Margins.

There is never really a great way to start a reflection. So here it goes. 

I’m sitting in my favorite corner on my couch snuggled  in a fleece blanket that was gifted to us this Christmas, while watching the flicker of my coffee candle and my dog bounce her tennis ball up and down the stairs. It’s 6 PM on New Years Day and I’m already in my jammies. I basically stayed in my PJs all day except to leave the house to go to Target to pick up a pint of ice cream (can I get an “amen”?). I spent the day sleeping in, reading a book that feeds my tastebuds for women’s empowerment and lady pastors, making homemade soup and bread, and scrolling through the endless instagram posts along the spectrum of saying a gracious goodbye while sending 2019 on it’s merrily way or holding up the middle finger and kicking 2019 out the door with a crash. 

I, myself am somewhere in between the two extremes. On the one hand, 2019 felt like alot to me, lots of transitions and heartbreak. More waiting than I would like to have in my daily experience, and losses that I never imagined I would feel so deeply, even now. 

My job search continued at the beginning of the year and was met with some hard core heart break and disappointment in an institution I used to have a ton of faith in. That was world shattering to me because I had to reorient how I viewed the people Tyson and I had become so close to in college while also realizing my woundedness from that experience made my hyper-cautious about sharing my theological convictions I have spent so much time wrestling with. 

I had to say no to working in Higher Education in order to say yes to something that felt a bit more sustainable financially. The truth is, I don’t know if that was a great idea. I still grieve what could have been and miss all of the students that both expanded my heart and broke it all at the same time. 

In all reality, my work in the church in this current season is pretty draining. I’m working muscles that don’t work naturally for me and find myself solving puzzles not by my own choice, but by people who place these puzzles in my lap. 

My family is still shaking from the aftermath of my dad’s death, of course. We’re all at different stages of healing and we’re not always on the same page, and to be honest, I’m not looking forward to welcoming a decade that holds no trace of my dad either. 

Tyson continues school, and work, and has an internship working in the school district outside of Sioux Falls. He’s busy as ever but neck deep in learning the rhythms of a social worker. I don’t really know what we both are thinking. Ministry and social work. What a combination. 

*Inhales a long, deep breath*

Of course, after reading the last two paragraphs I do also have to say that this year, I’ve discovered that some of those seemingly dark places have also been the most pure places where I’ve seen the Lord come to reside. 

I hold my convictions and values even closer than I did before. I still love and find so much life in doing life with college students, just in this season it means I get to do life from a distance. Those students give me life and hope and teach me so much about what it means to be a human and what it means to exist in the world. The really dark places I went with students give me context to practice dwelling with congregants and leaders, help me to invite discomfort and really really painful realities. 

I’ve found that while work in the church has been draining, I’ve nevertheless experienced life in unexpected places. I’ve not experienced gratitude to the extent that I have in this season of life. Gratitude that gives me life because I am so thankful for things like second impressions, high capacity volunteers, a flexible schedule, an office with a door, incredible and compassionate female co-workers, and a kick butt intern. I found myself at a place similar to what I imagine the Grinch was feeling when his heart grew three sizes, but I just felt so thankful for these things which has fueled me for this ministry in a way I’ve never experienced before, so thanks be to God. 

And finally, an odd thing that would develop after my dad’s death was that my grandma asked me for the first time to write a devotion to share at our family Christmas. Obviously, I would trade anything to have dad write and read one of his many napkin inscribed last minute devotionals. But his absence gave me a small, pastoral voice in my family. Granted, I don’t know if anyone listened or even remembered but it was a cruel gift I chose to take.

Also, my nephew is perfect. So that’s a plus. 

Finally. Without further adieu, 2019 would not have been possible without my incredible partner. This isn’t going to turn into a sappy love post about Tyson because he knows fully well that I am head over heels for him. Instead, I am just so grateful for the partnership we have and the life that we share. He’s been there through all of what has felt like my “too muchness” of all the emotions, drama, change, and turmoil that my soul has gone through. I love the love we have because it feels like something that might help change the world. I don’t love Tyson because he makes me more whole. He would tell you that I am whole without him, but I love him because he knows that Jesus has made me whole with or without him. He is pursuing his heart, and I am trying to pursue mine. Our marriage isn’t something we like to gloat about or show off to the world but something we are both deeply grateful for and see as a privilege. I am so grateful that we got to be RDs together, travel Europe together, buy a home together and try to love each other as completely as our incomplete love would allow. He has been my advocate this year, my star volunteer, my humble servant.  He’s let me lead us this year (and always), and has challenged me to use my voice, reminding me that it is valuable and it matters. 

I could go on. But I won’t because this is getting long. Needless to say, these are a few small things that apparently the Spirit’s been nudging me to ponder. 

As I think about 2020, my word for this year is MARGINS. 

Margin is “the space between our load and our limits and is related to our reserves and resilience. It is a buffer, a leeway, a gap; the place we go to heal, to relate, to reflect, to recharge our batteries, to focus on the things that matter most.”*

I’m praying that God would take me to the places where the load I carry and the limits of my being would be stewarded well. I am asking God to help me to pay attention to where I need to create margins in my finances, my relationships, my time, my mental health. I am also praying that God would help me to pay attention to the feelings I keep at the margins, the voices I keep isolated, and the people on the fringes of my life and the fringes of the church. I’m praying for the cynicism, woundedness and pain that keeps me from loving and living abundantly and more completely to be driven TO the margins by the Spirit of God. 

As you welcome 2019, in whatever way that looks, maybe you are praying something similar but this is a prayer rising in my heart: 

As a new decade is dawning,

Holy Lord, King Jesus, Abiding Spirit,

Give us what we need.

Not what we think we want or would be nice,

But a true sense of abundant satisfaction, an overflowing cup. 

Anoint us with both strength and gentleness,

Reveal the Light that we so desperately long for. 

Give us the power to use our voices in new ways, and to encourage others to use theirs. 

Help us to embody love and also to receive love. 

Take us and use us for radical, gospel transformation.

Dwell with us as we weep and as we celebrate. 

Birth in us New Life, each day of this new year.

Remind us why we are here.

And do this again and again and again. 

*Richard A. Swenson, M.D.