Photo by Matthew Wheeler on Unsplash
Well hello. It’s been a minute since my last digital journal entry here — please excuse the absence. There’s been quite a lot going on and things like unpaid blogging was the first to get knocked off the list. Plus I got such an unexpected and overwhelming response to my last post that I wasn’t quite sure how to follow up on it, so it sat on the back burner, until almost two months later I’m stealing time while Harley naps and I avoid straightening the family room to put some thoughts about life down.
Before anything else, I want to say thank you to everyone who took the time to read my last post about my ever struggling and growing faith in Jesus. It turns out there are quite a number of us who question the existence of God and His role in all of this, and the forces of good versus evil. Who knew? God knew, and that’s sort of the beauty of it.
The last couple of months have been somehow both insane and healing, and anticipatory of what I hope is a GREAT year ahead.
On the first of this month, I took over duties as the president of our local chapter of a national charity organization that I serve in with my 15-year-old daughter Cordelia. It’s a mother-daughter org, and while I’ll keep the name off of here, it shouldn’t be hard to figure out what it is. It’s quite a role to take on any year, but this year the national office decided to roll out about 847 changes outlined in completely brand new bylaws and policies and procedures.
Did I know this when I volunteered to become the president-elect last September? Hells to the no! I didn’t even know becoming president-elect made me an automatic member of the board, but I jumped in anyway. That willingness to jump into the unknown headfirst is either my best or worst personality trait, depending on whom you ask.
All I knew nine months ago when I volunteered for this was I needed something to do in order to feel useful. I had quit working full time at the beginning of last summer because of massive burnout, and while I consider being a mom my greatest privilege and quite possibly the thing I’m best at, it isn’t my identity.
I was absolutely adrift after years of just surviving the storms of life.
I was struggling with the unfairness of everything (as outlined in pretty much any one of the posts I’ve written here since I started this substack on my 40th birthday), not just in my own life, but in the whole world. It’s been a little rough out there the past few years…
The greatest cure I’ve ever known for any sort of despair has been connection and service, and even though the president job seemed daunting, it kept calling me as I sat in the audience at our monthly league meetings.
In September, when the role still hadn’t been filled, I fired off an email to the then-president expressing my interest, and she called me within minutes. After chatting for a bit about it, she took it to the board for a vote, and less than an hour later the job of president-elect was mine.
Most of this past year has just been spent figuring out how the whole shebang operates, and finally starting to make some friends. After two years of isolation, I tried to act cool around other humans and not reek of extroverted desperation for any kind of interaction. I think I accomplished it, even if I totally just negated it by typing that out.
So anyways, that was a really long way of saying I’ve been busy getting back into life by doing what I do — jumping into huge projects because they sound fun and interesting, and then having to figure it all out.
Things have been working out though, THANK THE LORD. There are still some details we need to figure out so that we are in compliance with our national organization while also keeping the spirit of our local chapter alive and well, but the women I’ve been serving with have been kind and gracious towards everyone involved.
This organization is in no way affiliated with Christianity, but I’ve been watching God at work ever since I wrote that email and jumped in. I’ve been praying for friends, and now I’m working closely with a bunch of moms who share a lot of the same passions that I do. I prayed for a way to feel useful, and now I’m able to help problem solve and put out fires during a transition year for our group. I prayed for a way to actually help others, and Cordelia and I have been able to spend dozens of hours together this year serving all kinds of people in our community.
I’m going to have to stop this post right now because I have multiple sets of eyes staring at me, waiting to go on a promised Sea World trip, and I still need a shower, because somehow it’s been three days since I’ve actually had time for one. It’s LIFE, y’all.
But after years of struggle, I can’t stop thinking about one of my fav JK Rowling quotes: “And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”
It’s weird to think of my 30s as a whole being “rock bottom” but holy moly did some shiz happen that really made life HARD. But what’s happening now? It’s pretty damn great. Didn’t know it would take ten years to get here, but better late than never.
Here’s to trusting God that stepping forward in faith is always a good idea.
I will continue praying for you and your family, Jenny! May God make Himself known to you in powerful, tangible ways. We are grateful to you and Justin for helping all of us get through these bad years.
As an aside, I recommend watching The Chosen for some wonderful encouragement. It's been a huge blessing to our family and to countless others. We know some orphans in Ukraine who came to faith in Christ through the show!
Congratulations on moving past all the angst! It's been a rough few years for all of us, and especially those of us who saw the madness for what it was. I believe that God is bigger than all of this, but that Reality is something we need to constantly reinforce. Thank you for sharing your experiences.