eight lessons | eight months
not political this time :)
A wild take of me - to launch into political content for the first time out of nowhere last time I wrote :) I may be one and done on that subject matter. Or maybe not. Who could know.
But in all sincerity, I was blown away by the responses - the thoughtful questions, the respectful challenges, and the genuine willingness just to talk about things that are hard. I’m sorely overdue on some responses but have been deeply affected by every email and message. I don’t have a single thing figured out, but I’m very grateful that life and the Lord have forced me to reckon me with all sorts of topics - and that being in DC has helped politics and faith to become just the most recent one. I’m sure there will be many more.
On that note, on to lighter fare. Or maybe not much lighter - just a different flavor.
Eight months in DC. Long enough to have picked up on a few things, but short enough to still feel like a dream sometimes.
When I moved, I hoped that the chances to be brave would change me. See said thoughts from Day 4 as a DC resident. And they have changed me. But I’ve also learned so much more than just the benefits of trying to be brave. So in that vein, in honor of completing eight months, here are eight things I’m learning.
People’s Openness
I have been so very convicted on this note. Maybe because I’ve never lived anywhere nearly this transient, but I have been shocked by how open people have been to making a new friend. I didn’t expect people to be rude or cold per se, but I could never have imagined how freely people have made space in their lives to get to know me. I have often thought about how I’ve carried myself in previous seasons of life and wished I had extended the same amount of openness and hospitality to new people. I’ll be different forever because of how people have welcomed me here.
New Things
Despite being a creature of habit, I still love doing something new. I’ve formed some routines I love, I’ve found my favorite Sunday morning parking spot on 6th St., but new things still feel like a pretty important thing for me to prioritize. Having grown up on the cautious and timid side of the personality spectrum, I still find it so empowering to try something new and either get the rush of it going well or get the laughs and memories of it not going so well. The spice of life, ya know. I started a New Things list when I got here and have managed to add something to it every week – even if one especially normal week I scraped by with “saw rats fighting in Stanton Park.”
Identity Crisis
I grew up on the edge of a farm. I went to college in a beautiful rural area next to a lake. I have so much respect for small towns and simple living. And for the first time in my life, I am living in a proper big city. And weirder still, feeling like I fit here. When I was on the verge of moving, I was kind of scared I would become the villain in a Hallmark movie – the city girl who has fully lost the plot and needs the charming Christmas town to remind her of the meaning of life. I’m still a little worried sometimes - please tell me if you see villain traits forming. But all jokes aside, it’s wild how changing zip codes can spark a little identity crisis. In some ways I feel more settled than ever in how God has made me, and at the same time I’m watching my dreams, my goals, my imaginations of the future shift before my eyes. It’s a little disconcerting, a little confusing, a little exciting.
Sovereignty of God
It was so right for me not to move to DC immediately after college. I felt confident in the choice at the time, but when DC continued to resurface in my mind about every two years, I did wonder from time to time. But shocking no one, the Lord doesn’t waste a thing. I am so glad to be here now and not at 21. Could He have grown me in the same ways outside of Greenville? Of course. But He didn’t, and He used Greenville to shape me in ways that are deeper than I can verbalize – at least concisely. I showed up in DC a different person than I was when I left in 2015, and that recognition has reminded me that I can trust Him with the years ahead too.
Sensitivity to the Spirit
This one has been a fun surprise. Living in a culture that is primarily Christian has so many blessings, but I did not expect the blessings that might come from moving to a culture that isn’t. I’ve found myself so much more prone to pray for strangers as I pass them on the sidewalk, so much more aware of the loneliness and sadness that might be haunting people I see, so much more attentive and hopeful about the ways God could be moving around me when shared faith is not an automatic assumption. I’ve had more conversations about the Lord with strangers than I genuinely ever thought possible. Finding holy ground in the Crystal City Tatte, of all places.
Intellectual Challenges
I probably should have seen this one coming. But yet I still found myself thoroughly surprised and delighted driving home from a multi-hour, spirited, raised-voice conversation with friends that spanned every topic from the death penalty to the ethics of war to self-defense to the amount of morality we should legislate to the best way to apply faith to career choices. It was amazing and I desperately needed to go to bed and I wouldn’t have traded it for the world. Am I called to devote my life to solving or addressing all of these topics – likely not. But has my mind been incredibly stimulated and challenged by living in a place where these conversations happen naturally – wholeheartedly yes.
The Energy ™
This one belongs to Jordan Gore. She’s notorious for a good theory, and we’ve practically trademarked this one in our friendship for several years now. To attempt to summarize our hours of conversation about The Energy™, I describe it as a mysterious, intangible quality in people that somehow combines ambition, zeal for life, personal growth mentality, purposeful pace of life, determination to contribute instead of consume, etc., etc. It’s impossible to describe fully, but you know it when you see it, we’ve concluded.
We had a sneaking suspicion that DC was full of people with The Energy™, and I’m delighted to report we were right. Even though I’ve never lived here as an adult, integrating into the subculture and life approach has felt like merging into a lane that was moving at the same pace I was already going. I feel like I got plugged into a wall socket in March and have been buzzing ever since. Being around so much of The Energy™ has been so motivating.
When I die, I want to have burned the wick of my life all the way down. Going out with nothing left. No talents buried, to reference Jesus’ parable in Matthew 25. On my best days, it’s a virtue, and on my worst, it’s a vice I’m learning to manage and temper. And through it all, I’m still in awe that I get to live in an environment that encourages me to run fast and hard - and wisely and intentionally - toward the things the Lord has made me to do and given me to steward.
And on that note, the final lesson.
8. So Much Is The Same
So much has changed this year, and yet so much is the same. A few more perks of moving at 30 instead of 20 – the things I have seen work over the last decade still work, and the things that have been hard are still hard. I still feel better when I exercise. I still eat like total chaos if I don’t cook on Sunday or Monday. I still love reading my Bible at a coffee shop. I still ask the Lord the same questions. I still battle the same sins. I still cry at the same songs. The Lord is still merciful. He is still mysterious. He is still near and kind. He is still higher and greater than me.
I’m different now because I’ve seen how He remains the same.
And I hope He keeps changing me over the next eight months like He has over the last eight.
“God, I pray Thee, light these idle sticks of my life and may I burn for Thee. Consume my life, my God, for it is Thine. I seek not a long life, but a full one, like you, Lord Jesus.” — Jim Elliot