Disruption
2020 has really put things into perspective for so many of us, hasn’t it? Over the last several months, I’ve had several friends get engaged and/or married on a faster timeline than they had originally planned. I’ve had friends who’ve launched new business or creative ventures, and some who have brought new babies in the world. I’ve also had many of my friends who’ve moved away from Chicago this year — one is now busy at business school in London, one is now a lawyer in DC, one is having a baby in Michigan, and still another is starting a new job in a small Wisconsin town.
The change has been immense.
As for Dan and me, we also moved, but opted to stay in the city. We traded our 600-square-foot box of an apartment for an unbelievable 1400-square-foot, two-bed, two-bath condo. It has in unit laundry, a dishwasher, a fireplace, a deck, and updated bathrooms! Only those of you who have rented in expensive cities for more than five years will understand the deep deep satisfaction that comes with finally having a clean, updated bathroom. It is fabulous.
We’ve lived in this condo for nearly five months now, and I still walk down the hallway at least three times a week exclaiming, “Wow! I can’t believe we live here!” or “Isn’t it great how nice this place is?”
One good thing COVID-19 ushered in for us is that fewer people are moving within the city of Chicago, leaving us with plenty of room to negotiate our rent.
And so...here we are...living in our version of luxury.
As you may have noticed, I haven’t written very regularly on the blog these last several months. Every time I’ve sat down to write a blog post, I’ve come up short. My heart has been too tired or too heavy, my words too angry, too preachy, and often too bitter. With all the hate and noise and lack of listening that’s been going on in the internet space, I decided, that’s not how I want to show up in the world.
Each time I’d write a sentence, I’d think, “Am I adding something good to all the noise, or am I just creating more chaos?”
If I'm showing up tired or angry or bitter, chances are I’m adding more chaos to the noise — something all of us, at some point or another, have probably done. It’s easy to do.. But in those moments where we realize we’re adding chaos to the noise, it’s okay to withdraw.
Withdrawal is not avoidance if we’re doing it with intention.
Withdrawal can be healing work. It’s mending work. It creates the space we need for God to sew our souls back together.
In my times of withdrawal over the last year, I’ve thought a lot about the things that are going on in this world. I have grieved, I have cried, I have listened, I have read books, and I have even found a few reasons to laugh.
One of the things I have pondered most in the last few months is a quote from a book I read in March by Eugene Cho. The book is called Thou Shall Not Be a Jerk: A Christian's Guide to Engaging in Politics, and the quote simply stated:
“We are enamored with a gospel that comforts us, but we are rarely drawn to a gospel that disrupts us.”
Wow.
Let that one sink in for a minute. We are enamoured with a gospel that comforts us, but we are rarely drawn to a gospel that disrupts us.
I feel that I have built my blog around a gospel that comforts. I’ve written prayers, I’ve offered advice, I’ve commented on stories from the Bible that remind us — over and over again — that God is with us, even in the midst of hardship and pain. That he is our comforter, our all-in-all, and every other good and perfect thing our contemporary Christian worship songs would have us believe.
But.
He is also the God who disrupts.
He disrupted the darkness when he created the earth in Genesis. He disrupted Abraham when he told him to go. He disrupted Jonah when he asked him to preach. Jesus disrupted Paul on the road to Damascus, and disrupted Peter when he revealed that his love extended outside the Jewish community and into the lives of the Gentiles.
Jesus disrupted life for the woman at the well when he noticed her, named her pain, and changed her life forever. We celebrate divine disruption every year at Christmas when Christ disrupted the whole order of creation and came as a small, lowly, newborn baby to a virgin Mary in a tiny town that most people probably wouldn’t be able to place on a map.
Jesus’ love disrupts. God’s love disrupts.
And in 2020….we have been disrupted over and over again.
If you’re like me, you could probably sit back and make a list of all the things in your life that have been disrupted over this last year. My list list would include things like:
1. My plans - This was the year we’d planned to save for a house, save for a car, and several other big life things. But then my husband got laid off in January and covid-19 hit. So here we are, still unemployed, still waiting and wanting and waiting.
2. My view of myself, my view of the world, and my understanding of racism - 2020 has thrown into stark relief the deeper realities of systemic racism that I have been wholly unaware of, and I am still learning. There’s so much to know, so much to unlearn, so much to grieve and repent. But also so much possibilty when we look forward to the future that Jesus calls us to create.
3. My understanding of comfort - in much of American Christianity, we have come to believe that walking with God automatically guarantees a level of comfort, security and prosperity. God doesn’t actually promise us any of those things. But he does promise to be with us and to give us the courage we need to walk through hardship, even if those hardships never end this side of heaven.
4. My view of this weird, beautiful, frustrating country called America - If Hamilton taught me anything, it’s that America was founded on a set of ideals that it hadn’t yet achieved (that all humans are created equal), and it was founded by a group of people who decided to try something different. They were tired of the status quo. They got creative. They worked hard. And they created something new….imperfect, but still new. This does not describe the America we currently live in….but I’d like for us to get back to that.
My list could go on, but this post is getting long.
The point is, the same God who comforts us is also the same God who disrupts us. And the same God who disrupts us is also the God who calls us to courage in times of disruption.
If you’re struggling underneath the weight of change and grief and disruption from this past year, let me encourage you not to look away. Lean in and tell God what you need. Whether it’s courage to face these disruptions or comfort in the midst of them, know that the God who calls you to both is exactly the same. And often, the moments in which we need his great comfort, are the moments in which we need his great courage as well. So take heart, choose both, and know that God is still good.