2020 has been a completely crazy year. I don’t think any of us could have imagined what this year would hold and yet I’ve found myself looking at the rest of the year with hope, not that things will go back to normal, but that I can live well throughout whatever comes. This is not something I can wait out, frozen in place. This is a place to cultivate.
My kids have been my greatest inspiration actually. They work hard and they play hard. My five-year-old can now ride his bike without his training wheels; he rode on an 8 mile trip on vacation. He learned to come up for breaths when swimming underwater. He’ll be reading soon. I keep reminding all of them that they have to practice. Practice math, practice swimming. Practice being kind. Practice listening. None of us will wake up one morning the person we always hoped we would be, the person that reflects the true humanity found in Jesus. We need practices and we need to practice.
Sometimes, when I’m thinking about ordering my life, I’m tempted to imagine a different and entirely fake life. I can design an amazing plan for an imaginary person. It might be fun, but it doesn’t help me at all since I’m not writing fiction currently. I’ve learned to reign my imagination back to my own embodied life: a woman who lives in rural Kentucky with her husband and four sons. I want to put my imagination to work where it matters- in my actual life.