Today I spent most of the morning and afternoon soaking up the glorious sun outside a coffee shop with an iced latte and a book (and later a scoop of cheesecake ice cream with fresh rasberries that I bought for my lunch). For hours upon hours, I read, and I read, and I read – greedily gobbling up new ideas as though I would never pick up a book again.
This has been a fairly common occurrence for me lately. Since graduating from college, I’ve spent many of my spare moments with new author friends like Donald Miller, Shauna Niequist, Bob Goff, Richard Dahlstrom, and Rachel Held Evans among others. I can’t get enough of their brilliant minds and captivating voices.
While I’ve always considered myself an eager reader and learner, the last few years of groundbreaking ideas and new life experiences have killed that instinct to a certain extent – overwhelming me to the point of intellectual exhaustion and emotional paralysis.
The twenties are hard. I’m sure every season of life has its own set of challenges, but there are days when I would be more than willing to trade in this ambiguous, formative, emotional roller coaster for a few grey hairs, a couple of angsty teenagers, or a mortgage payment. (You don’t have permission to quote me on that.)
The first few years of my twenties have had me floundering in murky waters, feeling threatened and fearful when my ideas about life, God, and the world are challenged, wondering what to believe about A, B, and C, feeling behind when everyone else appears to know what they believe about A, B, and C…you get the picture.
I like how Rachel Held Evans says it in her book, A Year of Biblical Womanhood, when she talks about her fear and uncertainty over whether or not to enter into motherhood (highlighting a concept I believe transcends all seasons of life, considering the fact that I’m not confronting motherhood quite yet):
“And so I found myself simultaneously resisting and revering a fundamentalist approach, squinting through the foggy gray for some sign of black-and-white. Like all who search for truth out of fear, I desperately wanted someone else to tell me exactly what to do.”
I desperately wanted someone else to tell me exactly what to do. Amen, sister. Don’t we all? I would be delighted if someone were to hand me a map and a rulebook with which to navigate the treacherous waters of life. But alas, that’s not exactly how it works, and instead we’re left to flounder and question and wrestle and search and cry tears of frustration when we feel lost and confused. That’s where college graduation left me a few months ago – worn out from learning, overwhelmed by the strong and confident opinions of other twenty-somethings, desperately uncertain about so many things, and grasping for anything tangible or black-and-white.
But in the season of quiet and rest I’ve recently entered into during my internship at camp, I’ve slowly began reading, thinking, and learning again. I can sense God at my side, calming my anxious thoughts, leading me to reenter the places in life that scare me, and providing me with a restored eagerness to learn and kind voices to help me along the way. In his doing so, I find myself immersed in new warmth, color, and sweetness – like glorious sun washing over my skin and the taste of fresh rasberries on a reading day.
Zealous Feet 