Who Are We Now, After A Year of This?

Photo by Chander Mohan

Dear God who made us all,

A year ago we did not know that we were about to learn: 

what we could lose and somehow live anyway

where we would find comfort and where it would elude us

whose lives matter to whom

why we have kitchens in our homes.

In mid-March 2020 all I knew for sure is that 

hoarding toilet paper doesn’t make you safe – it just makes you selfish.

But God, it feels like the world is about to open back up.  

And I’m both thrilled and kind of scared about that. 

Because I’m not who I was a year ago. 

I want so badly

to hug my friends again

and laugh like hell again

and have amazing conversations again

and yet I am not sure how long I could do any of this before crying or just getting really quiet. My emotional protective gear has worn so thin, and grief just leaks out everywhere now.

I am so afraid that I will never be who I once was. And I am also afraid that I will be.

(Not to mention, I’m not entirely clear what size jeans I wear as the me I am now)

And yet, when I quiet my anxious thoughts, I start to suspect that I am now closer to the me you have always known and always loved. So help me trust that, Lord. 

As things change, help us be gentle with ourselves and with each other. We are all wearing newborn skin right now.  

Amen.

 

Reprinted with permission from The Corners, Nadia Bolz-Weber’s online newsletter.

 

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About Nadia Bolz-Weber

Nadia Bolz-Weber is an ordained Lutheran Pastor and public theologian, founder of House for All Sinners & Saints, a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in Denver, Colorado. She is also the creator and host of The Confessional podcast, and the author of three New York Times bestselling memoirs: "Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint" (2013); "Accidental Saints: Finding God in All the Wrong People" (2015); and "Shameless: A Sexual Reformation" (2019).
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