I’ve been staring at this blank page for what seems about three months now. Writing this has taken an inordinate amount of time. I have written and re-written blog posts—wanting to post them but just never finding the right words to describe how I’ve felt. This loss of words had prompted me to dig deep into my heart and pry out what is on the surface. 

As I sit here under my cozy down comforter, black tea spewing its warm steam in my face, I am reminded that writing is something I love and genuinely consider to be a release. 

Ever since I moved to New York this past June, it seems as if life hasn’t stopped. Every day I am up doing one thing or another and somehow life has been on fast-forward—I rarely have a moment for myself, or for those who I left back in June and if I am completely honest with you, I have missed having that down time. 

Just about a year ago I wrote, I Should Be Engaged where I penned about wanting my nineteenth year of life to be a year of engagement—not so much with a ring and fiancé but more so with mindfulness and being focused on being present. I wrote about how I was distracted by whatever my tomorrow would hold—by my devices and by whatever was happening in my peripheral.

I vowed to be fully engaged toward the people, culture and spiritual warfare around me. I noted how I wanted to establish more meaningful relationships, to lean in and connect with those around me and to never be too tired or preoccupied to fully recognise the presence of others’. 

I promised myself I would engage in the environments and languages that are around me. I wanted to encounter more new places and faces that in sticking to social normals would not allow. 

I wanted to be fully aware of God’s presence in every moment. And to spend more time interacting with the weary, helpless souls that are around me.

I wanted to engage with the person sitting across from me or in the passenger seat of my car—because engagement doesn’t happen when through instagram likes, Twitter tweets, or by stalking others musical taste on Spotify (all of which I am still guilty of). 

News Blast/Public Service Announcement: I am absolutely terrible at being engaged. I have struggled to be conscious, mindful and present in this past year since I wrote I Should Be Engaged. I have grappled with focusing on the now and worrying—responsibly—about tomorrow. I suck at following through. I have gotten worse at trying to make time for my friends, family, and even myself. 

I am terrible at being engaged. And I’m sorry. 

I am the worst at knowing when I should stop stressing or when I should take a break. I do not know when to stop working. I stink at engaging in the beautiful moments that continually happen around me on a daily basis. The world has quietly and viciously crept into my life in a dangerous way, distracting me with empty connections and excuses, and I don’t have a clue how to stop it. 

My values about engagement however, have not tethered. I still believe that engagement happens when we sit together in the silence of reading or doing a puzzle or in the gentle murmur of prayer for one another. I know it happens especially when we engage in the invisible war that is continuing to take place over the souls around us. It happens when we converse with others in person. It happens when we continue to learn rather than ignore. It happens when we make the time in our everyday to be focused on the person sitting across from us, rather than being absentminded. It happens when we turn off the peripheral and focus on fighting besides those who have entered our lives. 

But you know what I have been good at this year? Change.

This year, I haven’t given myself enough credit for embracing change. I moved across country this year, saying goodbye to the home I grew up in as well as the town I was familiar with for so long. I said goodbye to my family and best friends who I was closest to and I’ll be honest, it’s been one hell of a ride. 

I have cried and have felt homesick ever so often. I have cursed at God, shaking my fist in the air, asking Him why he puts me through certain trials and tribulations. I have been happy—smiling everyday through the pain of leaving the familiar and saying hello to the unknown. I have met amazing people, getting to know new souls and cultures and I’ve embraced how that has prompted me to change.

This hasn’t been easy and I’ve been way too hard on myself for not immediately adjusting.

My routine has changed—I stay up later, get up earlier, work harder, and I don’t get to go on my long runs through the back-country of the wineries. Instead I am in this concrete jungle and I’ve never been happier and also scared. 

That’s why this year, my word hasn’t been to be engaged. This year, my word has been change. 

I know that it’s the right word to describe me this past year than from what I originally prayed for because it scares me when I say it aloud. It fills my heart with nervousness but also a sense of purpose and dignity. 

The word change is derived from the Greek, Delta akin to the Hebrew Dāleth, meaning the increment of change. It is also known as a nearly flat plain of alluvial deposit between diverging branches of the mouth of a river usually flowing to a grander body of water. 

The imagery of the delta—where the river meets the ocean—represents a transition of life for me this year I think. I have travelled from my safety, my river, to the unknowns, transitioning into these deep blue waters that the good Lord has thrown me in. I have tried to tread water and I’m doing it. 

This past year, I challenged myself. I wanted to change for the better. I dared myself to strive to be more creative and knowledgable. I wanted to continue to be humble, whilst still continuing to try to be engaged. 

I will, again and again, fall into the deep ocean after swimming in the river of safety—because I know that the great unknown will lead me to His sovereign hand.

Change is not easy. Change has been anything but that. It’s tiring and surprising. It has been an exhausting marathon rather than a sprint. It has meant embracing the vast that’s beyond what one can clearly see.

Change, I realised, didn’t mean I couldn’t cry because it’s been scary—it’s meant clutching and seizing the parts of myself that I’ve skilfully avoided until now. 

That has been my true adventure this year. 

I’ve discovered change means when you feel yourself resisting differences, to instead lean into them and have fun with what happens because of it—because His plan is far greater than anything I could muster up on my own. 

I am reminded of the delight of what being called into the ocean of change means in Psalms. 

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way, though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea, though it’s waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble at it’s swelling.

 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High.

God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved; God will help her when morning dawns and when the oceans crash.

Psalm 46:1-5

This Christmas season hasn’t been silent, it’s been full of loud laughter and somber cries and a smile that has continually been pasted to my face and makes more noise than I could have ever imagined—despite the anxiety and uncertainty of what change brings. Realising all of the change I’ve gone through this year has prompted me to thank Him for everything He allows me to endure.

Therefore, though it’s been scary, my faith and perseverance have been made stronger—and for that I pray that He will take me where my feet have yet to wander. 

The boat of comfort and pride He’s called me out of was unsteady and starting to sink, but here on the shores of His goodness and grace in this deep ocean, I find myself building castles that eclipse every pathetic thing I’ve ever imagined before. 

Change is good, friends. Whether it’s moving or embracing new people in your life or making the time for old ones.

And I hope, that after three months that it’s taken me to write this, I have fully described the awe that I’ve felt because of the goodness and love that t(His) change has brought me. 

Engaged in the Change, Uptown Maven