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Recently, I have started a new hobby: cross-stitch. It’s something that my grandmother taught me, and any similar crafty hobbies as we sewed and created together. But what I was looking for with this hobby was something that would busy my hands and quiet my brain. (And also something that wouldn’t be too expensive of an initial investment because we know crafting supplies can add up! I had the thread, so it was $4 for the cloth, and the time to pick a free pattern online.) Cross-stitching isn’t much more than a glorified paint by number, which I used to really love as a kid. I really loved anything that came with close instructions and could look amazing at the end. As a perfectionist, the risk of choosing the wrong color scheme or going outside of the lines felt really frustrating. Now, we might not all be perfectionists. Some of us might be more comfortable with risk and experiment, and still most of us will have some areas of our lives that we need some certainty. Working with college students, and remembering my own journey through young adulthood, there is something particularly difficult about this season of uncertainty. It is not the last season of uncertainty, but one of the first big seasons of uncertainty. Big life decisions demand to be made, and the consequences of those decisions are a mystery. Majors, internships, friendships, relationships, clubs, loans, etc. are all things that have contributed to who I am today. And many of these decisions were ones I agonized over, prayed over, journaled about, and talked to death with friends and family searching for some certainty in my choices. However, so much of where I am now is a mystery. Choices made for one class, internship or volunteer opportunity weren’t made with the intention of being a campus minister. And yet, they contributed to skills, questions, or opportunities that are a part of the journey. If lent is a season where we consider the things that need to die so that God can resurrect something new, I am challenging myself to offer God my need for certainty. The resurrection didn’t come with a lot of certainty for those experiencing it. In fact, in our liturgy it is our mystery of faith: “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” Disciples had to experience the risen Christ (his voice, his mysterious resurrected body, his movements of breaking bread) to be able to trust the resurrection. We are in the midst of a mystery. One where the realities of the resurrection invite us to kingdom work that often looks like the back of a cross-stitch in this life. However, the gifts God has given us, the grounding in who God is, and the ways that God can ensure nothing is wasted help us to have faith that we are contributing to a beautiful picture we will one-day see. Rev. Haley Eccles
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