Reflecting On My 33rd Year

I start out every new year with a birthday. Just 5 days into a new year, the number that defines my time here on earth goes up. Honestly, it doesn't really feel like the new year begins until after my birthday. I don't like to go back to work before then. I don't tend to try to start resolutions before then. I just give myself the birthday gift of an extra 5 days of rest and celebration.

I also tend to do a lot of reflecting on those days. Reflection - in a more honest sense, often ruminating, comes pretty naturally to me. I love the movie Inside Out because I can remember, in my own maturing, when my islands of personality fell and were rebuilt. And I take notice of my islands of personality crashing within me even today.

My 33rd year held a lot of crashing and rebuilding.

Last bit of backstory, every day I look at my Timehop app. I love it. Have a mad streak going too - I've never missed a day since my oldest son, Caleb, was born. I can tell you how many days old he is based on my Timehop streak. Anyway, enough bragging, I'll get back to the point. I love Timehop because it gives me a glimpse at who I used to be, what expectations I was holding, how I perceived life's happenings, what profound thing I was learning, or simply what moments I felt were worth documenting.

As 2021 came to a close and 2022 began, my Timehop memories from the year before were filled with hopefulness towards a path I was pretty sure of at the time. I was filling up whiteboards and notebooks with ideas. I was talking to brilliant people to pull them in on this grand plan. I was feeling the pulse and the needs of the community I served and full of inspiration on how I could be a part of serving them in a meaningful way. Heck, I was even given the opportunity to speak from a platform about all of this. 2021 was going to be the best year yet!

For a month or two, it was exactly what I expected. Momentum rolled forward and I came even more alive with what God had put into my heart. But then, something totally unexpected happened, and it started when I cracked open a book that I will always mark as a profound shifting point in my life. The book is called "The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry" by John Mark Comer. In it he gently, but firmly, calls out how our hurry keeps us from fully connecting with God in the way our souls need. I got about four chapters into this book in early 2021, and then I closed it and left it on my bookshelf for months. I was totally convicted because here I was, full of ideas on how I could help people cultivate a deep, growing relationship with God, but too busy to see them through in a meaningful way in my own life, much less for other people. I felt trapped, so I did what any good Enneagram 9 would do, and avoided it.

You see I was caught between who I was and who I am becoming in 2021. And the person I was becoming was outgrowing the space that gently and sometimes not so gently cultivated this new version of me. I knew it, but I didn't want it. So I shelved the book, and got back to work. As it turns out, you can't shelf God.

It was a few days into Lent when I finally got the nerve to speak it out loud to my Social Media Manager at the time. "Hey, I need to fast from social media through Lent. I wanted to make sure you feel like you can handle all of the social media responsibilities before I fully commit." She enthusiastically agreed, completely unaware that I was fasting for clarity on whether or not I should leave my position. This first moment, this first step towards something new, was completely gut-wrenching for me. You see I had wanted someone in this position for YEARS, and she was finally here. She was supposed to be the answer that freed me up to do something new in this space I was so comfortable in, but she had been around for 8 months and nothing was changing for me. She was doing a great job, but I was still stretched too thin, spinning my wheels and getting nowhere, feeling a tug towards something just out of reach, exhausted, disconnected from my friends, neglecting my family, anxious, tired, shallow. Most of all, I was shoving God into these contorted spaces in my life that made sense and were manageable to me. I already knew this idea, in the top of my head, but my 33rd year made it much more concrete to me - God doesn't like being put into boxes.

Lent was excruciating last year. First of all, I know I have a social media problem. I know I have a tendency to numb out and scroll through my well-curated algorithms of positive vibes (I've trained my social media in that way). But on top of my narcotization detox, God was getting really clear, painfully clear... too dang clear, y'all. "Bonni, it's time to go."

I would walk into every meeting with a totally optimistic outlook because that's what I do. "This is the meeting that will change things. This is the turning point. This is when I'll know I can stay." And I would walk out of every one of those profound meetings totally crushed, carried out by God's gentle hands as He spoke over me "Bonni, it's time to go. You'll be ok. We will be good."

You know how this story ends. By the end of May, I was giving my notice. Each conversation that I walked into absolutely dreading, I walked out of with a deep peace, completely wrapped up in the loving embrace of God. I was walking into nothing, as far as the professional world is concerned. I had no connections outside of this community, I had no prospects, I had no concrete plans. I just had a beckoning from God to take Him out of that weird box in the corner of my life and walk into something new in His fullness.

Since then, I've been working to slowly unwrap the little boxes that have kept God small in my life. I've also been working to tear down some walls too. Slowly, I'm inviting God into every part of my life - not in a trite way that sounds nice in a devotional - but in a way that feels weird to this former fundamentalist girl. This practice hasn't looked the way I thought, actually it's looked the opposite way I would I have thought. There's been much less time in prayer than I feel like there should be. There's been less Scripture reading than I feel like there should be. There's been WAY less singing in church than I feel like there should be. But, over the years, those practices have become sturdy God-boxes for me, so I've been smashing them.

I know they were God-boxes for me because they were tied up with strings of guilt and shame, and the thing I have learned most deeply in my 33rd year is that God doesn't deal in those feelings. As I have noticed those feelings wrapping up practices, mindsets, actions, or conversations - I'm smashing them. And you know what, as I've smashed them I've come to realize that they weren't so fulfilling in my life. I wasn't finding God in those boxes, because He was never in there to start out with. Those things were way too small to hold His fullness.

Hang on, I know you're about to call me a heretic. God is 100% in the practices of prayer, studying Scripture, and communal gathering around His name. He is, but not inside the box we approach with guilt and shame as the first layers. This year I have had to come to understand prayer in a new way, which has meant abandoning prayer as I had come to know it before. I have had to come to understand reading Scripture in a new way, which means abandoning the ways I had come to know it before. And I am having to understand communal worship in a new way, which means I'm abandoning the ways I had come to know it before.

All in all, my 33rd year was a wild ride, but God has ripped the curtain in my soul from top to bottom. I have absolutely no idea what my 34th year will hold. This week of 2022 feels so different from the certainty I felt in 2021, but I have more peace in it. I have more hope in it. I have more joy in it. I have grief, too. And longing, and pain. But I am sure that God is holding all of this with me, and there is so much more of Him left to be discovered.

By the way, I finished "The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry" on December 27, 2021. I actually started it over in October. This time when I read it through, I was filled with inspiration and hope. I'm inspired by what whole-life Jesus-following might look like, and my whole family is all in on the journey. I'll spend more of 2022 unpacking what this is looking like for us. But for now, here's to unboxing God in 2022. Cheers, friends.