A Different Woman

**Note: I have linked to various other blogs in this post.  I do this not because I am a disciple (accepting hook-line-and-sinker) of any of these thinkers, but because they often have already articulated many things I wish to say.  Rather than stumbling through and leaving you worse for the wear, I leave you with the gift of their words.  They so helpfully articulate the general direction of my feelings or thoughts in ways I find myself struggling or unable to do.**

I got on to write a post today and found that the last time I wrote (publically) was in the fall of 2018.  The next post was a year before that.  I found, too, an unpublished post from exactly a year ago.

So much has changed in these last years.  I am not the same woman who wrote those words.

Yet in many ways just as much has changed in the last 6 or 7 weeks.

I am now employed by my church – which still feels too good to be true.  I no longer leave my house, and when my friend brings me groceries I legitimately wonder if I should bleach the boxes and am maybe a little afraid to touch the shopping bags.  I’m now an online student who finds it increasingly difficult to do any of my homework – because the joy of sitting in class with my friends has been taken away.

Six weeks ago, right before Advent started, I began a project for my church making Lent Calendars – activities, thoughts, or Scripture for each day of Lent.  I’m a little too proud of this project, but what struck me in the gut today was how much has changed.  As I sent the last calendar to be added to the weekly church email, it boggled my mind that six weeks ago life was entirely normal…

(At the risk of adding to the glut of words about COVID-19, I plan to be writing a second post today.  In slowing down to think about Lent, I have many thoughts about how Lent, and lament, is the Christian prescription for seasons of deep grief – personally felt as well as communally felt.  But here I want to acknowledge something else.)

I said it above and I’ll say it again.  I am a different woman.

I am not the same woman who started seminary almost three years ago. I believe different things, I think about different things, I have different passions and convictions, and I’m headed in a different direction.  My home is somewhere new.  My expectations for my own life would be unrecognizable to my old me.

Sure, some things are the same.  My goal is still to pursue Jesus and to seek God’s plan with everything I have.  I’m still more child than adult in many ways, and more grown up than I want to be in others.  I still love to watch movies and long to travel.  I long to be a mom and prefer being with friends to being alone.  I want to be a safe-haven for people in many different ways.

Some things have changed in normal ways.  I’m older.  I’ve learned to adult better.  I got a little better at doing my taxes, then decided my preferred way to adult is going to an accountant.  I can cook a few more things and avoid fewer kinds of veggies.  My plants are bigger (and there are so many more).  My favorite books have changed (this one and this one, in case you were wondering), as has my reading list.  I’ve traveled new places.  I have new friends.

But today, most of all, I feel radically different.  I no longer see the future I once saw.  I have taken risks I would never have believed myself capable of.  I understand a little more deeply what it means that my allegiance is not to America and I feel very differently about politics.  I think differently about how to be family to the family-less.  I believe very differently about what God is calling me to in His church.  

And today, it all feels so big.