In light of the past 10 weeks

I don't presume to know what to say right now. My heart, heavy since March, just took on an extra ton of weighty sadness in the past few weeks. What a year 2020 has turned out to be.

I don't know what to say, but this blog has never been about giving advice or telling people what they should or shouldn't do. I write about the things God is teaching me, and if someone else gets something out of it, great.

I can't say I've been struck by major revelation in the past 10 weeks, but if I were to highlight one message I feel like God's been giving me between the pandemic and the protests, I think it's this: "Let's work on you."

The older I get, the more I realize that I have control over just about nothing. I can't control the world's leaders, my neighbors, my husband, or my kids. I can't even control my dog with a collar and a leash. Until recently, I thought I had some control over my schedule, but in the face of endless cancellations, I've realized that even that was a myth.

I can only control me. I've heard this for years, but I've never been so personally aware of it. So I sense God saying to me, "Let's work on the one thing you can control. You."

If I'm being honest, I do a pretty bad job of controlling me. The stay-at-home orders have shown me in new ways that I am quick to judge, I am impatient, and I find a lot of misplaced identity and joy in the things I do and the relationships I have with people. I get restless easily, and I'm looking for the next fun fix to get me through the monotony of life. God is showing me these things about myself, saying, "Let's work on you."

When I turn on the news at night, He is showing me that some of the realities I've known my whole life are matters of perspective and privilege. Through books and articles and documentaries, He is showing me what injustice looks like and how it's so ingrained in our world that I don't even recognize it. He is pointing out my own prejudices, biases, and partialities, and I am having good, hard, repentant conversations with Him about it. He is showing me how some of the quick judgments I've made in the past, the quick defenses and rationalizations I've made in order to uphold my own paradigm of what is good and what is bad, who is good and who is bad, grieve His heart. He wants something different for me. So He says, "Let's work on you."

He's changing the way I pray. I pray more for humility than direction these days. I want to be wise, but even more than that, I want to be teachable and correctable. I'm asking Him less to change the people and circumstances around me and focusing more on how He wants to change me.

Some would say there's a lot more I could and should be doing. I would have a hard time arguing with them. Despite what Michael Jackson said ("If you wanna make the world a better place take a look at yourself and then make the change"), working on me feels difficult, slow, and not terribly productive. But maybe in the long run, it's the most useful thing I could ever do?