How Hobbies Help Us Carry On

And a new audiobook to LISTEN to while you hobby

“There’s just something about it,” I told my dad. “Seeing a bird can make me instantly happy.”

I was trying to explain to my father why his daughter, who had previously been considered sane, was now dashing to the window every few sentences. I had heard the sad hoo-hoo of a mourning dove this time, and I needed to see if I could spot it. What? Is that weird?

My birding hobby ebbs and flows but has recently been reaching retired-person levels. The busier I am, the more overwhelmed or emotional, the more I find myself staring out the window to see if a pair of wings will catch my eye, whipping out my Merlin app to see if I can confirm the bird I’m hearing.

The week before, we’d installed a second feeder outside the kitchen window to attract more than goldfinches to the yard. And boy did it do the trick. Tufted titmice (that’s the plural right?), dark-eyed juncos, Carolina chickadees, (red-headed) house finches, hairy woodpeckers, and white-breasted nuthatches, even a Carolina wren. They all conspired to distract me while I should have been feeding children or doing dishes.

What is it about hobbies? Why do they carry the capacity for surprising joy? For this unearned lightness?

In seasons of grief or overwhelm, I cannot seem to reach the end of my to-do list. My arms and thoughts feel leaden from the moment I wake. I am bone-tired, and I cannot find that peace I crave from getting things done.

But I can look out the window. I can stop mid-walk and have a conversation with a song sparrow who thinks my singing app is a fellow bird. I can marvel for a little too long at the Cooper’s hawk that is unfazed by my presence beneath his perch.

Perhaps your hobby is something slightly more practical, like knitting or woodworking, swimming or spelunking. But I hope it gives you what I think birding and so many other inconsequential things offer me: the chance for wonder.   

Wonder reminds me that my circumstances are indeed light and momentary, that there is a weight of glory that will catapult them into oblivion. That, though the to-do list never stops, I can. That, though the emotions are heavy, I can always receive a moment of lightness.

As I wrote in We Shall All Be Changed, grief left me “desperate for progress.” There was nothing linear or measurable about it, no guarantee that today would be better than yesterday. I had to learn, somehow, to receive it anyway. I had to learn to sit under the weight of this liminal time between the terrible thing and the knowledge that one day it wouldn’t feel quite this terrible. But the lack of “progress,” the sensation of holding very still in the midst of immovable realities, showed me something of the God who says, “Be still and know that I am God.”

And you are not, I like to add in my head for emphasis.  

What grace that I don’t have to be God. And right now, I can’t think of a better reminder — that I am small and that he is wondrous — than to “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them,” as Matt. 6:26 says. “Are you not of more value than they?”

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Speaking of hobbies and trying new things, did I mention I had the immense pleasure of learning on-the-job and in-the-closet how to be a venerable Voice Actor?

Well, friends, I have good news; the labor was not in vain. THE AUDIOBOOK IS NOW OUT! You can now listen to We Shall All Be Changed while you walk or drive or pursue your latest hobby. The audio version was recently released on Audible (you can listen to a sample there, too) and will soon be available in other formats as well.

I worked hard to read this book in my own voice, because it was important to me to try. That’s partly because I prefer nonfiction audiobooks that are read by the author. But it’s also because this is a book people might want to have read over them during seasons that feel too heavy to actually pick up a book. I get that. I’ve been there. There are also a growing number of people who only listen to audiobooks. Well, now you can recommend this one to them too!

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I have been adding links to radio and podcast interviews on my website here. These are always a good tidbit to share with someone you think might be interested in the book topic. I’ve listed a few other notables there, but here are a few favorites:

• The book launch event at Eastminster in Wichita on Feb. 24, with so many familiar faces from my mom’s childhood and my own. Thank you to all who came. You can catch a recording of the event here. And you can still find signed copies of the book at Watermark Books & Café in Wichita!

• We Shall All Be Changed was featured as a New & Notable Release by Tim Challies this past week!

• And Ann Voskamp ran a beautifully-illustrated excerpt of the book on her website!

The book continues to exceed whatever expectations I may have had, sales wise. It is now considered a bestseller on Amazon and has continued to be the #1 New Release in Christian Death & Grief and Aging Parents. Thank you for supporting this book and for sharing it with others. I could write an entire post about the individual feedback I’m getting, about God’s providential timing in the midst of peoples’ losses and diagnoses. Every bit of feedback, every review, every conversation is precious to me. Thank you.