During this season I have come right up against my productivity and what I have to “show” for myself. Maybe you can relate. What have I accomplished, how much am I doing, how impressive is my life? In a slow season where our lives have been simplified significantly, it seems like a beautiful opportunity to throw away any desire to be impressive. One less heavy thing to carry. Here is today’s liturgy to help us in this release.
When our social calendars are thrown away,
when our work looks entirely different,
when our trips are cancelled,
when our events are postponed,
when what we have depended on to feel worthy is stripped away,
show us a new way, Lord.
Circumstances have stolen our facades, the masks we hide behind to convince ourselves that we are doing enough.
I don’t know about you, but the hardest part of this whole situation is trying to control everything and protect all the things I love. As I have written before I have come face to face in this season with how little control I truly have. So, here is a liturgy for living with open hands and leaving things in the trustworthy hands of God.
Our plans. Hopes. Loved ones.
Nothing makes us more aware that we are not in control than a time like this.
In fear and grasping for control we want to latch onto these things, grip them, hold on for dear life.
We think we can white-knuckle them into existence, or to keep them from changing.
We control almost nothing.
We have very little say, especially now, over what happens to our plans, our hopes, our loved ones.
Today is the beginning of a new little project I have started, called “Stay at Home Liturgies.” Essentially, I am writing them to practice praying with intentionality. Come back on the next few Mondays and Fridays if you would like to practice them with me. I would recommend reading them out loud and slowly, only after you have taken a deep breath and are sitting down somewhere comfortable. A liturgy isn’t something to check off the to-do list, but instead something to digest and be transformed by.
In our mandate to stay at home, many of us have come face to face with an experience we try pretty hard to avoid: silence. We fill our days with any kind of activity or distraction to maintain a life that doesn’t have to deal with silence and what it brings with it. But there is so much good to be found there, so here is a prayer for all of us who are needing to embrace it…
Anxiety got the better of me last night. Anxiety 1, Kallie 0, I thought, as I lay in bed late into the night after hours of continually waking up gasping for a breath.
This season is hard. There are days where I feel entirely fine, because I have grounded my thoughts in a higher Truth, or some, honestly, where I am most likely in denial. We have moved from a unity of “we are all in the same boat” to a new stage where we realize that some people’s boats have significant holes in them and some are self-sustainable yachts. I get exhausted by humanity’s ability to always find something to argue about. We all have different things we want to be true, me included, whether they are or not.
My biggest question for God recently has been what is the purpose of this season? I try to live my life with intentionality, setting goals and working towards personal and communal growth. So in a season where we are intentionally separated, slowing our lives down dramatically, and where I feel like I spend most of my time alone and not doing anything productive, I am asking the Lord this question. What is the purpose? How do we find purpose?
It is Friday! We have almost made it through another week of whatever this season has looked like for you – working from home, homeschooling, online class, still going to work…
I imagine soon, if it hasn’t happened already, the days will start to blend together and the weeks might feel slower and slower. Separated from our typical activities and relationships, the mundane might feel overwhelming in this season. The mess certainly feels overwhelming. And that leaves the miraculous – where do we find that in this season?
The miraculous right now for me is that I have almost never “needed” the Lord so desperately. The quotations are necessary because these circumstances have torn away the facade, the illusion, of our comfort and control. Of course, I have always needed the Lord just as desperately as right now. Of course, I have never had any real kind of control over life, I just feel it more right now. Our comforts have maybe never been threatened in this way — honestly it throws our privilege right in our faces.
Happy Friday, everyone. It feels weird to write about anything other than what is happening in our world right now, and also I am so conscious of the noise that we add to an already overloaded world. So I am going to simply share some hope and encouragement and some practical things for our next few weeks (or likely longer) of whatever this season looks like for each of you.
So I was sort of dark and twisty last week, and I am now reveling in the Colorado sunshine and the resolution of hard situations. I am looking with anticipation towards Easter and springtime and new life. We are going through a devotional currently about God’s goodness, and one day included reflecting on Psalm 145. I was so struck by the rich truths and wisdom within this passage, so inspired by what it has to teach us. (To balance out how holy I sound right now, I just need you to know that I am listening to the Jonas Brothers while I write this.)
If I was writing a Bible study, this is where I would make you go and read through this chapter and write out all the qualities this chapter attributes to God. (If you’re a student of mine, there is a good chance I will make you do this at some point.) Since you have landed here, I will do you the delight of just telling you the answer. This chapter speaks of God’s greatness, abundant goodness, righteousness, graciousness, and compassion (on all He has made!). It describes Him as being slow to anger, rich in love, good to all, and faithful. He has a glorious Kingdom, an enduring dominion, and upholds all who fall and lifts up those who are bowed down. He satisfies our desires, hears our cries, watches over us. Basically, if you need a description of who God is and what He does, this chapter is where to go.
I have always struggled with that verse, and that line of the hymn, that God turned His face away in Jesus’ moment of greatest despair. That has never felt entirely fair or loving. It is finally landing with me, and giving me a new understanding of the Father’s heart.
In my job, and I know many others are in the same boat, I sometimes come face to face with the darkest of situations. We get the privilege often to step into people’s heaviest, hardest moments. That is a privilege, and a weighty one. Sometimes it means sitting across from someone who has wronged another person in any number of egregious ways. I have come to know my justice-driven heart much better through the last few years. I am protective and incredibly loyal to my people, and I am angered when someone, anyone, negatively influences the community of which I am in charge. I am consistently bringing to mind the Mr. Rogers phrase: “What do you do with the mad that you feel?” And if I am honest, I have not yet found the answer.
This week I came face to face with the heaviness of the broken reality of humanity — and that concept finally made sense. I wanted to turn my face away. It hurts to look right at it. I experienced a kindness in realizing that even God was unwilling to look at it straight on. His heart was so broken, and so mine can be too. And it is okay if I do not know what to do with that.
In my Advent devotional it had this phrase: “refuse the wrong of rushing.” I was tempted to write it on my arm so I would be reminded all day of this, that is how much I needed to hear that. On any day, but particularly a full work day, it feels practically impossible to not rush from thing to thing. It feels challenging not to speed through a conversation or already mentally be at the next thing. It came back to me many times throughout the day: refuse to rush. Refuse to let the anxiety or stress or over-scheduling dominate your mind and soul. Don’t forget to breath.
As we drove to the airport a few weeks ago, a friend reminded me of Brené Brown’s important theory that maybe, just maybe, people are doing the best they can. It came up in regards to road rage, but we talked about it in relation to working moms (Brené’s example), our students, and more. So often we believe that people could be doing better (and they probably could be), but the point is that in that moment, on that day, in the midst of their circumstances, they are truly doing the best they can.
In another conversation with a different friend, we talked about the idea of thinking generously about people. Similar concepts, both that stuck with me. For example, when I am not invited to something, I can assume that they did it maliciously or intentionally, or I can make a generous assumption and creatively come up with a different idea: maybe they assumed I was also busy, maybe I had communicated that I wasn’t available or interested, maybe it was a spontaneous situation that I was not there for. One of these choices creates jealousy and anger, one invites grace.
