The class of 2021. I was privileged to teach these students back many moons ago in sixth grade, and this year these students gave me the incredible honor of speaking into their lives one last time as their commencement speaker. It’s safe to say I’ll treasure this experience as a once-in-a-lifetime one, and I pray my words were filled with even a shred of timeless truth for them to remember as they leave this era of their lives behind. These are some pretty wonderful humans and I look forward to seeing them live big lives! Go get ’em, folks.
A temporary interval of quiet or lack of activity. That’s what a lull is. My current life feels like it’s in a state of lullity, if I can play around with the word. It has taken an incredible amount of discipline and head space for me to be who I’ve been for the last several years. Now that I’ve earned a Master’s degree and landed a new job, my life outside of work has become, for lack of a better word, dull. With the pandemic, it’s grown evermore strange and distant from what my “normal life” had been like before my schooling started three Januaries ago. Will I ever get back to that way of life? The life of having a revolving front door with people coming and going? The life of regular connection with others in our neighborhood? The life of planning adventures for and with my kids? The life of spiritual vibrancy that once was? I miss that life.
This season of lullity has been tricky. I know I have needed a season of rest. What better time to rest than during a pandemic? But the word lull can also be defined as being sent to sleep. And this kind of scares me. I hate the thought of being lulled into a life of calm, comfortable, melancholy nothingness. Where nothing really goes on, no one is really impacted by my actions, and excitement lies in the latest Netflix mini. I’ve begun to feel the reverberating word in my heart: run. Flee from this life of apathy and lackadaisical living. No need to sprint like the previous season, but steadily, I need to start moving again. God is good at whispering just the right things at just the right time.
It’s time for me to get back to it. The race is not yet complete. I may have needed a little breathing room this year, but I’m feeling ready to run again. To meet new people, to take advantage of opportunities to love others, to seek the Lord more fervently than before. I want to appreciate and make an impact on my kids. I want to feel the freedom to enjoy a hobby (or discover new ones). I want to set new goals and actually meet them because there’s time to. I want to have deep relationships with my friends. I want to be sharp enough to ask good questions of them and remember the answers. I want to be me again.
There’s been a place for experiencing a lull in my life. But it can become toxic if it sits long enough to transform into lullity. I’m not going to succumb to its grasp on my life.
“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.” Hebrews 12:1-2a
