What Do You Love To Do?  | page 1 of 4 | next >

by Lynne Hybels

Despite being able to count nine letters in the word frivolous, I knew that in the dictionary of God-pleasing behavior it was a four-letter word of the worst sort.  The church environment I grew up in fell far to the right of center and I internalized its ultra-conservative, anti-pleasure perspective. If there was anything a good little Christian girl didn’t want to be it was frivolous, and a grown woman?   Shameful.  The problem was that frivolous was a giant of a word that clutched in its greedy fist a host of seemingly innocent behaviors.  Rest was frivolous.  Play was frivolous.  Music and art were frivolous.  Nature was frivolous. Daydreaming was frivolous.  Books were frivolous (except Bible studies and Christian self-help books). 

Over the years, most of what I loved was shoved into the frivolous category.  As a child I gave away my ballet slippers, my fantasy books, and my art supplies.  As an adult I gave up whatever simple pleasures remained.  I quit playing the flute so I could do something more pastor’s wifely, like teaching a Bible study or leading a small group.  I quit walking through forest preserves because that was clearly a waste of time.  I was sure that giving up these activities was the right thing to do, but I was beginning to feel a bit stifled. 

Okay, I was going stark raving mad; I was absolutely and utterly craving frivolity. 

Fortunately I had been seeing a counselor to help me understand the depression that had plagued me for years.  He saw my strange craving for what it was: a desperate need to balance the work, stress and seriousness of life with a little harmless fun. 

“What do you love to do?” he asked.  “What relaxes and refreshes you?”

Like most women juggling marriage, family, and vocation it had been years since I had considered those questions.   I wasn’t even close to having an answer.

But in the midst of pondering the questions I turned forty. Even in the best of times, forty can be traumatic.  This was not the best of times for me.  I told Bill and my friends that if anyone threw a surprise party to celebrate my entrance into middle age, they would live to regret it.   I wanted to do something that would make me feel young, not underscore my aging.  Bill suggested I go bungee-jumping in New Zealand or drive a Harley Davidson through the Swiss Alps.  I reminded him it was my birthday celebration, not his, and asked if he would be responsible for Todd and Shauna  (twelve and fifteen at the time) while I went horseback riding at a friend’s guest ranch in Montana.  After enlisting his mother to stay at our house, Bill gave me his blessing.

The drive from Chicago to White Sulfur Springs, Montana, was 1,387 miles—a nearly straight shot from the stable, conservative heartland into the wildness of the West, where wide-open spaces and independent spirits prevail.  That sounded perfect to me. 

I packed my car with blue jeans and t-shirts, practiced changing a flat tire in my garage, then stuffed my glove compartment with maps and headed west.  Twenty-four hours later I climbed up on a glassy plateau in the Badlands of South Dakota, raised my fists to the sky and my face to the sun, and screamed, I’m free. 

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