A woman on her phone. Another woman choosing to sit next to me on a near empty train car. Houses passing me by. Only 20 minutes left until Connecticut. I’ve spent 16 hours sitting on these Metro-North trains the past 7 days, which has provided a surprising amount of quiet time in my routine. While I am grateful I don’t have to commute that track anymore, the time spent commuting hasn’t felt wasted. My therapist reminds me often that I need to be finding stillness to get in touch with myself (I don’t always listen). So here I am. 16 hours of self-reflection later. With lots of thoughts rumbling around in my head.
October. 2022. Not boring in the slightest, and the past few months have rocked my entire life (okay, maybe dramatic, but everything has changed). My NYC family moved disrupting what little faith rhythms I had in place and I quit my job and started a new one (one that is fully corporate – no more GM, hallelujah). And these changes are all good changes – I’m so grateful for the time with my friends-like-family in the city, and it was time for a new season for them. My new job is good, and leaving the old was hard. There’s a lot of holding space for the feelings of grief that come along with the close of a chapter. Life feels like it’s starting to settle, new rhythms are settling in, and I’m finding my balance again.
And at the same time, I’m left wondering a lot of different things. Some on faith. Some on purpose. Some on career. Some on location. While I was talking to my Alaskan friend this weekend, she laughed and said, “BK, we’re only in our twenties. We can have an entire quarter-life crisis, change careers a bunch of times, move around, and no one will bat an eye. We’re only 26. No one expects us to have it all figured out.”
And thank God for that. Because as soon as I think I have something figured out, something else starts to unravel. I think I’ve put a lot of pressure on myself to have it all figured out – to have all the answers. And if this year has taught me anything, it’s that I have more questions than answers and way less figured out than I thought I did.
For those who know me know that I pick a word for the year each year. 2021 was my behold year: behold I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert (Isaiah 43:19).
And this word has followed into 2022 along with my new word. build.
At the end of ’21 and during the Christmas Eve service at my church, I was so frustrated that my behold year hadn’t produced anything new other than questions, doubt, and anxiety. I could barely go to church without unraveling. I didn’t know (and still don’t know fully) what I believed about most things. And yet, the Holy Spirit, in all of her compassion and kindness, whispered a promise from the words of Jeremiah.
“This is what the Lord says:
The people who survived the sword
found favor in the wilderness.
when Israel went to rest,
the Lord appeared to him from far away.
‘I have loved you with an everlasting love;
therefore, I have continued to extend faithful love to you.
Again I will build you so that you will be rebuilt,
Virgin Israel.
You will take up your tambourines again
and go out in joyful dancing.”
Jeremiah 31:2-4 CSB
And now, it’s October. And for the first time in almost two years, there seems to be a stirring of something new being formed or rebuilt or something. I can’t quite put my finger on it. It’s not like I have answers to most things, or more clarity on most things. But something is stirring in me. It’s unsettling and uncomfy. And at the same time, I’m feeling more optimistic than I have in a while. I’m taking steps towards Jesus in ways that I haven’t in a while, and something is happening in me.
I don’t really know what to expect over the next few months. But what I do know is this: in the middle of all of my doubts and questions and fears, God has been in constant pursuit of me. It’s the one truth I can confidently fall back on. Maybe, at the other side of the shit storm wilderness experience, there will be the promised land. And that maybe, just maybe, I will go out in joyful dancing again.