Things Unseen
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day …. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
This newsletter was born from a desire to make sense of the unexpected places life has taken me, especially in recent years. After years of trying (and mostly failing) to make a living in print journalism, I quit my full-time reporting job in 2021 to pursue a Master of Divinity degree and ordination in the Lutheran Church. Now in my first pastoral call (in rural Illinois, of all places) I often wonder what the hell I am doing and why God—if it turns out that there really is a god—sent me here.
I somehow find myself increasingly drawn to the Christian faith despite my best efforts to pull away. This is the tradition I was raised in, the tradition I now find myself serving in, and for better or for worse, it seems to be mine for good. In Lutheran theology, faith is understood as a gift of God’s grace rather than an exercise of human will, which definitely rings true in my life, although such faith is not a gift that I would have ever asked for.
At various points in my life, I have wanted to reject it, to abandon Christianity in favor of some form of secular humanism and spend Sunday mornings sleeping in. But each time I’ve tried to leave, I’ve always found myself back where I started. Faith, as it turns out, does not come with a gift receipt. I can’t return it. I can strain at the proverbial leash, but I can never manage to wholly break free. I think that might be good news in the end.
Though I’ve often resisted it, the Christian faith has been a gift and source of tremendous blessing in my life, particularly in these last few years. The Church is a place where I have forged deep friendships, and where my loneliness has been lifted by a community of people who have cared for me when I’ve found it difficult to care for myself. It’s where I have found the most fulfillment and purpose in my working life since graduating college with a B.A. in English and few career plans nearly a decade ago, and where I’ve realized that my life’s calling is not a self-indulgent writing career but pastoral ministry.
Maybe most importantly, it’s also where—week after week after week—God pulls me out of my solipsism and beckons me out into the world, draws my gaze away from my navel and at the cross of Christ, and asks me to think not just of myself but of my neighbors—both the people in the pews with me and the people in the world around me.
I hope that the reflections within this newsletter might explain what often feels inexplicable—why I am, despite everything, a Christian—but more than anything, I hope they serve as a witness to the power and presence of Christ I observe in my life and the life of the world, a power and presence that not only compels me but redeems and sustains me, day after day after day.
Pull up a chair and stay a while. It’s good to have you here.
+ Elizabeth
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