Peace Amidst Transition
Savvy Saturdays - 5/23/20
Hello friends,
Greetings from Austin!
Since Netflix has released Avatar: the Last Airbender (not the weird blue people movie), I’ve been binge-watching the tv series (sometimes going over my work breaks😅). it’s been nice being able to watch the full show, as Cartoon Network (the cable news channel that hosted it), would only stream bits and pieces of season 1 and 2 while always “airing” the season finale because of its popularity. (haha get it, cause airing and Airbender haha 😂)
That aside, it’s been a hectic week for me and my apartment - one of the roommates moved back on Monday, another moved out on Wednesday, and a third (along with the one who moved out) graduated today! Big proud of the class of 2020! 🎓😭
Anyways, it’s been fun temporarily having a fuller apartment. We may have had to take precaution in Lysolling our roommate who returned, but having a lively apartment and playing Overcooked with a max party of 4 was a blessing in the midst of the COVID season.
Unfortunately it was quite a sad moment when we had to send off our roomie, and though he’s only going to Dallas before heading to Cali, it’s weird having an emptier apartment and the transition will take time to get used to.
(emptier shoe rack to emphasize emptiness)
Personally, I don’t like transitions, but this past year revealed to me that a lot can happen in just 12 months of life, and not liking something doesn’t mean you have control in it not happening.
Graduating last year, during the Summer, I went through heart surgery and lost my job before it even started amidst a 4-week long recovery.
Afterward, in the Fall I had to interview for a job while serving in college ministry, leading a college life group and being a class coordinator for a new freshmen class.
And once I had started my new job in Winter, just as I felt I was secure and comfortable with my 9 to 5 job at RetailMeNot with a 10-minute bike commute time and once a week work from home policy, we went through drastic company-wide changes due to shifts in the business.
And let’s not forget, in the Spring, I found myself quarantined at my apartment with a 0-minute bed commute time, needing to figure out how to be productive working from home whilst serving in a virtual church ⛪under a “new normal”.
Through each of these seasons, though I could never control my environment and found many reasons to stress & complain, I found many moments of peace amidst the times of uncertainty. I felt the peace of God.
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
- Philippians 4:7-8
The reason I had peace was not that I knew practically how to survive. In fact, many times, I was pretty helpless.
Instead, I found peace through letting go of the desire for control and relying more on God whilst giving myself grace.
Relying more on God because the truth that God was in control helped ground me in trusting in Him more and focusing my energy on what I could control.
Giving myself grace because I failed a lot through every transition, and by learning to forgive myself from my past mistakes, I could accept and move on rather than be inhibited by them.
I’m still learning a lot about what it means to live these ways. Even in quarantine life, I still have a lot of fears of the virus and the effects it has on myself, those I love, and society as a whole.
But though I know that I don’t know the end result of what will come with this season, I know as I go through this process, God is in control, and there are more opportunities to trust in Him and what He has in store through it.
Anyways, thanks for checking in with this week’s update. Don’t forget your roots, let’s push through during this difficult season and weather each transition wisely, and I'll see y'all in the next update! 😊
(quarantine bike ride with homemade mask creds to mi madre)
Weekly Collections
Faith
I love Francis Chan, and this video was a reminder that the way to love others within family is not through just providing resources and services for others, but to have a focus on relationship building and living out the Father’s love.
Productivity
This is for the graduates, and those who need a reminder to continue to learn amidst all seasons:
"[M]y worry is that ... you won’t put enough really excellent stuff into your brain. I’m talking about what you might call the “theory of maximum taste.” This theory is based on the idea that exposure to genius has the power to expand your consciousness. If you spend a lot of time with genius, your mind will end up bigger and broader than if you spend your time only with run-of-the-mill stuff.
The theory of maximum taste says that each person’s mind is defined by its upper limit—the best that it habitually consumes and is capable of consuming. ... In college, you get assigned hard things. You’re taught to look at paintings and think about science in challenging ways.
After college, most of us resolve to keep doing this kind of thing, but we’re busy and our brains are tired at the end of the day. Months and years go by. We get caught up in stuff, settle for consuming Twitter and, frankly, journalism. Our maximum taste shrinks. Have you ever noticed that 70 percent of the people you know are more boring at 30 than they were at 20?."
Verse of the Week
“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.”
- 1 Peter 2:24
Challenging Quote
“Joy is the experience ‘of an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction.’ ”
- John Piper