Dear Friend,
What a year it has been. Almost one year since the last time I wrote. A complete year since I spent the last night in my NYC apartment. The next day was moving day, and just two days later I flew out to Texas. Now, it would be untrue and overly dramatic to act like it’s been as long since I’ve been back to NYC. The truth is that over the last year I’ve made a grand total of FIVE visits (though three out of the five were glorified day-trips out of medical necessity).
However, truly I’ve become more and more rooted here in north Texas. The new job, new church, new friends — new everything I spoke of in those letters just under a year ago are now not so new. I’m now a shift lead at Starbucks, a member of my church, and already been on a ladies’ trip with a bunch of my new friends with countless other communal get-togethers and lunch dates between!
One new thing I hadn’t mentioned — because it only became a fully fleshed idea as of August — is a new (old) camper that I bought to renovate for long-term living last fall! Youtube got me with those camper/RV reno videos and here we are, six months in and just about to start the final touches after major deconstruction and reconstruction. It has been a JOURNEY, friend. In case you didn’t know, I’ve never been much of a handy-girl. But between google and my dad’s tools and tips, I even managed to build a cabinet/table combo from scratch. (Does it look like an amateur built it? Yes. But will is it functional? Yes.)
AND, I’ve joined my church’s worship team. This is probably one of the most simultaneously joy-filled and anticipation-driven transition at this point. Because for almost a complete year I have been served by my church in all facets, not being required or expected to serve but to simply serve by consistent fellowship — what at first felt like the bare minimum because of my past eleven years in some form of church leadership.
Friend, it has been an absolute joy to sing for my church again. To play my guitar. To develop my abilities in both in order to do so with the excellence God has given me the ability to cultivate by this point. And with my job’s schedule, I’m grateful for what can seem overwhelming but I recognize as a healthy boundary on my ability to lead every week. Yes, I would love to say “yes” to every week or even simply any week that I’m needed, but I can’t. Because it’s not kind or even fair to my co-workers to expect them to cover for me every Sunday morning — especially if it’s my hope that they would also know Christ and be plugged into a local body of believers… who typically meet on Sunday mornings.
It’s the living in the world but not of it. I offer Sunday afternoons and/or evenings, but also Sunday mornings on occasion, because I feel a conviction to love my co-workers on a day they often (tragically) do not feel love from “Christians.” (Those who, in the words of one of my co-workers, “leave Jesus at the altar.”) I think living in NYC with church in the evenings that helped me with loosening my grip on Sunday mornings — while holding fast to “not neglecting to meet together” with my local family of believers by doing so consistently at other times in those weeks I have to miss Sunday morning.1
Anyway, I’m grateful for both the witness I have a chance to have with my co-workers, while also receiving a healthy boundary for serving my church in worship. Learning to say a healthy and self-controlled “yes” or “no” to both according to how the Spirit is leading me and not out of an internal compulsion to twist Paul’s words of “being all things to all people” into a people-pleaser mindset of always saying “yes” to the detriment of all.2
It’s funny though, friend, that in looking that actual passage up (1 Corinthians 9), I found right afterward the passage where Paul speaks of the importance of self-discipline to be applied in all facets of life. Yet, he does use the example of physical discipline in running, and that is where I chuckle because of my (final for this letter) update: I’m training for a marathon.
Okay, not a marathon — yet. First, I ran a 5k just before Christmas. Now I’m working toward a 10k. And I’m already signed up for a half-marathon in September. I’d like to sign up for a marathon by next spring. And run an ultra-marathon 30 miles by the time I’m 30 — two years at this point.
And this training has been a (literal) journey. One that I will have to elaborate on in a future letter — the many ways I’m understanding Paul’s words regarding self-discipline and the “working out” of our salvation.3 I never saw myself as a “runner” — but it’s now become a great joy in my life. Well, maybe not the first ten minutes of each run…
Friend, it’s also not lost on me that April is approaching. Ten years. It feels like it should be a big one. I am not utterly dreading April as I have before, though I’ve had my momentary pulses of despair the last few weeks. I’m still unsure as to whether I should ask the day off of work. I’d like to plan a birthday celebration at least, but I’m not even sure if I’ll be able to do so with my work schedule. Maybe I should try for the weekend after — to have something to look forward to…
This is the kind of processing I’m still doing year to year. It’s the feeling of wanting to “get back to normal” yet the reality that this is the normal of what my life is. How God had planned from the beginning. It is no surprise. And, for the most part, it is feeling normal. And that’s a whole other letter I’m sure I’ll write in the future: the impact of being back in Texas after nine years.
Anyway, I suppose that’s the past year in highlights. My hope is to write more soon, expounding on the LORD’s faithfulness in each of these areas. Because, He is so good to me. So good.
Still celebrating,
Hannah
Life Without Mother 
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