The World Changes Fast. I Don't.

On rage, gentleness, and the slow work of becoming.

I’ve had this knot, dead center in my being, that I haven’t been able to shake for a month. It’s vaguely familiar but also brand new. The best way I can think to describe it is like anxiety and rage had a baby and asked me to babysit for an evening—and then promptly skipped town. No note. No ETA on when they’re coming back. Just me, white-knuckling this new experience and trying not to succumb to bitterness.

I’m exhausted.

I spend the early mornings speaking gently to this bundle of anti-joy in my chest, praying foggy and scattered prayers through half-opened eyes and clenched teeth, hoping it will cry itself out before I do.

On my good days, I have to remind the muscles in my brow to relax and let the scowl that’s become my default give way to something softer, maybe even a smile. Other days, I gasp for air, suddenly remembering my body forgot how to breathe. Nothing about this is normal, and my body knows it.

The silver lining of sleepless nights is they create ample space for reflection. And this morning, I think I finally cracked this new passenger’s origin story:

It was birthed out of the void between change and becoming.

Hang with me. It’ll make sense. Or maybe it won’t. Like I said, I’m exhausted.

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Change (verb): to make someone or something different; alter or modify.

Change begets change, like a line of dominos stacked on end. One policy shift, one stroke of a pen, can literally alter the lived experience—or even the legal status—of hundreds of thousands of people who, just days before, were well within the lines. That kind of change ripples fast and far. It crashes into real lives and genuine relationships.

And yet, for all its noise and reach, change rarely asks us to examine what’s happening inside.

To reflect.

To dare to become.

Become (verb): to begin to be.

Becoming, though... that’s a slow grind. It’s the internal work of integration. It’s becoming who you were always meant to be before you were harmed—and before you harmed others. And that only happens when you’re willing to carry your whole self down into the valley of the shadow of death. To sit at the table with your enemy. To feast. To find the strength to forgive—and be forgiven.

Becoming is dealing honestly with your pain. It’s transformation without applause. It doesn’t look like dogma or law. It looks like love—joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

It’s a fruit that doesn’t grow overnight. And it rarely trends.

Becoming is unsexy and wildly inconvenient. It often goes unnoticed until one day you don’t react the way you used to, and you realize something sacred happened quietly, without fanfare.

But here’s the tension: when the world is changing faster than I’m becoming, it becomes almost unbearable.

Some days, I want to burn it all down. Not metaphorically. I mean grab-a-torch-and-howl-at-the-moon rage. I want to swing fists at systems and scream at people who seem to revel in others’ pain.

And if I’m really honest... it’s not because I’m brave or prophetic. It’s because I’m scared. Because there’s still a child in me who learned to throw punches before he learned to ask for help.

My rage isn’t righteous. My anger isn’t holy. Because left to my own devices, it wouldn’t bring peace—it would bring vengeance. Eye for an eye. Tooth for a tooth.

That’s the hardest part about becoming: realizing you can be both the wounded and the one who wounds.

So instead of acting on my rage, I sit with it. Let it ache in my chest. Let the Spirit hold it like something sacred, not shameful.

Because maybe the slow, invisible fruit of gentleness isn’t weakness... but resistance.

Maybe becoming tender is the revolution.

Maybe.

But tonight? It just feels like lostness.

I don’t feel victorious.

I feel undone.

But maybe that’s where becoming begins.

✌🏼🧡