Small Things

The hard thing about blogging every day {or trying to!} is that there’s not a lot happening in my life right to write about now.  Historically, there have been a lot of changes to navigate, a lot of hardships that sent me running to God, and just a lot of learnings because that’s what being in your 20’s is — a whole decade of learning a bunch of stuff you didn’t know you needed to know.

I remember when I first started blogging. I was 23 years old and just out of college. I hadn’t dated anyone since high school, and decided that needed to change. I was terrified, so I decided to cope with my terror by blogging about it. I only told a few friends and coworkers about the blog because I didn’t want it getting back to the guys that I went on dates with. I felt like a regular Kate Hudson in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Only, I was looking for a guy to keep! 

Later, I’d move to Chicago and start a blog chronicling my new adventures in the city. The blog was called #itsChicago! and I’d write funny little anecdotes about the things that happened to me daily. I also started taking writing classes at Second City and later, improv classes at iO. 

I never had any dreams of being on SNL or anything like that. I just knew I liked to be funny and these seemed like good ways to test out my creativity and try something new. Those days of taking comedy classes are still some of my favorite. I can hardly believe the distance between me and some of those classes is now seven years. I formed friendships in those classes that were really special. I discovered Tazo bottled green tea, wrote a couple really funny things, and learned oh so much about myself.

2012-2015 was such a fun time, and I can’t recall exactly when or why it stopped feeling fun. Maybe it’s because 2015 is when all the rapid fire changes started happening, and while some of them were good (like getting married!), it was still change and it was still hard, and as I pause right now I realize that in some ways, I’m still gasping for air.

I had a phone call with my friend Michelle on Friday after work. She lives in the suburbs and I live in the city so we don’t see each other a lot. But we try, as best we can, to catch up on the phone as often as we can. Michelle was on her way to pick up her kids from their grandparents house and we started talking about holidays— traditions and hosting and food and fun. Eventually, the conversation shifted towards the future. I’m not really sure how it got there, but at some point, Michelle said— “You know, Scott and I are just excited to coast.”

She went on to talk about how in their six years of marriage, they have yet to have a year where some major thing hadn’t happened — a kid, a move, a new job — and they were just ready for regular where they could coast.

“You know what,” I said. “I agree with you! And I think I’m coasting right now!”

I have a job I like, and so does Dan. While we’re making plans to buy a condo in the next year or two, we’re staying put until then. We don’t plan to have kids any time soon. We left our church, which had been a major source of the constant change and confusion, and now we’re coasting. We. Are. Coasting!

Coasting doesn’t feel natural to me. I’m a get-up-and-go, dream big kind of person. I’m the girl who moved to Chicago with zero job and zero plan and somehow found her way. I’m the girl who took comedy classes because I needed to be pushed out of my comfort zone. I’m the girl who wrote a two-woman show about being a virgin in your 20’s and then performed it with her best friend in front of an actual audience. What were we thinking?!?!? But it was oh so fun, and actually, oh so good.

For the last seven years, I have pushed myself to be uncomfortable. I have created situations of growth and said yes to every new opportunity that came my way. I have grown, I have changed, I have hurt and I have laughed, and now it’s time to coast…at least for a time.

There’s sort of a shame that comes up when I think about coasting. Do you feel it to? Like if you’re not doing something big or special then you’re not doing something right. That the smallness of your life is somehow insignificant. Culture conditions us to think this way, and we perpetuate it. It’s possible that even Christian culture perpetuates it the most— God has BIG plans for your life! Trust him and don’t be afraid to step into them!

There’s nothing wrong with calling people into being all of whom God made them to be. I’m just wondering if there’s a better way to do it. Like instead of implying there’s something big you have to do to achieve God’s big plan for your life, what if we just modeled a healthy, soulful way to live presently within our own communities, or even smaller— within our own families.

I think about Zacchaeus, a tax collector from the Bible who had an encounter with Jesus. His transformation seems hugely significant when read about it today, but really it was quite small. He was one tax collector living in one small town who met Jesus and decided to be more generous with the people in his community. 

This change likely didn’t make the news. He probably didn’t start a foundation or a non-profit that sought to give more money to more people. I’m almost sure he didn’t suddenly develop a following and book a big tour where he traveled around the country teaching other tax collectors how to let go of selfishness and become more generous. No, he changed the way he treated the regular everyday people in his life and that was enough.

There are stories like this peppered all throughout the Bible. Stories like Rahab who hid two Israeli spies and changed the course of history. We read her story now and think “Wow….Rahab was really significant. I hope I can be as brave as her some day.” 

But really, she was just a single woman who was presented with a choice and she made it. Her life was spared and then she carried on after the war was over. We don’t actually know what happened to her. Maybe she found her way out of prostitution and into a new a profession, but who knows? It doesn’t really matter. The point is, what we read as a hugely significant moment today wasn’t actually that significant then. It was a small, though unusual, moment that happened in the middle of her every day.

I wonder what would happen if we took the pressure off, if we set aside the shame of a “small life” and saw the beauty and significance in what happens every day. 

Maybe I’m the only one who struggles with this, or maybe it’s just a millennial thing, but I have a hunch it’s an everyone thing. I often let my desire for a big, beautiful, exciting, “called” life distract me from the simplistic small moments that God has already planted right in front of me. I let my desire for “what’s next” distract me from the relationships I can build right now, the people I can invest in right now, the memories I can make right now.

I think about my parents a lot when I write about stuff like this. I know they sometimes feel like they missed out on doing something important. And hopefully they don’t mind me writing any of this. If they do...here is my preemptive apology. They’ve lived in the same town their whole lives and the same house their whole marriage. I know they long for adventure and a big life the same way we all do. And I do think that’s a God-given longing that we should all pay attention to and pursue to some degree. But then I think about the things they have done and the way they’ve taught me to love and serve others. 

My dad still greets people at church and goes and visits people in the hospital when their loved ones are sick. He’s kind and he works hard and he develops relationships with the people he works with, many of whom may feel a little untethered and have no interest in knowing God. Those things are significant. 

My mom is a teacher — that in itself is a big deal. She currently works at an alternative school and loves challenging the students that come in to make better choices, but mostly I think she just loves letting them know they’re loved. In her spare time she bakes cookies and leads a Bible study for Women of Hope— a faith-based recovery clinic in my hometown. Those things are significant.

God is in the regular normal every day moments. He’s in the moments when I’m making coffee and watching House Hunters with Dan. He’s in the stress of a work deadline, the car ride of a girl’s weekend road trip. He’s in our relationships — the ones we have now and the ones that have yet to come. He’s in our dreams and in he’s in our desires, but he’s not waiting on us to make some big leap of faith before he makes those dreams come true. He’s simply asking us to live those dreams in our normal everyday lives.