration of the God who invites in the little child, and it makes me sad.

Wondering

if all the “problems” I have seen in the Church are really just projections of what I see in myself. I’ve struggled with seeing the Church as more of a skeleton than a body—well-structured with truth, but lifeless, motionless, lacking in spirit and warmth. But the reality is, that’s me most of the time. As an Enneagram 5 who finds great security in attaining knowledge, it’s a very short step for me out of relationship and into religion. Pharisaism comes easily; community, vulnerability, and love are hard. I have to be vigilant to seek after knowing God intimately and experientially rather than merely knowing Him theoretically or theologically.

Playing

“O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus” and a lovely arrangement called the “Children’s Medley” on my piano. Ever since I got far enough along in my pregnancy that I learned the baby can hear sounds outside the womb, I’ve been trying to play and sing her a few songs on a regular basis. These are my favorites.

Making

sooo much granola. I used to fast from evening until around noon the following day, but I’m back to three meals a day since becoming pregnant, and having fast and healthy things available for when hunger hits with ferocity has helped me a lot. I use coconut sugar, monkfruit, and whole oats so that I don’t feel bad about sprinkling a few chocolate chips on top! ;)

Reading

the Epistles and the very last few Psalms, because Bible180 is almost at an end! It always seems like such a long, hard challenge when I’m in the middle of it, but then I blink and it’s June and I’m almost done. It’s so good to be back in the Story again.

Creating

a baby quilt with a giant, scrappy patchwork strawberry on it. My obsession with fruit apparently extends beyond merely eating it.

Asking

if trying clothes on in a store is actually overrated? I have always felt that fitting rooms are absolutely nonnegotiable when clothes shopping, and I definitely still think so about certain stores where I don’t know my sizing, but since most fitting rooms are closed right now, I’ve been doing a lot more online ordering or grabbing off the rack to try on at home. My success rate at picking clothes I like has actually surprised me, and trying stuff on at home is SO much nicer than in a public fitting room. Thankfully most stores are back to accepting returns when something doesn’t work out, so it’s really the best of all worlds (especially now that I have to figure out the maternity clothes situation).

Watching

so many hummingbirds zoom through my garden. I got a bunch of fuchsia starts for fifty cents each this spring and filled up all my containers and baskets with them, and they’re finally in fully bloom. The hummingbirds love them. (Random aside—I have somehow been spelling the word “fuchsia” as “fuschia” for my entire life. Apparently that’s wrong.)

Enjoying

working my standard Thursday morning shift at Spud’s Produce. Thursdays are the best morning to work, in my opinion, because we get 2-3 grocery loads delivered on top of our usual produce load. I like how much there is to do, and that so much of it involves replenishing dwindling stock on the shelves till they are full and bursting again. I usually get to be the first to see new items come in, and every once in awhile, a misdelivered item means I get free snacks. :)

Worrying

that summer is going to go by too fast. It always does, but with how eventful this year has already been and is promising to continue to be (in good ways as well as bad) it almost feels like being trapped in a tornado that just keeps picking up speed. I want to have space to enjoy the summer, to reflect on everything we’ve been through, and to look forward to what’s to come, but it often seems like there is just not a moment to spare.

Laughing

too little? This one has had me stumped. My cats always make me laugh, and so does watching the birds in the front garden frolicking over the birdbath, but laughter has not been a main element of my life in the last few weeks. That seems sad.

Dreaming

very vividly, thanks hormones.

Doing

lots of squats and stretches for my lower back. I heard squats are good for preparing for labor, so I’ve been adding them in various forms to all my workouts and day-to-day activities. The low-back ache from losing so much core stability has me trying every stretch in the book for relief.

Listening

to an abnormally high amount of news commentary, for me. For a long time I was pretty much a news avoider, but I started on a quest to be better informed a couple years ago, with a special focus on hearing voices from the opposite “side” from myself. I suppose this plays back into my security in knowledge; I wanted to discover which perspectives truly made sense, and know why they made sense. Interestingly, this journey has brought me back to many of the same standpoints I started from, but now I feel a little more firm on why I stand where I do. I’m trying to maintain an open mind, open ears, and open heart—because it’s hard to find that anywhere in the current cultural and political climate—while holding fast to what I know is true, right, and good.

Planning

a kitchen remodel and a baby room—who thought doing both of those at the same time was a good idea, anyway?! Thankfully Sam is doing 99% of the logistics and labor the kitchen will demand, so I have at least some brain space free to think about the fact that we are adding a person to our house in September.

Fearing

what it will be like to transition from a household of two to three, to be honest. Having a child is a weird paradox: Everyone is excited and happy for you, but they’re also the very same people who have made offhand comments over the years about how hard it is to be a parent and how having kids restricts you from doing a lot of your usual activities. It’s a bit like reliving the days before I got married, when so many people stated or implied that I was too young to tie myself down, and was throwing away my life. For someone who doesn’t need a lot of help to overthink things, this can really send me into a tailspin of fear. Is this going to be okay? Can I do it? Will I still be myself, or will I turn into someone I don’t recognize? Will people still want to do things with me? Will I have support, or are Sam and I in this alone? How in the world does one take on the enormous task of raising a person from newborn to adulthood, anyway? In fact, how does the human race still exist? (I realize these questions are progressively more dramatic and absurd—but that’s what I mean by a tailspin.)

Praying

for peace, wisdom, and the presence of God. My path over the last 8-10 years has involved many twists and turns, some of them incredible blessings and some of them terrible heartbreaks, and He has been faithful. So I am trying to keep my eyes set on Him and follow His lead, one step at a time.