An Intentional Christmas

Sometimes even though my word for 2017 has been Intentional, it seems like intentionality finds me in curious ways.  Going into November I didn't really think about celebrating Christmas intentionally.  I was just trying to survive.  

Then it happened...

I felt God telling me I had to stop and slow down.

I was doing lots of good things, but they were not necessarily the best things.

It can be funny how we get caught up doing and being part of something and we miss the fact that we are losing who God created us to be in the middle of all the activity.

So I listened 

(after several weeks of sickness that forced rest on me)

And I stopped...

And then I started to hear again...

It is amazing how quickly we can lose the still small voice that God uses to speak His truth into our lives.  

A podcast I listened to recently suggested that the reason God speaks so softly and quietly is so we have to lean in close to him to hear...

I loved the visual this creates....

It makes me think of my own daughters...

One of my favorite things to do in the middle of a tickle fight is to pull them close and say...

"I love you so much!"

And that is how my Christmas season has become Intentional...

In a moment of wrestling and struggling with all the unknowns that loom in my near future God pulled me close and whispered... 

"I love you so much!

I have plans for you that you can't even begin to imagine

and I am working it all out in my time.

I'm working on your future so you can just be and enjoy the present."

So as November faded into the past and December became my present, I began looking for ways to intentionally enjoy a time of year that can be so chaotic and crazy.  

So far we have managed three different visits with Santa for Myka, my oldest daughter.

We have shared the excitement of our annual Victorian Christmas celebration with our community.

We have painted ornaments, made cookies, just driven around looking at Christmas lights.

My husband and I took the time to cram ourselves into a little train because a three year old asked, 

"Can you ride with me?"

We are just twelve days into December, but I have unintentionally met goals early by suddenly having the margin to invest energy I did not have before I listened and stopped.

I have been learning in this Year of Intentional that intentionality is not something that comes easy.

It can look great on a motivational poster.

It sounds really inspiring.

The reality...

It is really hard...

For me this year Intentional has met setting boundaries that protect my physical and emotional health and holding those boundaries even when it becomes uncomfortable.

Intentional has been saying no when the desire to please screams that I should say yes.

But as we come to the end of the year I feel like I am recognizing exactly how much this one word has changed my life.  

The word Intentional has taught me better self care and in teaching me that it has made me a better wife, mother and friend.

Being Intentional has helped me create margin so that I can slow down and listen just a little more closely for that holy whisper that says...

"I love you so much!"

Unforced Rhythms of Grace

Yesterday marked 5 years since I took the first steps away from my nursing career.  The Wednesday before Thanksgiving will mark five years since I last filled the position of Registered Nurse.  Leaving nursing was an idea that only made sense to my husband and myself.  It did not make sense.  I was two and a half months away from my wedding.  In our planning and wisdom we had decided that while I was feeling that God was leading me to leave nursing we would wait until we had been married a couple of months.  Our thought was that I would go to a part-time position and begin pursuing college classes that would prepare me for ministry.  

It was the perfect plan.... 

Until it wasn't.

I will never forget the moment I realized that all of the planning we had discussed meant nothing when God said it is time to leave.  

You see, I'm a detail person.  I find great joy in making the details work to accomplish a goal.  My first goal at that time was to make it through my wedding.  But God had decided that there were lessons to learn.  So we listened and I handed in my two weeks notice.  There were so many people that thought I was crazy.  I was quitting with no plan.  I sort of feel like I understand how Abraham felt as he packed up to leave his home country.  

Neighbor

"Hey, Abram, we see you are packing to leave.  Where are you headed?"

Abraham

"I'm not really sure.  I'm just suppose to leave"

Neighbor

"Dude, you are nuts!  Do you realize that there are heathens are out there?"

Abraham

"Yeah, but God said go..."

The crazy thing...

Within a week or two of my resignation at my job, our associate pastor at the church we were attending handed in his resignation.  As I was asked to fill his position as an interim I had my first taste of ministry.  While ultimately that position did not work out, it served to provide some valuable insight into what life in ministry would be like.  

As I've been thinking about that first step that began a rather crazy journey, it has struck me that November tends to be the month God consistently seems to call our family to follow him in crazy ways that test our faith.

Two years ago, after the position at the church had not worked out I was still working at a local optometrist office.  It wasn't nearly what I made in nursing, but it helped with the bills.  Then in November of 2015 God called us to the radical again...  He indicated that it was time to let go of that little part time job.  So after much prayer and with much trepidation, I once more handed in my resignation, letting go of the security that this job provided.  All of this as we were expecting our second daughter.  

Fast forward another two years and yet again in November, God has called me to let go of security again.  This one is a little fresh to share, but the truth in this situation is that I'm once again unsettled. While I can look at my past and see that each time we have moved in the direction that God has directed, He provides amazing opportunities that I never would have imagined.  

But still, I find myself standing once more at the abyss of the unknown.  I don't know what comes next...  I can't plan for the next step in my Bullet Journal.  I can't look at the details and connect them all in the right order.  Instead I have been called to wait.  Waiting is a nerve wracking place to be....  It is full of uncertainty and a fog clouds the future.  I can't see the next step right now...

I suppose it was likely a situation much like this that inspired 

Psalm 119:105 (NIV)

Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.

Right now, the words that I find bringing comfort to my uncertainty come from Matthew 11:28-30 in the Message:

"Are you tired?  Worn out?  Burned out on religion? Come to me.  Get away with me and you'll recover your life.  I'll show you how to take a real rest.  Walk with me and work with me--watch how I do it.  Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.  I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you.  Keep company with me and you will learn to live freely and lightly."

"Learn the unforced rhythms of grace."  

Part of me wants to force results.  I want to muscle through it forcing the details into a place where they work.  But deeper connection with God is not found in the busyness and white noise with which we surround ourselves.  It is found in the "unforced rhythms of grace".  

The truth is I am tired.  I'm exhausted in a soul deep way.  I desperately need the rest that God promises in this passage.  So for this season I find that the uncertainty points me to rest.  It points me to pull on those things that I lose sight of when I fill my life too full of the craziness.  I asks me to not just learn, but to remember what I have learned about the rhythms of grace God desires us to embrace and live out of freely and without burden.

Intentional Boundaries

"Boundaries define us.  

They define what is me and what is not me.  

A boundary shows me where I end and someone else begins..."   

~Henry Cloud

Can I be real for a minute?  Boundaries are really hard for me.  I really struggle with the feeling that I am failing in life when I set them.  I do not think I am necessarily alone here either.  I think we often associate boundaries with "mean" people.  You know those people who are the last to help anyone ever.  We think of boundaries as the meanest rendition of Ebenezer Scrooge.

God has been teaching me a lot about needing to establish boundaries over the past few years, but the last couple of months have felt like boot camp in boundary setting!  Which then results in incredible guilt that I am upsetting people....

"A boundary shows me where I end and someone else begins, 

leading me to a sense of ownership.

Knowing what I am to own and take responsibility for gives me freedom"

~Henry Cloud

Imagine the United States without state boundaries....
What kind of chaos exists in that scenario?
Now image each state without county boundaries....
Now think of you neighbors....
What happens if you neighborhood has no boundaries?
What if those property lines did not exist?
Who is responsible or weeding what flower bed?
Who is responsible to mow what part of the lawn?

Boundaries in real life help us recognize what we are responsible for maintaining.
This applies to the scenario of your neighborhood, but also to our personal life.
Boundaries help create order.

If you think about it God starts our story with boundaries.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth"
Genesis 1:1

God starts the story of all creation by defining two separate entities.
Heaven and Earth.
They have a distinct different role to play in the story that is beginning to unfold.
They have boundaries that set them apart from one another.

It is out of this story that creation continues all the way to you and I.
God created us distinctly separate.
God created us with natural physical boundaries.
The crazy thing is that God creates us with boundaries for a really good reason!

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:4-6:
"There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them.  There are different kinds of service, but the same LORD.  There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work."

So here is the amazing thing that God has been showing me about boundaries.
They are there so I do not have to do it all and be all things to all people.
It is humanly impossible for me to help everyone I want to help.
And that is ok.

Boundaries are God's way of encouraging me to recognize my limits and be the best version of the person he created me to be.
When I recognize and set my boundaries from a better understanding of how God created and gifted me, my boundaries will actually benefit others.
Those boundaries will keep me out of their gifting.
It will keep me from interfering in the lessons God is trying to teach them that I with my human understanding will try to "fix".

Healthy boundaries can create the opportunity for amazing community.

"Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it."
1 Corinthians 12:27

What happens if we each begin to recognize what our part in that body is and stop trying to the part of another?  What if rather than a group of people spread thin, the church begins to develop into a group of people living from their gifting and strength?  What kind of community do we begin to create?  How does it change how we share God's love with the world?

Intentional Love

My heart hurts today.  In the past four days, I have seen anger, bitterness and hatred run rampant.  I have heard words thrown as daggers at those we call friends, but who see the world differently from us.  I have watched as our country begins once more to take sides and wonder how after fighting a Civil War which was bloody and ugly have we come to this place once more as friends turn on one another in the aftermath of tragedy.

My heart goes out to the families who even now sit in hospital rooms with their loved one's, who were injured.  My heart breaks for the families that must make funeral preparations for a life cut short.  But the truth is that these figures are mere names to me.  I know nothing of their story.  I have no idea about what their favorite food was, whether they loved movies or a good book better.  What were their dreams?  What was their most embarrassing moment?  All of the things that make us human are things that I do not know about any of these people that I have read about over the weekend no matter what side with which they were aligned.

After college I visited Washington D.C.  the Vietnam Memorial was one of the "must see" places.  I remember visiting the wall and wanting so badly to experience emotion, but I felt a detached sadness.  I could appreciate the sacrifice of all of the lives represented on its long length, but I had no one represented in the letters carved onto the face of the stone.  It impacted how I experienced something that creates such an emotional experience for some.

Events like those our country has experienced in the past few days is similar to my experience in Washington D.C.  They happen someplace separate of ourselves and they can have the impact of a detached sadness or outrage because of the very same reason, we do not know the stories that go with the names.  This detachment allows us to label those faceless names and masses.  We lose sight of the very real fact that each and every one of them is someones father, brother, mothers, sister, son, daughter or friend.  They each have a story in the same way we have a story.

It takes an intentional attempt to be self-aware to view any of these people as more than faceless names on a paper.  It takes intentional effort to slow down one's reaction enough to act and speak in love rather than expressing anger brought on by our fear at those things out of our control.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love.

But the greatest of these is love.

~1 Corinthians 13:13

Paul reminds us in I Corinthians that love does not dishonor, nor is it self-seeking or quick to anger.  Rather it is patient and kind.  It loves and protects, trusts, hopes and perseveres.

The Gospel of John reminds us that God sent His Son out of love, not to condemn humankind, but to offer a means of reconciliation with Him (John 3:16-17).

Reconciliation...  Sounds hard doesn't it?  Reconciling with people who don't see things the same way we do...

Mother Teresa once said, "I have found the paradox, if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love"

What happens if each of us as individuals begin to love unconditionally like that?  What if when we experience hurt we make the intentional decision to love more?

The more I study Scripture the more I become convinced that the lasting power of Jesus ministry is not his miracles.  It is not his dynamic parables or even his resistance to the legalistic model of religion practiced by the Pharisees.

It was the strength of the love he practiced and taught.  

My husband shares a piece of wisdom from his counselor

 "Anger is fear trying to control something". 

I think we see that in full display in moments such as those we experienced as a nation this weekend.

We see it in our own reaction to these events.  It can be a little disheartening...  How are we suppose to deal with the anger that we experience from the varied perspectives that run rampant in the aftermath?  It can be so easy to become fearful and then to watch that quickly morphs into anger as we try to control the opinions of others, who think differently than we do.

There is no fear in love;

but perfect love casts out fear:

because fear has torment.

~1 John 4:15

The only true response to these events is love.  By all means hold your family and friends a little closer, but stretch out your arms to those who see the world differently from you.  The most effective way to defeat the anger that surrounds us is to overcome our fear with love.  When we learn to love people who see the world through a different lens, truly love them without the caveat of "maybe they'll come to see it my way", we embrace the love that Christ emulated for us.

The funny thing in Scripture is that we never really find out whether the woman Jesus saved from being stoned to death really left her life of adultery.  We do not see the full story of those that Jesus cast demons out of, but we seem to just assume that they walked away from their encounter with him changed.  That is the power of the strength of the love He demonstrated.  Even centuries later we feel the love in the pages of their stories and cannot help, but believe that they were forever changed by that encounter. 

So who can you intentionally choose to love this week? 

Today? 

This moment?

Relationships

Life has been crazy the last couple of weeks!

Oh, in one sense it is been that way because my husband had to travel for work.

But the other way it has been crazy is that I have interacted with multiple of my neighbors during this period!

Now this is huge because I am an introvert.

Sadly, I often have an intense desire to run into my house after extroverting myself for any period of time.  

This last week though, I decided to push myself to not do that so much.  Instead I began crossing the driveway away from the door to my house that was so enticing and instead I got to know my neighbors a little better.

Guess how much training that took?

None. Nada. Zilch. Zip. Zero.

Photo by Makole Photography

All it took was using the skills we learn as children.

It always stands out to me in Scripture, how much we try to complicate the messages of Jesus.

Matthew 18:3 says:

"Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, 

you will never enter the kingdom of heaven"

I have often heard this verse spun to emphasize the humility we are suppose to demonstrate as believers.

That sounds good, but if we go back and look at what is going on around this verse we start to see that this verse is more radical than humility!

This verse is set in the middle of a community that is dominated by the Roman Empire.

The Roman Empire was an environment where position was valued.  

Throughout the Gospels, we see examples of tax-collectors, these were Jews who turned on their own for position with the Roman government.  

We see the Sadducees, who cemented their position by social, political and religious means.

Into this society comes Jesus' disciples with the question "Who, then is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" (Matthew 18:1b)

When Jesus calls a child to him to answer this question it is a radically different message than society has presented.  All around them his disciples are seeing a struggle for power.  Into that struggle for greatness comes Jesus, who points them to a child.

I have a soon to be 3 year old and a 1 year old.  

At our house we are constantly living in the world of a child.  

Do you know how uncomplicated that world is?
Somehow as we become adults things change.

There are now complex steps and formulas for making friends.

Social class does not effect them.

I took my 1 year old to the grocery store yesterday and everyone was a friend to wave at no matter what they looked like, how old they were or what position they held in society.

Somehow over time we seem to have complicated the idea of relationship.  

We have books and formulas telling us how to use this skills we developed as a child that we have lost as adults.

We have complex formulas for how to make disciples.

We rate people on scales creating a hierarchy to determine how we "should" relate to them.

We approach relationships in a detached formal manner, completely forgetting that these words for the disciples are for us also...

"Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, 

you will never enter the kingdom of heaven"

What happens if we forget the formulas and charts?

What happens if we discard the hierarchy?

What happens if we just start waving to people in the grocery story like a 1 year old?

What happens if we follow the example of a 3 year old and ask everyone we meet there name?

Ok, so maybe that might be a little creepy for adults, but what if we start by being aware?

What if we start by setting the goal to find one person wherever we go to say hi and learn their name?

Will we do it perfectly?  Probably not, but if we get it just some of the time we give our forgotten relational muscles a work-out.

One small way to start is to walk away from your door the next time you get home and walk toward the neighbor, who just got home also.

Embracing Change

This weekend marked a series of changes in my life.

I have a love-hate relationship with change.

Sometimes I love it because it can be exciting. 

Change can mark exciting new adventures.

Or it can be the result of really painful endings.

This week saw me walk up a set of steps in a building that has held both great joy and nearly unbearable pain.  

It was a building where I met my husband, but also the building where poorly chosen words have resulted in incredible pain that I find myself still battling.

I find myself a little surprised at the bittersweet feelings that came from the last walk up those steps.

You see, the pain is familiar.  

I've just adjusted to it and life without it scares me a little.

The emotions that I experienced exiting that building for the last time surprised me.

I thought I would experience relief, but instead there was sadness and fear.

Sadness that things had not ended differently.

Sadness at ending a chapter of my life.

Even if I have cause to walk through the door of this building again, it will not be the same.

That is where the fear comes in to play.

Change can be scary.

I had learned to cope with the pain, but coping is not the same as healing.

To heal there are moments when we have to let go of what is familiar,

We must let go so that the old life we were comfortable with does not infect the new life that God is calling us to embrace.

At the same time that I was closing this old chapter, a new chapter was opening;

The chapter that screams community.

As one door closed another opened,

This door made me realize that sometimes the old things we hold on to out of comfort actually prevent us from seeing the new life that God is inviting us into.

In having daily contact with this chapter that needed to close I was distracted.

Within an hour of closing that door, I began to change.  

I started to see the community around me differently.

I began to engage differently.

I was no longer torn between the old and the new.

See I am doing a new thing!

Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the wilderness

and streams in the wastelands

Isaiah 43:19 

The reality is that God was doing a new thing in my life, but I was not fully absorbing it.

In the time I had been mourning lost friendships and the change that had felt forced on me, God was providing sources of life and connection all around me.

While Isaiah 43:19 encourages us to look for the new thing that God is doing, just as important for me was verse 18:

Forget the former things;

Do not dwell on the past.

The fear that change brings for me can make me idealize the past.

I can find myself focusing on what I have "lost" to the point I completely miss the exciting new things that God is creating around me.

Some of my exciting new is the discovery that one of my oldest daughter's best friends in daycare was actually the son of someone my husband knew from his childhood.

Another little boy at our new daycare who is close in age to our youngest is the son of one of my brother-in-law's good friends.

All of the sudden connections and community begin to develop within hours of closing a chapter.  

Change can be terrifying, but if we choose to hold sacred the former things we knew 

and to dwell on the past we will completely miss the streams that God is providing in what can seem to our limited perspective to be a wasteland.

But have you ever thought about what happens when you begin to introduce the life-giving source of water to a wasteland?

The opportunity is given for life to begin.

What can look to our past-clouded vision to be a wasteland is to God an empty canvas of endless possibilities, but it requires stepping away from the familiar and embracing the change of the wilderness and the wasteland.

What change is God trying to introduce in your life?

Does is scare you to death?

You're not alone if it does!

Intentional Battles

Photo Courtsey of Makole Photography



When I started my year with the word Intentional I do not think I anticipated the crazy turns it would take! In January, I knew my life needed focus and thought that this would be the way God used the word for me.


Fast forward to this the last week of July and I am discovering that Intentional goes so much deeper than I thought!
Being Intentional is not just about planning your day down to the last second.
It is not just about how you spend your money or how much time you spend watching TV.


Intentional means being aware.
Intentional means choosing wisely.
Intentional means recognizing your resources are limited.
Intentional means saying no to good things for the best things.
Intentional also means being willing to make really hard choices.
In this season of life being Intentional means examining what battles are worth fighting.


One of my favorite scenes from Lord of the Rings is Sam's speech to Frodo.


Sam: It's like in the great stories Mr Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end its only a passing thing this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines it'll shine out the clearer. Those were the stories that stayed with you, that meant something ever if you were too small to understand why. But I think Mr. Frodo, I do understand, I know now folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They keep going because they were holding on to something.

Frodo: What are we holding onto, Sam?

Sam: That there's good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for.


Have you ever thought about all of the battles we fight?
We live in a broken world and it is inevitable that we will fight.
We fight with our friends, siblings, parents, children.
We fight with our spouses.
We fight addictions and depression.
We fight insecurities and jealousy.


But do we ever ask ourselves what is worth fighting for?


That is the lesson I have been learning about being Intentional.
Every battle we fight takes something out of us.
It takes resources both physical and emotional.
It takes attention away from other things.


So when you begin to intentionally fight battles you start to intentionally invest energy.
That is life changing!


An interesting exercise both my husband and I did recently is a values sheet.
We sat down and as individuals wrote out our values.
The blog Minimal Wellness has a great sheet to use for this.
You can check the post that helped us and get your own values sheet here.


Knowing our values is helping me personally, but also us as a couple start to streamline how we choose our battles.


When you value something then it becomes something worth fighting for.

What do you value?

Intentional Vulnerability

Yesterday we met with a financial planner.  Not because we have unlimited wealth and resources, but to help us prioritize and achieve some personal goals for our family.  Now just making it to the office was huge for me.  I have major panic attacks related to money discussions, but there I was sitting in an office discussing our budget with a financial planner.  I did great in the office and then on the way home in the car by myself I dissolved into tears.  I became incredibly angry with my husband over some innocent comments and I was so frustrated with myself because of my reactions.  It is only today that I finally realized why I had the reaction I did....  

I had made the choice to be vulnerable.

You see...

I set up the appointment.  We had tried doing this a few times before, but my panic attacks had ended up in us finally taking it off the calendar.  I was the one to re-initiate this meeting.  I told my husband I could handle it and then when the tears showed up afterwards I was angry at myself for a perceived weakness.  

I don't know about you, but letting someone look at my mess is something I avoid at all cost! 

I want to look like the ideal little family of four.  All put together and perfect.  I mean we all know it is not true for any one of us, but we still want that to be how others see us, right?  

And so comes our financial planner into the mess that is our budget.  We might not be swimming in debt, but our budget is the thing that we have wrangled with since we got married.  It feels sort of like trying to wrestle a greased pig....  Sometimes we have it and then it slips and gets away again.  So we decided to enlist the help of a coach.  

Enter vulnerability....

To invite someone in to look at how you spend you money, where you have debt and what you haven't even thought about preparing for is hard.  You open yourself up to fear of judgment.  

Theirs and your own.  

Recognizing the way this makes you vulnerable has made me look at my life to realize that this meeting yesterday, even with my meltdown which lasted less than an hour, was one step in a series of choices to be vulnerable.

The thing about choosing to be vulnerable is that you open yourself up.

Sometimes it is to rejection. 

Other times is it to new or deeper relationships.

My life lately has been a series of choices to be vulnerable.  

To let people into my story in a different way.

There were some who ended the conversation.

They walked away uninterested in understanding me better

 or going deeper in our relationship.

There were others though, who met me in my vulnerability.

They tackled the hard issues that I was wrestling with or just sat and listened and then shared part of their story.

Vulnerability drew us closer.

Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another:

'What! You too?

I thought I was the only one.'

~C.S. Lewis

Vulnerability is something that as humans we fear.

We fear the rejection that will come from some when we open up, but when we live in that fear we miss what happens when someone says,

"What! You too?  I thought I was the only one."

Vulnerability provides the opportunity for us to see who genuinely wants to share our journey and who merely is there because it is convenient.  

Vulnerability allows us to recognize when boundaries are necessary.

Vulnerability moves us closer to the heart of God.

One of the things I think we can miss in the story of Christ is that at the moment of his death he was stripped bare.  He was exposed to anyone and everyone.   

When they had crucified him, they divided up his clothes by casting lots.

~Matthew 27:35

There were people who chose to mock.  There were people who chose to desert him.  There were also those who chose to draw closer.  Vulnerability is tied irrevocably to the story of Christ.  Letting someone into our messy life is the only way we truly heal.  

If we let them the fears that keep us from practicing vulnerability will destroy us.  They will isolate us and restrict us to "safe" relationships that never challenge us.  If we push past our fears and begin to practice vulnerability though, we find those with shared experiences.  Some will join us where we are on our journey and others will show us how to make it through the parts that we are unsure of the path.  

Vulnerability builds community.

Embracing Brokenness

One of the crazy things I am learning in this phase of life is that sometimes I do not always understand why God directs our lives the way He does.  Why does he direct one person to go while telling another to stay and fight?  Why does He allow some people to experience unimaginable abuse?  Why does He not step in and just "fix" things?

To be honest these are questions I struggle with a lot.  On a personal level I have questioned many times why the direction for me was "Leave now" while another person heard "Stay a  little longer".  Why are my experiences in church different from other peoples?  In some ways I envy the person with incredible happy memories of church camp with friends, youth conventions and end of summer pool parties with friends.  That was not my experience.  And so I question.... "Why God?  Why are our experiences so different?"  

I am in introvert.  I take vast amounts of information and process it internally.  I probably overanalyze  any given situation trying to make sense out of it.  My counselor often challenges me with the question "Why does it need to make sense".  I think over time I have learned that sometimes that can be my way of trying to cope with incredible pain.  Other times it can be an overdeveloped need to take responsibility for everything that happens in my sphere of influence.  

Don't get me wrong.  We need to evaluate from a healthy place what we are responsible for, but the reality is that we are not responsible for everything.  There are two people in every relationship.  All we can do is identify and recognize what we are responsible for.  

So what happens when life doesn't make sense?

Well, that is where waiting and faith come in.

One of my favorite stories in Scripture, is the story of Elijah.  Immediately following this amazing victory over the prophets of Baal, where God sends fire from heaven.  We see Elijah running from the queen and hiding in a cave.  

What follows for Elijah is a period of rest and restoration after which he is sent to first a brook to be fed by ravens and later to a penniless widow and her son.  

Can you imagine what trusting God looked like for Elijah?  

He had to think God was insane!

First you are telling me that birds are going to feed me, and not any bird, but a bird that eats roadkill?

And then you are going to send me to the most needy people in the country for food?

I think that is the beautiful thing I'm learning in this season of life.  When life doesn't make sense.... That is when God creates his greatest work!

The part of Elijah's story that has captured my attention in the last few years, however, is the fact that to follow God with complete faith and confidence, Elijah had to rest and listen.

God's voice is often heard best in or after moments of quiet and rest.  

The world clamors for our attention every moment of every day!  

The thing I have learned about myself is that the quiet and stillness grounds me.  

It allows me the opportunity to connect with God on a deeper level and gives me confidence that I do not naturally have to move forward and stand my ground on what I know to be right.  

At the same time it allows me the space to hear and question God for the things I might not fully understand.  

The truth I am learning is that when something is broken, it is in pieces.  It can be incredibly difficult to put back together and it requires patience and time to fully reconstruct.

We live in a broken world, so of course life doesn't make sense.

When God says "leave" He can be directing you away from the thing that would completely break you will and spirit.  A will and spirit that He designed you with for a holy purpose.  When he tells others to "stay" He knows that this is an area that they were designed to take on.  

The different roles we play in life do not mean that one of us is less than another.  God created us all with a intricate design that only He fully understands.  We live in a broken world and we live as broken versions of our true selves.  God's greatest desire is to see us become the true self He designed us to be.  If we try to force our lives back together with glue and sheer will power we will break crucial parts of ourselves.  When we listen closely and let God direct the re-assembly of our sin-broken lives, we can begin to see how He created us.  

God sent us His Son, Jesus, as an example of what an unbroken life looks like, but all of our personal breaks are in different places.  If we look to one another for the way to "fix" our brokenness we will forever remain broken.  We are looking into a clouded mirror.  When we look to God for our healing, we begin to examine the person we were intended to be.  We can invite Him in to walk through our own story.  When we do that we see all the places that He was with us when we felt alone and isolated.  We find that He surrounded us with just the people we needed for that moment in our healing.  As we examine our story through God's eyes we begin to correctly re-assemble the broken pieces of our lives and it is in that we find our true selves as God designed us.

Intentional Communion

When you hear the word communion if you have any exposure to faith you likely think instantly of the solemn ritual of the Last Supper where Jesus shares his final meal with his small group of followers.  

Or maybe you think of it as some solemn "quiet time" where you spend a set amount of time reading Scripture.  

That one is torture for me!

Yep, I will own it, I am called to ministry.  Pursuing a degree in Biblical Studies and reading my Bible in some ritualist expected fashion is worse than the Spanish Inquisition for me!

I suppose it could be because I instinctively associate not "reading your Bible" enough or as expected with the threat of punishment it held for me as a child. 

 Seriously!  I remember as young as 8 or 9 years of age, sitting in "chapel" at the school I attended trying to determine which story I could pull from memory enough if someone decided to grill me on my "quiet time" that morning.  I do not really remember if that ever actually happened to anyone around me, but it was definitely a fear for me.

Sadly, that concept of being punished for not spending enough time with God has overshadowed a lot of my adult life.

Communion:

The sharing or exchanging of intimate thoughts and feelings, especially when the exchange is on a mental or spiritual level.

Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it.  Then you will be prosperous and successful.

Joshua 1:8

Blessed is the one... whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night

Psalm 1:1-2

There are things that are starting to reshape my perception of what communion looks like.  Rather than a set number of verses or making my way through a year long devotional, I am discovering communion with God in moments of spiritual whitespace.

My brain retains concepts rather than exact information.  I connect concepts in Scripture to real life and I am starting to recognize that I do this in a way that is supported in Scripture!  From the early days of Israel's inception as a nation, Joshua is reminding them to mediate on God's word.  

Just reading it, only creates a mere string of words.  Meditating on it creates opportunity.  Opportunity to share and exchange thoughts and ideas with the God, who created us.  Opportunity to ask how any one verse of Scripture applies to me personally.  Opportunity for self-discovery as we allow ourselves to find pieces of our story in the stories of David, Paul and even Jesus.

For some the ritual of reading a set number of Scriptures each day for a certain period works.  It ensures that they have moments of time set aside to connect with God.  For so long I have held myself up to that model, feeling like a complete and utter failure because for me it doesn't work.  The reality I am learning is that there is no magic formula for connecting with God on a daily basis.  It looks different for all of us.  I can read one passage and dissect it for two weeks!  Others need to get the idea and move on.  Still others need to commit the verse to memory word for word.  

The thing I am learning in this season of life is that communion with God looks different for all of us.  There is no perfect model.  It has a unique look and feel for each and every person because God meets us where we are.  

Mine looks like a marinade.  

What does yours look like?  

If you don't know if yours is working or want to try something new, I would like to invite you to join me in reading Whispers of Rest by Bonnie Gray.  It is a 40 day devotional and there is even a book club you can join!

Intentional Community

I'm discovering in our season of life that having a toddler, who just happens to be an extrovert opens the door to endless possibilities.  

Our Myka loves people and she loves for her people to feel connected. 

I become the recipient of that when I pick her up at daycare and she needs to introduce me to her friends and their mommies and daddies.

On our family walks in the community nearly every adult we meet must be mommy or daddy's friend.  It's an interesting perspective to have, but not exactly new.  

There are no strangers here; 

Only friends you haven't yet met.

~William Butler Yeats~

It seems like a lot of the past few years for me have been a search for community.

The places I thought I once belonged no longer have space for me.

The relationships I once held dear did not survive change.

And so my community was turned upside down and inside out and my life started to feel a little like Alice in Through the Looking Glass.

Through my daughter I am starting to realize how narrow my view of community had become.

When I worked as a nurse in downtown Indianapolis, I had diverse friendships.  I regularly interacted and shared life with people, who were different from me.

They were different races and cultures.  

They had different political and social viewpoints.  

My community was diverse and I learned and grew as I shared life with people much different.  

Then circumstances changed and I instead found myself for about a year and a half surrounded with people who saw the world in a very similar fashion.  

On the backside of that I see the danger that is present in that scenario.  

I became stale, unchallenged.  

It was not necessary to think too far outside of the box I was in and was even discouraged at times if I tried to go too far outside of what was familiar.

In my safe group of like minded people, I became comfortable.

Then something happened and I no longer fit in.  

I still am not entirely sure what happened that caused a break.

Maybe it was job loss, maybe it was becoming disillusioned.

What ever it was, close relationships gradually disappeared and I had to search for what was important in my life.

After my second daughter, Eden, was born, I remember distinctly recognizing that I had begun to once more find myself challenged by relationships with people who were not like me and in doing that I once more found true community.

When we look for community in only like minded people, we run a risk.  

We risk losing our souls for the sake of belonging to a particular group.  We will eventually sacrifice what holds value to us to remain a part of this group.  We create restricted community, you only "fit" if you "fit" our idea of community.  At the end of the day it doesn't matter how much you say you want to engage others, your choices show by the blend of the community with which you identify.

The last six weeks of school have had me digging in deeply to the book of Acts.  Examining the first church and the leaders in that movement have had me soul-searching.  I suppose in some ways it made me open to the lessons God was using my nearly three year old, Myka to teach me.  The first church without the Gentiles was at risk.  If they only remained a community of Jewish believers, they ran the risk of traditional Jewish culture distorting the message of Christ.  So God moved the leaders of this fledging group to reach out to the Gentiles.  Peter, Paul and even James end up advocating for the Gentiles to be included.  They begin to challenge the "Jewish way" of doing things and instead focusing on the message that God desires to spread to the ends of the earth.  This creates a radical change in the first church and broadens the sense of community beyond the boundaries of the Jewish culture.

When we live in community the way God intends, it will look messy.  We will be surrounded by people who see the world differently.  We will be challenged by people from different cultures and with different customs.  We will find people who are on different sides regarding various political and social issues.  We might find our beliefs challenged.  

That is a good thing!  

When we allow it community will grow us and if we let it, community might even become family.  

When Being Intentional Hurts....

Intentional found me in a strange way this weekend.  

I try to be really careful about how full we fill our weekends and usually since my husband, Dustin, and I discuss pretty much all of our plans before committing we are pretty good at catching when we start to overbook.  

This weekend did not look that full going into it, but somehow by the time Sunday hit we were on empty.

Sometimes it isn't the activity as much as it is the emotional state in which we enter the weekend.

Friday was a girls night at our house were some friends came over for a Thirty-One party I had decided to have.  It was amazing and something that I had not even realized my heart desperately needed!  

Saturday, we celebrated the fact that our little Eden turns 1 this week!  It was so amazing to have our family and friends celebrate our baby girl!  Of course a last minute venue change due to rain and the need to come up with a way to entertain the toddlers and kids that were present added a little stress.  In retrospect though I can recognize that God's timing is crazy and even extends to the little things as just that Sunday a friend at church had passed on a great obstacle style toy that was a huge hit!

By the time we hit Sunday, however, my personal resources had been exhausted...

This time each year our church has a picnic.  It's such a great and relaxing time, a change from the normal and this year we were adding outdoor worship.  I prepped food the night before and we made it all the way to the parking lot only to realize that I was so exhausted I was on the verge of a panic attack.  Panic attacks are frustrating for me since I cannot exactly predict them.  They pop up at the most inopportune times and at times like this get in the way of things I genuinely want to do.

So there I am standing in the parking lot, hearing Dustin say we needed to leave to give me space, but I was torn.  I wanted to desperately to go, but deep inside I knew he was right.  I've had the panic attacks happen in church situations and its really hard and not the atmosphere you really want to bring to a party.  So we got back in the car and left.  To make things crazier we made it all the way back to our house for our 2 /12 year old to declare she was not ready to be at home!  And so we left home, got lunch and went to the park for a walk and time on the playground.  And that was where I found the peace my soul was begging for.  Time in nature.  Exploring a place that is dear to our family.  

The truth.... To think about not being able to be part of our church family Sunday still hurts.  I love seeing my littles play with the children of friends.  I love the sense of family and belonging.  

Belonging....

It's the feeling we all have.  We want to belong.  It's why we join any variety of groups.

One of the things that I have become acutely aware of this last week.  I want to belong.  I have an indescribable fear of isolation.

I'm an introvert, but I crave relationships.  

It's a strange place to be where I need those moments with only me, but at the same time I don't want to be completely alone.

I feel the loss of friendships and relationships at a soul deep level.  I find myself mourning them long after I have accepted the ending was inevitable.

The reality though is that from the very beginning of time God intended for us to live in relationship. In creating man, God declares in Genesis 2:18 that it is not good that man is alone and he creates woman.  We were not designed to live in solitude.  We were designed for relationship.  Jesus spends his ministry not alone, but in relationship with a group of twelve disciples, but often we forget that he also called Lazarus, Mary and Martha friend.

I so often can lose focus and feel isolated by the things I feel I miss, the relationships that people walked away from, the Sunday picnic's I missed.  I can forget the birthday parties people show up for, my amazing friends, who are only a text away.  

So what does intentional, isolation and belonging have in common?

This weekend I learned that it was the reality was I needed my people in smaller groups.  Intentional meant I had to leave the party for others and find relationship in smaller groups.  It by no means meant that I was isolated.  I had friends surrounding me, but being intentional in these instances means being self-aware or surrounding yourself with a support system that tells you when it's time to stop and regroup.

Intentional means saying no to the fear of isolation and recognizing that sometimes its ok to leave the party to other people for the day.

Life is a Series of Intentional Choices

Today I made a choice.

Rather than my usual trip to Starbucks to do my assignments for class, I stayed home. 

I went onto our back deck and that is where I chose to do my work for the day.

Before tackling that work, however, I made another choice.

I chose to pick up two of the books I am currently reading and I chose to read one chapter in each before starting my work for the day.

The truth I am coming to realize more fully in this season of my life is that life is a series of intentional choices.  

Whether we own intentionality consciously or not, our lives are made up of intentional choices that we make every day.

It seems like my entire life has been focused on productivity.

In school - Make good grades.

At work - Be the one everyone can depend on.

At church - Be the one that never says no, after all the greatest examples we have of Christ-followers are martyrs... right?

I am beginning to recognize that one of the greatest blessings in my life is my oldest daughter.

Not it's not that I love my youngest any less, but expecting my oldest daughter became the means by which God began to break down the lies I have lived with for most of my life.

When we discovered we were expecting Myka, I was stretched to my breaking point.

My health was impacted by pregnancy...

My emotions were raw from extremely difficult situation I was dealing with...

We were moving into a house that needed a lot of TLC

and over the course the my pregnancy 

several relationships began to change leaving me with an incredible feeling of loss as I tried to hold on because being alone scared me.

All of this was so much to handle emotionally and physically,

Myka was the way God began to teach me about choosing intentionally.

Two years later when we found out we were expecting Eden I was much more intentional with how I managed my health, emotions and time.

Sometimes I am hard on myself because I think that things should happen more quickly than they do, but I am noticing that it is actually the small intentional choices we make and not the grandiose life changing decisions that truly impact the fabric of our lives.

Shortly after Myka was born I met our neighbor over the back fence.  Over the past nearly 3 years we have chatted, shared life in small ways and mourned together over the loss of our beautiful flowers last summer!  

The last few weeks as the weather has improved, we have been working in our yard, trying to make a restful and peaceful place to relax.

We have visited with those same neighbors learning more about this little section of town we all call home.

As this has happened not only have we started to get to know our neighbors better, Myka started a friendship.  She now heads out to the back fence to see if she can find her "friend" to visit with when she is playing in the yard. 

The first time Myka ran to the back fence calling for "anybody" her friends, I had a realization...

In a 2017 way, I am living the dream I had as a little girl...

As a pre-teen, I devoured books from the 1950's...

I dreamed of a life where my friends came over or you visited with the neighbors across the back fence.

I dreamed of walking around town, walking to the store and having the shops and restaurants where people recognized you.

As an adult, I had given up on that dream...

It's just not the world we live in anymore...

And then I realized that by intentional choices over four years of marriage, 

that's exactly the life I am living.

It looks different, but I can walk to a market right down the street from our house.

I visit a local coffee shop, where people know me.

I can visit restaurants on Main Street just a few blocks from our house and find people I know.

We all make intentional choices....

We choose to not go against the status quo...

Or we choose to ask if there is a better way?

We choose to meet our neighbor and get to know them...

Or we choose to hide in our homes and behind our privacy fences.

We choose to engage in and get to know our community...

Or we operate out of what we think we know about those who surround us.

We make choices every day.

We intentionally chose everyday.

Sometimes I am learning it takes years to see what exactly those choices produce,

but they will produce something.

I encourage you to take a moment today.

Look at past choices and present choices.

Are your intentional choices creating the life you want to live?

I'd love to hear what Intentional choices you and your family are making!

Please share in a comment!

Lessons from Holy Week

So it is Monday, April 17, 2017, the day after Easter.

I find myself with an interesting question today...

How did Easter change you?

Now that the new outfits are no longer new and back in the closet,

Now that the Seder meals and Good Friday services are over,

Now that the eggs are collected and emptied and bowls and baskets of candy liter the landscape of our homes, 

How have we been changed?

As someone who identifies as a Christ follower, I experienced this Holy Week in a very unusual way this year.

Maybe it is the reality of being in seminary and being required to direct passages of Scripture on a weekly basis...

Maybe it is just my inquisitive nature, that wants to learn and understand...

I think it is more likely that it is all of the above and even more importantly the stage of my own personal journey and our family's lifestyle choices.

I watched this week as many friends celebrated traditions that have deep roots in the history of religion.  

I saw invitations to Good Friday services, Egg Hunts and pictures of Maundy Thursday services and Seder Meals.  

As each of these things captured my attention, many of them things I have taken part of in the past, I found myself searching for the lesson for meaning.

As I saw statistics pour across my computer screen in the days leading up to Easter regarding the need for one final push to invite people to church in any way possible, I felt confused...

Inviting people to church is not a bad thing...

I believe in sharing the amazing message of what God through Christ has done for all of us...

So why does it all feel off?

As I started to examine and ask questions about this Holy Week we were celebrating I realized something when I started to ask the question:

 "What was Jesus trying to do during this time we are commemorating?"

I found an interesting answer.  What we call Easter was about the resurrection, yes, but more importantly it was about a New Beginning.  When Jesus went away, life would never be the same for those who had shared those three years of his ministry with Him.  What we celebrate as Holy Week was never solely about the end goal of the Resurrection.  It was about preparing those closest to Him for life after He was gone.  It was Jesus pouring one last piece of Himself into those that He loved and who had been chosen to carry on His work.

And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten saying "This cup which is poured our for you is the new covenant in my blood..."

Luke 22:19

When I started to think about this I realized how little Easter has impacted me in the past.  It is a day on the Christian calendar that I have celebrated the fact that the Resurrection saved ME from MY sins.  Yes, there was some minor concern about others, but it was always with some thought in my head that then they will be on a level with ME when they see their need for Christ.

I honestly do not think I'm alone in this.

As I reflected on Holy Week with this in mind, I started to see that one more my word for 2017 has impacted my life in an interesting way...
In becoming Intentional about the way we use our resource of time, we ended up with a Holy Week that looked like this:

This year on Maundy Thursday, we got out of our Hobbit Hole...

We went for a walk around our community....

We talked to people...

We were forever changed in the way we see some parts of our town.

On Good Friday we again got out...

We ate in a restaurant with people we did not know...

We shared smiles and laughs as our 2 year old attempted to entertain the entire restaurant by randomly belting out Moana songs...

We now share a part of our story with these strangers, however brief.

On Saturday, we joined our community at the park for an Egg Hunt...

We visited with people in line...

We shared knowing smiles and laughs with other parents at the restlessness of our massive line of toddlers and infants under 3, anxiously waiting to get to the field full of eggs...

We came to know our community a little better.

Easter Sunday, I was baptized...
I was recognizing the need to have more symbolic break with some pieces of my past that held painful memories.
What better time than Easter to symbolically follow Christ example of death to an old life, but resurrection to a new identity in Him?

This year, I had the realization that like anything, the only true and lasting value that Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter hold is if we allow them to change us.
We can continue the same celebrations every year, but they are mere traditions if in the end we only take away an emotional feeling in the moment.

The true lessons that are held in the Holy Week are found if we stop looking to just the surface traditions and dig deeper to ask what is Jesus really trying to teach here?
Why is His last supper with the disciples so important?
What are we suppose to learn from the last moments Jesus shares with those closest to Him?
 We are given a somber reminder that we are all capable of being like Judas, sharing life with Jesus, but never letting Him truly change us.

So what did you learn from Holy Week this year?
I would love to hear in a comment!