My Life

Summarizing your life is a difficult task. As C.S. Lewis states,

“What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing. It also depends on what sort of person you are.”

Magician’s Nephew

This applies to how we speak about our lives. Our words become a means of translating our lived experience into meaning. Reality becomes interpreted. There is always an elusive sense in which reality loses itself in this translation. Reality can also be changed. Experiences gain and lose significance over time.

My first inclination on how to talk about my life, is to talk about the ‘historical facts’–where I was born, my family, where I live, how old I am, etc. In some ways, I feel like modernity has trained me to think of what is real or true only as that which is concrete in a material sense. But my life isn’t just events that happen to me. My life is also the effects of those events. It’s the significance I find in the events. It’s how I respond to the circumstances of my life, and who I choose to become. It’s the space where I exist in more than just a material sense.

Alas, we live in a material world, and we have history. Since I have to start building a sense of my life somewhere, I’ll give the little historical summary anyways.

I was born and raised in a small town in Saskatchewan. I grew up in a two parent household with both Mom and a Dad, and was the first born girl and second oldest amongst my four siblings. I grew up attending a small Baptist church in the country every Sunday. I attended school, played sports, went on family vacations, and celebrated holidays. I had friends. I graduated high school, and went abroad to study the Bible in Costa Rica. I then attended a quaint evangelical Bible School in a small town in the Saskatchewan prairies, earned a Bachelor of Theology, met my now husband, and have been married now for almost five years. I am currently the mother of two little boys and live in Edmonton, AB, where my husband is both working and pursuing his Masters of Theology.

There. That paints a picture of my life. It feels limiting in some ways, and I suppose it is. There is lot a lot about my life that I didn’t choose and can’t control. But there is also a lot that I did choose. Regardless, who I am isn’t just my history.

I understand my life a lot differently on the other side of becoming a wife and a mother. There are infinite ways that I have been informed and shaped by these experiences. I have also been greatly shaped by my theological training. The pursuit of learning continues to be the one of the central tenants of my relationship with my husband. We sit, we have coffee, and we chat. We reflect. We contemplate.

So much of who I am currently is because of my husband, Dylan. He is the best of me. He encourages me and he grounds me. He is level headed, wise, kind, and patient. When I find myself trapped in despair or self criticism, he is a gentle light that leads me home. I have yet to tire of his companionship. There are very few things that I would rather do alone than with him.

His love has been a true transformative force in my life. At the heart of our marriage, we just enjoy each other’s presence. It’s a glimpse of the divine communion of perfect love and unity that makes up our God.

Ah, yes, my God. The ultimate consistent and unifying fact of my life has been His presence. He has been so gentle and constant. His hand has guided me every step. His love for me is the truest sense that I have of reality.

I hope to use the blog to explore my pursuit after Him. It is a personal and theological journey that I would not have predicted, but has been a beautiful surprise.

Finally, my two boys, Thomas Wesley James, and Charlie Emmaus John. I lost myself and found myself in becoming their mother. My heart has been touched and awakened by them in ways I didn’t know existed. Loving them is a gift. Seeing them grow, is a wonder.

I feel like so much of my life I have struggled to make sense of my life, let alone the world. I wrestle with words, and am never satisfied. It’s like I have an incessant need to understand and figure it all out, and no matter how much I talk or I write, I fall short. There are so many perspectives, and so many vantage points by which to think and see. I struggle to find rest.

I hope this blog becomes a space that I find rest. I hope to find surrender. To put aside perfection and completion, and just wrestle with the beauty and the mess.

Anyways, there’s a little reflection about me. Why even bother with an about page when the whole Blog is a reflection of who I am?

Hopefully this is a glimpse, or a helpful beginning. I really don’t know.

Sincerely,
Rachel Friesen