In the winter of 2004 during my Junior year of college, I let an eager 22 year old young man convince me that I should let him take me out on date. When I suggested we could get a drink and he instantly made dinner reservations I should have considered the fact that my more hesitant self clearly needed to be swept off her feet. Thirteen years later we have arrived in Atlanta, Georgia by way of Baltimore, Maryland with a 6 year pit stop in Galveston, Texas to get a doctorate (his, not mine, but I dare say I EARNED MY DOCTORATE THERE TOO).
We have a one year old daughter named Ellie and an 8 year old dog named Nellie (Yes. This is ridiculous. It’s a whole thing. I will explain later) and are wrapping ourselves up in a marriage, family and community and finding that it mostly fits if we can get over ourselves long enough.
I’m starting this blog with two primary questions in mind:
- What does a life of freedom actually look like? In some ways I connect this concept to my generations incessant “can you have it all” question…Is having it all possible? Do we even want it all? Well, if you ask me I’m learning that I just want the freedom to decide for myself. Yet this freedom business is tricky. It can be as simple as laying something down or as confusing as starting from scratch.How do we know if we’re making the right decisions? I’m excited to see what comes of asking these question and letting them sit before us. The path could lead to something really lovely, don’t you think? I look forward to dialoguing about it in this space.
- What do I really want? This question is related to the first but it goes one step further. Society would have us stake our identities on extremes. You’re either a 70 mile per hour career woman or a stay at home mom with an iron in her hand but God forbid we have our hands in and out of both pots at various seasons and find those seasons actually satisfying. In the gospels, before Jesus healed a person, He very often asked the person “What is it that you want?” If he is divine (and I believe that he is) then surely he didn’t need to know the answer. And yet Jesus is the compassionate healer who won’t stand for healing the physical malady without also bringing the spiritual and emotional wounds along for the ride. I want to talk about what this journey looks like in my life and others and see where it takes us.
Life can be really messy. As I write this it’s the week of Easter and I’m sitting in Atlanta recovering from the plague (ok a virus, but as I eat saltines and consider if broth will stay down the hatch, we might as well call it the plague) when I was supposed to be visiting some beloved family members and celebrating an important event in their lives. These things happen sometimes but it’s certainly not what I would have said that I wanted. There are so many things in this life and this world that take turns we don’t expect: for the good and for the bad. I’m wondering what God is inviting us all into? What are the parts we’re supposed to play? How do we live this well?
Doing it together is a great place start. Thanks for joining me.
-Courtney
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Courtney Beck Writes 