23.

This birthday has not at all been what I thought it would be. But it was also lovely and beautiful and full of rich video chats and beautiful text messages that reminded me that love doesn’t give a care in the world about the medium it takes to get to you. And I spent this week thinking about the people in my life who have loved and influenced and championed me, overcome with the realization that it would be remiss to celebrate these years of life without also celebrating the people who have gotten me through them and made me who I am. We are impacted by many things, but we are largely a product of people. 

In other news, some wild things have happened lately. In early February, before COVID had really hit the US, before the term “social distance” was even a thought, when interaction was frequent (and legal), and gathering was still something my life centered around, I felt like God gave me the number 40. I would come across it in my reading, I saw it EVERYWHERE I went for a week straight. I read about Moses going up to the mountain with God for 40 days, only to come down with a radiance. I read about Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness. It came up in every conversation and in nearly everything I listened to. I felt deeply that God was asking me into a “season of 40” with Him, that He had work to do in my heart, and that He wanted me, vulnerable & ready & without distraction. He wanted me to effectively get alone with Him for a while. 

At the time, it seemed those 40 days lined up with Lent (40 days prior to Easter when it’s a practice to give up something to make space/time for God), so I started to cut things from my life. It still didn’t make a ton of sense why He was so adamant about the number, but sometimes that’s just how it is. 

Then, a few nights ago, I found out that “forty” in Latin means quarantine. 

And suddenly I realized that God had been calling me into a season of quarantine. Preparing me early for what was to come, helping me cut off and lay down in advance what I needed to, so that I may focus in on being in a sort of isolation. He was LITERALLY telling me what was to come. “A season of forty” is literally what this is. 

AND. Get this — 40 days since the quarantine order started fell on April 24th. My day of birth. 

I say all this because a lot of times, the things God is saying or doing don’t make sense at first. In fact, they seem counter-intuitive. Why get alone when I know I’ve been called to lean in? Why cut off when I know I’ve been called to carry & shoulder other people’s burdens with them? 

I think in my case, sometimes the foundation we are living on is faulty. Sometimes the house looks beautiful and secure, but you’d never know the ground was about to give way. 

And so, our construction King takes everything out of the house, puts up some tape, and gets to work. 

A big, foundational shift is happening. I am a DO-ER in every fiber of my being. Action-steps, plans, and forging ahead are some of my favorite past-times. Anxiety, induced by the stress of all that I want to do and get done usually consumes me. 

But something is shifting in this season of 40.  

Last year, for my 22nd birthday, I was celebrating in Paris, surrounded on all sides by life and art and history and a new culture. I made a list of things I wanted to do & implement in my life (they’re in a blog if you’re curious). But this year, as I sat on a striped towel next to a barricaded beach in my home-state, at least ten feet away from any other human, the only thing I wrote down was the word “more”. Not more as in more things or goals or to-dos, but just more of God. More laughter, more dreams, more depth in friendships, more faith. More of a clean heart and a right and renewed spirit within me (Psalm 51:10).

If there is anything I’ve learned in this season, it’s that we can do nothing to control circumstances. And while we cannot control what happens, we can control (to some extent at least) who we are. We can control what we give our hearts and time to. We can control how much of ourselves we pour into the dreams and relationships that matter. So I suppose, besides a hug from all my friends, my birthday wish is simply to have a heart that loves better and deeper and with more sacrifice. Here’s to 23.