Month two baby! Technically month three of living in Raleigh for me! So far, October has been the month of feeling the weight of this transition. Not in an overwhelming way, but like a little gnat in my ear reminding me: I feel different. Things are different. I’m starting over. It’s taken me back to two passages - the parable of the wineskins (Luke 5:36-39) and the story of Jesus healing Bartimaeus (Mark 10:46-52) - because of how beautifully and timelessly they tell of change, giving me some language for it as well:
Change is the dance between God’s initiating sovereignty and our rarely-diminished responsibility. God completely transforms us so we can receive the new - new aspects of Him, ourselves, our tiny perceptions of the world. Oh that we would respond like blind Bartimaeus, who threw off his cloak - his source of protection, income, and identity - sprang up, and came to Jesus. Change is no-longer-blind Bartimaeus silently taking in all the colors and light of his new world, and learning to walk and live and be all over again. It’s external transitions, moves, seasons, and it’s internal shifts, realizations, convictions. It’s Jesus walking on the scene and disrupting us forever, and it’s the quiet work of God in our hearts over years. Change is the death of the old, reception of the new, the pruning of the unfruitful. Change builds capacity for more.
Yet isn’t it funny how in transitions we often go back to default modes of functioning and behaving? Even knowing the necessity and eventual beauty of change, I still find myself hiding behind old, damaging habits. Mainly people-pleasing. All my life seeking people’s approval seemed like what worked or would protect me. It’s so engrained that I even confuse it with godly ways of loving people! In the past I’ve gotten away with it, but this time the Lord won’t let me. Through other people graciously calling out my inauthenticity, and the unsettling question of, “Well if most of my life I’ve just been whatever I thought people wanted, who even am I?”, God is gently convicting me and calling me deeper. He’s too kind to let me live this way, even when I stupidly and stubbornly want to.
To close, I think this is all just one big subjective attempt to say, this is me. I’ve been stripped of all that I could cling to or hide behind, and am trying to throw off any old, unfruitful, or unauthentic ways of living. Clothed in Christ yet incredibly exposed. Isn’t this how it should be? It’s in these places where God opens us up to receive more of Him. It’s in these places where what lasts will hold.
Questions and Quotes –
Between self-assertion and self-abandonment, what’s your default?
“So, uh, you play the beautiful game? Bros? Brothers? Brethren?” - Viola Hastings
Who or what makes you feel safe?
“When someone loves you, truly loves you, it’s not because they don’t know who you are. No, it is because the person does know exactly who you are and what you are like, and still loves you. Truth and grace are vital if love is to be meaningful...Love does not exist in the absence of judgment; true love exists when someone has passed the correct moral judgment on who you are and is under no illusions as to what you’re like, but still loves you.” - Michael Ramsden
What have you been taught about your appearance? Who taught you that?
“I just kept thinking, ‘Tom was right.’ It just wasn’t me you were right about” - Summer Finn
– Brooke