Alex Wilkinson
I am blessed to know Alex, be able to lean on her, be encouraged by her and witness her move with unique graceful wisdom. The Resurrected Woman is both lucky & blessed to be able to share her words to kick off The Real Talks series - featuring inspiring thoughts from women just like you, who are working to embrace the invitation to life in their day to day. Enjoy her vulnerable, truthful and genuinely hopeful words! We hope they fuel your journey.
Sisters! Hello! My name is Alex Wilkinson and I am a sophomore religious studies major with philosophy and graphic design minors at Siena Heights University in Michigan (mouthful - I know). Even more than all of this, I am a resurrected woman and a daughter of the MOST high King! My joy is a DIRECT result of the Lord working and stirring in my heart every day. I hope my journey and personal resurrection does nothing more than reflect the resurrection of JESUS and how HE thirsts to love us and be loved by us.
How do you let God make you a resurrected woman?
The most important part of this question, and therefore the root of my answer lies in one simple word: let. The Lord is gentle and kind and pursues us always, but following the sayings of St. Augustine, “He who created us without our help, will not save us without our consent.” We are active participants in our lives and in our relationships with the Lord. So, letting God resurrect me may be the hardest, yet the most important part of my own journey as a resurrected woman.
In my own life, letting God resurrect my heart is a daily surrender. When I recognize that I am nothing, but Jesus, my Lord and my friend, is everything, only then can He resurrect me. Throughout middle and high school I battled with hands clenched onto anything in my life that I could try to control. If I had any say in it, and even if I didn’t, I did anything I could to have as much control as possible over the circumstances in my life. What a burden this was to carry, thinking I could control things and trying to do so on my own was exhausting. I wasn’t living into my true identity as a daughter of the Most High King, and my authentic self was dying with every part of my life that I tried to control and take as my own.
By the grace of God, my senior year of high school I began to learn the art of surrendering my heart, and oh the freedom that came! I was lost in a sea of expectations that society set for me, and expectations I set for myself that were unrealistic and anything but authentic to who I was created to be. So, I entered into a season, and now lifestyle, of open hands. Letting Jesus have one inch at a time, he took miles and transformed my heart and soul.
Being resurrected does not make my life easier, it does not change the promises that the Lord has whispered into my soul, but it transfigured my relationship with God and with myself. Every day that I let God make me a resurrected woman, He breaks every chain and gives me a renewed spirit of joy - one that is sustainable regardless of external circumstances!
How do you think living out the resurrection looks like in daily life?
As I mentioned before, it is a daily (even hourly) choice to surrender our hearts to the Lord. He needs our permission and will not move until we let Him. Being a resurrected woman is choosing to live authentically as who God created you to be. Being a resurrected woman is choosing to look into your heart and present the dying and hurting parts to the Lord so that He can make them new. Being a resurrected woman is living into the joy that Jesus Christ alone provides and refusing to accept anything less. Being a resurrected woman is also embracing the sorrows of life and uniting them to those of Christ so that He can bring them with Him to the cross and resurrect them with His own resurrection.
Why can it be hard?
It is a challenge to trust in the Lord when it hurts. It is hard to surrender your heart completely when you hold something in it that you want.
What helps you center back in with Christ?
Prayer, sacraments, and sisterhood.
How do you keep the faith through the changing seasons of life?
Seasons are beautiful!
Have you ever had a necklace that meant something or changed something for you? How has this impacted your life?
The first religious medal I wore was my younger sister’s that she had received from her confirmation. I had never been a big jewelry person, but I was curiously attracted to this particular necklace that held the most delicate image of the Holy Family.
Wearing religious medals makes me feel a part of a family, primarily the Catholic family, but also with the Saints and angels of whom I wore around my neck.
If you had to share one thing with women what would it be?
You were made for JOY. Unparallelled joy.
-Alex
Wings to Fly
(by Alex herself!)
I remember feeling hot tears on my cheeks. Burning and breaking through the shell that was long formed over my broken heart
Became numb and the heat was something. Like pulling the knife out slowly, painfully, with new blood rushing to heal the opened wound.
I remember the feeling of gently closing my eyes and letting those tears fall like smoke slowly rising from a long burned fire.
Body paralyzed, breathing steady, slowly raising my chin to see the dawn of a new season. Moving forward with the pain of today. I am dead no longer. Breathing in life for the first time in awhile, I won’t drag chains, but the freedom of wings lacks tenacity. So I will hold on to all that is in sight until tomorrow comes and I can let go of yesterday.