Musings on #nospendOctober

So we are past the halfway point of our #nospendOctober.  We're surviving it....  Although we did discover that due to some unexpected things we had to alter it after the first couple of weeks.  We discovered that for some crazy reason, I wasn't able to study quite the same way if I didn't have my study sessions at Starbucks.  So we decided to add that particular luxury back in.  The scramble to try to do the studying in the house all of the time was just too much.  The library didn't seem to work very well.  Crazy, right?  I think I might get distracted by all of the other books begging to be browsed there so studying becomes difficult. 

I haven't been very successful at accomplishing all of the cool little organizational and cleaning challenges that Ruth at Living Well, Spending Less put together as part of the #31DaysLWSZ challenge.  I had to give up on that after the kitchen!  While I dream of organizing Myka's room, clearing out paperwork and cleaning out the bathroom closet, alas those items will have to wait until another time.  

Another thing I discovered last week is one way I tend to take some Spiritual Whitespace for myself is to grab lunch out on my lunch break once a week and go to the park.  After about 2 weeks of not doing that, I crashed.  I got to Friday last week and wanted to disolve into tears!  We decided that this was an acceptable compromise to the dining out budget, since eating at work can be a little challenging.  

My husband is much better at this no spend thing than I am.  That said I'm pretty sure he's planning a flea market binge November 1st....  In one way I'm glad we tried it.  On the other hand I'm ready for it to be over.  I haven't started counting days, hours minutes, seconds (mainly because that's math and it gives me a headache....), but I'm ready to be done with this particular challenge.  While it has helped us reset priorities, I'm quite tired of asking the question of does spending this money violate our no spend agreement.  I'm even questioning whether it has the same impact it does for us that it does for others since I hear us saying a lot of "we'll get it when #nospendOctober is over".  

I don't think I exactly regret this trial month of no spending, but I do think I expected different results when we started.  Maybe trying it when you are in school, are actively working through some heavy "stuff" in counseling and have a 1 year old presents a different set of challenges that make it just a little more than I think I care to take on again anytime soon.  Don't get me wrong I think it's an amazing idea.  But it's difficult in different ways from what I expected.  In retrospect I think I start to see this challenge as a great way to deal with our need for things.  I think maybe part of the reason this challenge is different for us is that we don't really have the ties to material things the way we did at one time.  We like to purchase the furniture, home decor and things that make our house uniquely ours, but we were already taking the question of do we genuinely need it?  Do we have a place for it?  What do we need to get rid of if we buy it?  before taking the challenge.  I think in that respect the challenge hasn't served the purpose intended.  So while I don't see myself jumping on board to do this challenge again anytime soon after we finish this month out, one thing I have learned is about extending myself grace.

When I was the one we needed to make exceptions for I felt like a failure.  Like somehow I was the reason this wasn't going to succeed.  After my time with God on Friday though, I came away with a different perspective.  In choosing to eat out that one time a week so I could go spend my lunchtime with God, it changes that lunch hour from something inward focused to using the resources around us (even if it's Burger King) to allow God to draw us closer to Him.  Rather than grabbing food because I'm running crazy, we chose to allot resources to provide an opportunity for some Spiritual Whitespace.  Can I share that after a two week absence from the trail I like to walk on my lunch, I cried?  In the "rules" of our #nospendOctober my heart had taken a huge hit.  I was following the rules so well that I had ignored for two full weeks what my heart was begging for.  I kept pushing through trying to do the task perfectly, not letting my heart be heard.  

I think that's the danger of challenges, church programs and all of the activities we use to fill our lives.  We are so busy trying to do all of them perfectly and not fail at any of them that we miss hearing our hearts beg for what they need.  So can I ask you to join me today?  Take some time out.  Say no to the craziness of life and let yourself hear your heart.  Take more than just five minutes away from the activity and let your heart hear from God in the stillness.  Introvert, extrovert, we both need those moments of stillness for our hearts to hear our Father.

Learning About Myself

It's funny how many posts I've written between this one and my last one that I could never bring myself to hit the publish button on.  I'm not completely for sure why unless its that in the end they seemed to just be the jumble of thoughts in my head that only made sense to me.  

The last few weeks have been hard to describe for me.  There's been a lot of internal wrestling as I've sorted through various things I've been discovering about myself.  I mentioned in one of my last posts about a program I had just started to try called Dressing Your Truth.  I loved the idea behind this program that a blogger I follow shared.  The more I looked into it the more I liked the idea that I could dress in a way that instantly began to inform others who I am.  The idea that certain colors, textures, shapes all can compliment the way God created me and the gifts he's given me was definitely something that appealed to me.  

I think what I did not expect going into this is that it would open the door on some things from the past I'd pushed way back into the recesses of my memory.  As I began the process of embracing who I was created to be in a more visible way I discovered that there were things over the years I have loved that I've not allowed myself to experience.  I shut them off and pushed them to the side for years because I felt it made me look weak or less than others.

The creator of Dressing Your Truth refers to four energy types.  I struggled with that a little at first, but then I realized that like so many words in our vocabulary, the word energy has various meanings.  In this application the definition of forcefulness of expression seems to fit the best.  So as I explored the types of energy or expression that she outlined from her years of study I discovered (at first much to my chagrin) that I fit into the Type 2 Energy or Expression.  What this means for me is that I express myself in more subtle and softer ways.  I'm not the life of the party, but I won't be hiding in the corner from everyone either.  I'll find myself a small group that I can feel connected and comfortable around and those are my people for the night.  

It's crazy because I've spent so much of my life thinking that I needed to be more extroverted and that I needed to be all things to all people when all along I was created with the purpose of connecting in smaller more detailed ways.  It's interesting for me because some of the difficult moments that have come out of the last few years start to be explained as I looked into my type of expression more.  I realized that one of my strengths becomes seeing and recognizing unhealth in situations in the earliest stages.  The fact that I'm sensitive when used in the right way can help uncover the little things that will keep something from moving forward in a healthy way that allows for growth.  I start to see the reasons that I instinctively knew over the years it was time to remove myself from a particular situation.  It was part of a gift I've been given as opposed to a crazy emotional roller coaster I was on.  

As a little bookworm over the years I've read The Five Love Languages, I've taken Personality tests, DISC profiles and anytime someone posts a test on Facebook I usually end up taking it always wanting to learn more about myself.  I've often struggled if I didn't get the results I viewed as more positive expressions, but now I'm beginning to see the strength in the answers I've gotten over the years.  I've started to explore ways that I can live out of my strengths as opposed to merely wanting the energy/expression that someone else has.  It's so funny how they all begin to come together and form a picture titled TONYA when I start to look through the lens of I was created with a unique set of gifts and talents and God gave me all the tools I need to be the best version of me from day 1.  

All of this causes me to reflect on my word for the year Recklessly Abandoned.  I start to realize that it takes form in this instance in that I can start to let go of everything that people have tried to tell me about myself and embrace the part of me that I've been afraid to acknowledge existed.

There is a line in the song Live Like That by Sidewalk Prophets 

Recklessly Abandoned never holding back.

To live in who you were created to be means letting go of what others have said about you and living in the truth of who God made you to be.  It means embracing it in every way possible and for me that next step has been to begin dressing true to who I am.  

Finding Me

It's been a struggle to write lately.  I try.  I sit down and I start, but nothing seems to come out quite right.  The words feel forced and like they aren't coming from the real me.  They are from the me who has been instructed for years to keep it together.  Even in the places where I discovered the concept of genuine and authentic, ultimately the message I received was leaders do not let themselves show that much emotion.  How am I suppose to function that way?  How am I suppose to go through life tamping down my emotion?  I'm discovering that it is similar to tamping gunpowder into a musket.  Eventually.... It goes off.   Eventually my body can't handle the strain any longer.  I start having headaches, panic attacks and tension that turns my entire back into a mess of knots.

Sunday as I sat in the auditorium of the church we've been attending over the past few months, God sent a reminder in the message.  A reminder of the masks that the Pharisee's lived behind every day.  It was a much needed wake-up call for me.  It made me remember the 30 year old who had tearfully wrestled with God about changing churches nearly 5 years ago.  It made me remember the 32 year old who left what many saw as a secure job in nursing to follow a calling God placed in her heart.  It made me realize that somewhere along the way, while being on staff in a church, in the place most people would think you'd be closest to God, I lost sight of how He wanted to care for me.  I lost sight of my faith somehow.  The faith that made Abraham pack up and take a journey for which there was no map.  The faith that sustained Joseph even in the prisons of Egypt, that allowed him to continue to believe in a crazy dream that God had given him.  It had faded in my life.  Somehow I began to rely on the things I could see.  The way things had always been done in the past.  I believed the messages of I wasn't as talented as others, therefore I didn't really make sense where I was.  I let myself become persuaded to initially agree to a job that I wasn't suited to as a potential means to an end because it made sense.  And somehow agreeing to all of those things I lost who I was.

God's brought some rather interesting things into my life in the last week that have had me re-evaluating and re-discovering myself.  The first is a program called Dressing Your Truth.  It's a program designed to help women discover who they are and how they can best present themselves in a way that enhances their natural-God given beauty and personality.  For me, having taken personality tests, DISC profiles and extensive counseling, I was pretty impressed at how one particular type of beauty/energy they described fit me.  It was like seeing the potential in myself through someone else's eyes. (As a squirrel side note: I discovered I have curly hair.  That was super exciting for me!)   The really crazy thing is that I had started this make-over process before hearing the message on Sunday about Hypocrisy.  Earlier in the week I had begun to sort through the clothes in my closet searching for what they refer to as Type 2 colors as the best reflection of who I am as a person.  

As I sat listening to the pastor I realized that I had already begun the process of pushing away the lie of the masks I had begun to wear again.  I want to live as the truest version of myself!  I don't want to be what someone else tries to convince me I need to be in order to be effective.  God created me with everything I need to be effective in the role He has called me to fill.  Since it's my own unique role it's not going to look like anyone else.  Even mentors, who I greatly admire will look different as they live out their unique call.  I'm called to learn from them, not be them.

Today, as a date my husband and I went to see Disney's new Pixar film Inside Out.  While many have commented on it's cuteness, I suspected going into it that it would be an extremely emotional film for me.  I wasn't wrong (I'm starting to know myself well...).  As the story-line progressed, I recognized something about myself.  Much like the trailers for the film show there is a lot of attempting to suppress Sadness.  To not let it have it's way in the story of our lives.  I tend to try to do that myself a lot.  Somewhere along the line I bought into the belief that sadness is an emotion that is not acceptable.  That it is an emotion to be hidden.  The thing I took away from an animated children's film is that we experience the greatest joy after we've acknowledged the sadness that exists in our lives.  The truth, I've experienced great sadness this year.  I cry when it seems like I see my friends moving on, celebrating the addition of others to their lives, when it feels like I've been forgotten.  I realized today that I spend a lot of time apologizing for this necessary emotion, rejecting it's existence and hiding behind a false mask of joy.  When I do that, when I deny sadness it's crucial role in my life, I deny a part of who I am.  There's a saying "Don't cry that it's over, smile that it happened."  I'm not sure I agree with that anymore.  I'm not so sure that the smile isn't a mask we use to reject the sadness we don't want to experience.  Cry that it's over.  Mourn the loss of something that was special.  Because only by experiencing the sadness is it possible to experience the joy to it's fullest.  

So what do a make-over, a sermon and a Pixar movie have in common?  Well, in my life they share a message that God seemed determined to get across.  Live in who you  were created to be, allow yourself to experience every piece of life and stop hiding behind the masks.

Whitespace is Faithfulness

     

If you are faithful in little things, you will be faithful in large ones....  Luke 16:10a

I think I'm in the middle of learning a lesson.   I have the bad tendency to push myself to the very edge of what I can tolerate before crashing.  Today happens to be a crash day.  The bad thing about a crash day for me is that when I crash I do it big.  Today I've moved from bed to couch to bed and back to the couch again.  My entire body aches and I haven't managed much more than taking care of my 8 month old.

The sad thing is I knew it was coming.  I knew yesterday that I was starting to crash, but I ignored the signs and did all of the things I was determined to do with my day.  I didn't take care of myself.  I didn't slow down and stop to focus on rest even though I knew I needed it.  And so I ignored one of the things God's been stressing to me the most lately.  That I need to be faithful in rest.

Faithful in rest.  Kind of sounds crazy when we are pushed in every direction we look to do more.  Take on more commitments at work, at church and in our community.  We don't really care whether we are good at said things, we just keep piling them on because we are asked to.  Never stopping to rest until our bodies completely and utterly let us down.

Today as I sit here, my body screaming at me that it needed to rest long before I gave in, the passage in Scripture came to mind where Jesus tells His disciples "If you are faithful in little things. you will be faithful in large ones.... Luke 16:10a (NLT).  I've read this verse I don't know how many times, but today I suddenly realize that the very first thing that God gave to my care I'm abusing.  I'm not always faithful in caring for my body.  I put it under stress it was never intended to endure and then I refuse to let it rest when it begs for it.  Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians that our body's are a temple of the Holy Spirit.  Somehow right now I'm picturing the Holy Spirit looking very much like a homeless person if He's trying to survive in the mess that is my body today.  I'm pretty sure the roof is leaking and a few windows are broken.  Which is where the importance of investing in soul rest comes into play.

A scene from It's a Wonderful Life comes to mind in which George comes "home" to Mary the night of their wedding and the roof is leaking and there are posters hiding the broken windows.  There's no rest in a place where the roof and windows leak.  When something is allowed to fall into disrepair it effects the entire structure and those who reside in it.  I'm starting to realize how failure to rest my body and soul effects my life.  

Sometimes I think we might have been our smartest in some ways as children.  Before we knew we were suppose to abuse our bodies in the name of adulthood we invested in resting when we needed to and giving our all to the things we enjoyed.  Somewhere along the way we lost that approach to life. We crammed our lives with activities forgetting to set aside time to rest and invest in our souls.  After all we were adults and that was kids stuff.  And our bodies have suffered.  

So the lesson I'm learning today is that I haven't taken the time to invest in Spiritual Whitespace the last week the way my soul needed and I feel it both physically and emotionally.  I'm drained and so tired.  While my roof isn't leaking like a sieve, I'm pretty sure I have a cracked window that needs repaired, but with that realization comes the opportunity to restore this temple before it becomes uninhabitable.  And so today I discovered that to invest in spiritual whitespace is to be faithful in one little thing so I'm ready for the large ones.

Abandon

 

In architecture, space sculpts the soul of a building, creating places for people to relax and relate.

~Bonnie Gray

I've recently come across an Instagram account called itsabandoned that fascinates me.  It's pictures of places that have been abandoned by humanity.  Some of them are left in such a way you expect to see the former residents walk back in to take up their lives at any moment.  Others there is an almost painful beauty in the abandoned state.  The beauty comes by the space that has been vacated by some unknown force.  I've wondered more than once why this account holds my attention, but every day I find myself looking for the newly captured empty beauty by a random photographer.  

Maybe these photos capture my attention because of what they represent.  Something that was productive, useful and served a purpose, but now is left to the fate of falling into disrepair and loneliness.  Maybe they hold my gaze just a little longer because I feel like them.  Once useful and productive, but now nothing.....   

Maybe I look at them and see the dreams and hopes that existed in myself 2 years ago that now feel impossible to achieve most days.  Maybe I look at them and see the people that walked away from them seeing the upkeep as too much and see the part of myself that others have reacted to as too broken.  

And then I look again and see the beauty in their abandoned state.  They might have been abandoned by those with less vision, but someone came along and was inspired by what was left by the less astute. That gives me hope.  Someone saw these places that were left behind, lost and unappreciated by those who found their definition of beauty in the newer and flashier locale and redeemed their abandoned state by recognizing the beauty of their existence.  That gives me hope.  Hope that the parts of me that seem too broken for some do have a purpose and beauty.  It reminds me as God reminded Samuel that while man looks on the outward appearance and measures me with his finite knowledge.  God looks at my heart.  God looking at the heart is how David failed so many times by man's evaluation, but God saw in David a man after His own heart.  

My husband likes to talk about embodied energy when talking about the advantage of using an existing building.  I think I look at these pictures of abandoned places and I'm reminded that when God looks at me He sees embodied energy.  He sees what He's already invested in growing me, in the dreams He's given me and in the plans He has for me and once more I find hope.  Hope that much like these rejected places that have been captured in pictures for every time I'm rejected God has someone waiting to recognize what I can be and to join me in that journey.  

The interesting thing about abandoned things....  while some choose to abandon them it creates space and movement for the few that choose to appreciate them.  There is a certain freedom that comes with living in abandonment.  Freedom to discern what's most important and what's least important.  Freedom to say no, but also freedom to say yes.  Freedom not to be defined by the abandoned state, but to live with abandon.

Respite

Without whitespace, we become emotionally disconnected.  We cannot be touched, nor can we touch anyone.     ~Bonnie Gray

This week I've been operating in exhausted mode.  Last week everyone in our little family of three managed to be sick one right after the other.  This week my husband had meetings and overtime galore and by yesterday I found myself hitting a wall.  I had forced myself along as much as possible, but desperately needed something to bring me joy.  Something that would delight the little girl inside me and so my husband arranged a date night taking me to see Cinderella.

I'm not sure I even realized how much I needed to feel again.  In just coping with the daily demands of life without stop I had become numb to the world around me.  In contrast today as I've taken time to feed my soul I've managed to feel the day I'm going through.  Rather than rushing through the immediate demands of the moment, I've been able to enjoy the funny faces my 7 month old makes as she continues to  adjust to the new texture of her baby food.  We've celebrated her consumption of the entire tiny jar of pureed peas for the  progress it is.  We've had fun matching up her Supergirl onsie and Daddy's Captain America superhero shirt.  I've actually taken the time to taste and enjoy my lunch rather than just swallowing  it as fast as I could to move on to the next item on the list.  

I'm starting to realize how much I do that.  Hurry through one thing to move on down the list.  Not really stopping to experience the moment.  I suffer for the moments I do that, but as I realized this week, slowing down to feel also means I feel the painful memories a little more.

One of the things I've realized with the season of life I'm in right now is that I feel isolation more acutely.  One of the fears I've had since a little girl is the fear of being forgotten, being alone.  When I was 7 I changed schools.  We didn't physically move, but my entire world changed.  While from a distance I saw my little kindergarten friends move on over the years, I always believed that while I remembered them, I was no more than the face they'll never put a name to in a single class picture from 1986.  While most people tend to think children are resilient and will get over things like that, it doesn't seem to have been the case for me.  My belief of that experience has impacted me for decades.  It has made me stay places I should have moved on from longer than I needed to be there.  It's impacted how I leave jobs and churches.  As far as I'm concerned I always believe I'm the most forgettable person in the room.  

This week that belief was challenged.  As I stopped for lunch in the middle of a day full of errands, I heard my name.  As I instinctively looked up and around I recognized a face I hadn't seen in 4 or 5 years.  The first person to befriend me after my move to the Indianapolis area, the first person to call me friend in this new place.  Someone, who I had lost track of in the busyness of life, was sitting at the next table.  Not only was she sitting at the next table, but she remembered me!  After spending some time catching up and exchanging current contact information we parted ways.  As I walked to my car and through the rest of the day I continued to hear the words "you're not forgotten".  

As I get to the end of my week I find myself realizing how much I miss hearing from God when I'm in the busyness of doing.  When I'm not taking the time to care for my soul by resting I get stuck in my head and the lies I've believed about myself for so long.  As I take the time today to embrace the rest that God has for me I am reminded that God designed us for rest.  God created a world, animals, humans, plants and so much more, but even He rested.  

Rest....  It's not something we earn.  It's not something we are worthy of.  It's something we were created for.

So there is a special rest still waiting for the people of God.  For all who have entered into God's rest have rested from their labors, just as God did after creating the world.

~Hebrews 4:9-10

Rest...  It's how we are suppose to connect to the God who created us.  It is how we hear the message we are the Beloved.  

Rest.... It might not change the fact that the now 35 year old adults that I once attended my early years of school with probably don't really remember me.  It doesn't change the pain of feeling forgotten in more recent relationships that seem to have moved on past me.  But what it does do is reminds me that where it's important I'm not forgotten.  But it does remind me I'm so very loved by Someone who will never forget me.  

The Pieces In Place

Have you ever had those moments that you are in a frustrating season of life?  One you just can't seem to kick no matter how hard you try or how much you beg God it just doesn't seem to end?

I'm in one of those right now.  Saturday afternoon I was so excited.  Finally, after about 6 weeks of struggling and panic attacks it looked like we were at the point of going to a new church.  And then it happened....   Even looking back on it now it seems so simple, there shouldn't have been anything to set me off, but as it happens from time to time I was running through my list just a little too quickly for my husband to absorb everything I was throwing at him and he walked away to collect his thoughts before contributing to the conversation.  Now you have to understand this happens for us on a regular basis.  I've already processed everything out in my head and poor Dustin is left to catch up so there wasn't anything strange about his need to walk away, but that was all it took to set off the cycle of anxiety that was just waiting to be unleashed on my unsuspecting self.  Before I knew it I was in tears for the rest of the night and had the worst panic attacks and nightmares I had experienced in months.  Needless to say after an extremely difficult night our visit to the new church did not occur and once more I was devastated that yet again I was the reason that our family failed to make a church service.

As this week has continued on I have realized something as God has used various people to speak into my life.  A picture starts to form as each person brings a piece of truth that I desperately need to hear.  From one person I hear again the message that he has been giving me for months through my Spiritual Whitespace Bookclub "I am His Beloved", from another I hear the message to give myself grace as I grasp the reality that I'm dealing with burnout, but am also taking all the right steps to repair myself emotionally, spiritually and physically.  From my kindred church I am given the reminder that Scripture tells us where two or three are gathered in His name, He is there.  It's ok, if during this season I am only capable of  watching church online at home with Dustin and Myka on a Sunday morning.  It's only for a season and will pass the more I'm able to rest and heal.  

As I continue to think about all of the people who have been impacting my life this week in their own ways I realize that sometimes part of kicking the frustrating seasons in life means waiting on the right team to be assembled.  For me I need the kindreds in my bookclub sharing their stories helping me realize I'm not alone.  I need the reminder that I'm His Beloved.  I need to hear from someone who's wrestled through burnout to help me recognize the progress I'm making, but also the reality of what I've been through.  I need all of those to help me move on, but more importantly to remind me to give myself grace if it takes a little longer than I might prefer.

The Significance of Three Percent

Only 3% of the world's coffee meets our standards.

~Starbucks

As I sit here tonight in a Starbucks that particular phrase on the top shelf of a display catches my attention.  Only 3%.....  That means that 97% of the coffee produced in the entire world fails to make the cut for this company.  For someone who is not a numbers fan those particular numbers are interesting somehow.  Maybe it's because I've been contemplating my past a lot lately.

It seems like I've spent a lot of my life feeling like I'm part of some rejected minority.  Never the first to be chosen for anything and often feeling like the default solution when I did end up playing a role of any significance.  Often times it seems that my belief that I'm less than enough is born out by being replaced by others or having the unneeded information shared of why I wouldn't have been the first choice for a particular role as my inadequacies were laid before me.  

I've spent a lot of the last year feeling that sense of rejection.  A sense that I was part of a rejected 3% while the other 97% was running full speed ahead toward..... I'm not  really sure what they are running toward, but they seem to be running at least while I just feel part of nothing.  

But now I find myself thinking only 3%.....  And I start to see my perspective change.  Starbucks has a reputation.  Some would argue it is one of highly priced coffee, but the reality is that they are so particular with their standards that it means they pay more for a premium product therefore they must charge more for that premium product.  

Only 3%....  I remember reading a blog post a few months ago suggesting more thought should go into using a particular song in worship.  That song happens to be one of my favorite worship songs for the exact reason the post suggested caution.  It's a song that offers all of oneself to God.  It's a plea for deeper relationship.  

"Spirit lead me where my trust is without boarders

Let me walk upon the waters wherever you would call me

Take me deeper than my feet could ever wander

And my faith will be made stronger

In the presence of my Saviour."

So I find myself contemplating that 3% again. What if what others point out as inadequacies are actually the things that God uses to keep me close to Him?  What if they are part of His refining process for me?  I think one thing I've always realized about myself is that when I'm the most unsure I find myself looking to God the most often.  What if the things that  separate me from the 97% running a full speed are the very things that are making part of something great that  God wants to accomplish?  Out of 12 disciples Peter was the only one to get out of the boat.  Peter was the one who was willing to go into places where he was out of his depth and his inadequacies were exposed so that Jesus could call him out to great things later.

And so I find myself contemplating the significance of 3%...

Versions of Me

I love the little girl in this picture.  She's serious, but at the same time looks happy and all ready to pose like the princess she thinks she is.  Sometimes I wonder what happened to her.  I don't really remember her all that well most of the time.  Somehow it feels like she's been lost over the years.

This little girl never seems to be bothered by the constraints of time or the world around her.  She always seems comfortable in who she is.  Never even considering for a moment that anyone would think there was anything wrong with her.

Somehow though the innocence that I see when I look at this picture seems to have disappeared.  The little girl that looks loved for who she is becomes lost in well meant attempts to mold her character and make sure she behaved in a certain manner and dressed a certain way.

Over the years whether it was true or not this little girl somehow started to equate being loved with being a "good little girl".  Her value in her eyes eventually was only there if she was able to be what others wanted her to be.  And so she became caught in a cycle of doing.  Constantly doing trying to earn the approval of others and even God.

"You can't keep her sealed off in the past anymore."

-Finding Spiritual Whitespace

Suddenly I find myself looking at this picture I've come to cherish differently.  Here is a little girl sitting quietly on a fence, all dressed up for no reason, holding a flower and letting the breeze blow her gauzy dress and hair.  I find myself realizing that this younger me actually has a very important lesson for the older me.  Rather than her needing to grow up and be like me, I need to learn to go back and be more like her.  

I need to remember that in choosing to invest in moments of spiritual whitespace I am choosing to live in the truth that I am valued.  I am special.  And I am God's beloved.  

In choosing whitespace I am choosing to live the extravagant life that this little princess personifies.  When I take that time to introduce quiet to the chaos of life I am making the decision to believe that I was made for beauty rather than just created to function.  And in doing that rather than consigning this little girl to the past, I bring her forward and embrace who she is in the present.

Feeding My Soul

I find myself struggling with this particular post tonight.  A few weeks ago I decided to respond to an invitation by author Bonnie Gray to write weekly posts based on prompts that she would post.  The first one was easy enough when the prompt was to share about your One Word for 2015.  The next one however was an invitation to go a little deeper.  Share what feeds your soul.  

Honestly, I've tried to not ask that question too much.  It feels like its just too painful.  You see what feeds my soul often ends up being the thing that brings me the most pain.  I realized tonight as I listened to the house around me while taking time out that in the kitchen my husband was playing Gregorian chants while in the nursery my little diva who cannot settle for any "normal" baby music had the soundtrack from Sense and Sensibility playing that the two complimented one another very well.  Just listening to the blend of the two I began to relax.  You see I love music.  I took piano lessons for years, taught myself to play the guitar and to balance the stressfulness of nursing school I took voice lessons.

When I was younger I knew the exact song to pull out when I needed to literally pound on the piano to relieve frustration and I knew the selections of songs that would "make everything better" when I was sad  Music was the way I relieved stress, the way I celebrated, the way I connected to God.

  Unfortunately, music isn't really much of a part of my life right now.  I'm hiding from it right now because it hurts.  I don't play anymore.  I haven't touched an instrument since last April.  On occasion I'll sing, but it's kind of rare. 

I think tonight as I reflect on that question: What feeds your soul?  I find myself struggling to be honest about why I'm not allowing my soul to be fed.  The truth, I look at a keyboard and hear the voice in my head reminding me that I'm only ok at playing the piano.  I look at the guitar and hear another voice reminding me I never took the first lesson.  I think about the stacks of music that I own and keep myself from singing by the voice that says you're ok, but not even close to the best.  

The funny thing about the power of words is that they can become your reality.  What I hear in the words of the past is that I'm not good enough, others are better and in my head if that's true then God doesn't want my less than acceptable offering and He certainly doesn't want that to be what feeds me so I look for something else.  I suppose in a way it makes me a bit like Cain.  I know that you created me to be fed in this way, God, but here would you settle for making this work?  I'm more comfortable with this one.  

Of course when I'm trying to convince God that this other way is how my soul needs to be fed, I'm working really hard at that.  Working hard when Jesus invitation is "come to me and I will give you rest".  On the other hand if I can learn to embrace the way my soul is fed, I get to experience that rest.  It's an inviting thought and maybe embracing it comes in small steps starting with Gregorian chants and soundtracks to Jane Austen movies. 

My Word/Words ~ Recklessly Abandoned

"but for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short."

-Jane Austen

Have you ever thought of your life as a story you are writing?  When given the challenge to write about my one word for 2015 I found myself thinking about it.  I felt pretty sure that my one word required two words rather than just one, but upon further consideration I realized that One Word becomes a start.  Something to build the chapter of my story titled 2015 around.  Thanks to a vision casting Sunday from a pastor I've come to admire greatly, I have found myself contemplating the last day and a half how the direction my husband and I feel God calling our family during this year works with my word and of course like any good story, there is a back story.

I'm not sure if it's unique to myself, but when presented with the idea of choosing a word for the year last year I did not do so lightly.  It was with much thought, conversation and even arguing with God that I landed on the word Pieces for 2014.  Now, personally I thought that God would use this word to do great things in my life.  You know the kind that grab people's attention in this "wow, we want to be like you" or "just look at what God is doing in her life" sort of way.  Somehow that didn't happen though.  Instead the word Pieces became appropriate as it felt like I just watched my life fall apart.  Job loss, health issues, isolation...  It never seemed to stop, but somehow in the middle of all of that God was doing just what a line in the song He gave me said He would do,  He was making my pieces fit.  Through all of the falling apart that was happening He was introducing me to key people essential to prepare me for the coming year of 2015.  He was taking all of the pieces that had been or were trying to be forced together and He was making them fit the way He knew they needed to fit together.  In the middle of my crazy life, He brought a new counselor, D, who challenges me in so many amazing ways but at the same time provides the tools I need to set healthy boundaries that allow me to give myself permission to follow the advice of a kindred, Bonnie Gray, and find spiritual whitespace in which to connect to and hear God more clearly.  He took me back to my hometown using my husband's friendship with someone to bring Pastor Debbie Salters to my attention, who just through passionately following where God leads in a community I know well has inspired me to live my own life very differently.  Being on the 2015 side of 2014 I start to see the picture that formed in 2014.

So as November rolled around I began to consider whether I would choose a word for 2015.  Honestly, after the painful experience of 2014, I will admit to being reluctant to let God use one word to define my life yet again.  But something happened....  One day when listening to Live Like That by Sidewalk Prophets, the phrase "recklessly abandoned" came to my attention.  I found myself thinking about that phrase a lot over the next few weeks and after much debate with God realized that I had found my word/words for 2015.  If you insist on one word I suppose I'll have to go with Abandoned.  If I get to have it my way I use the phrase Recklessly Abandoned.  Abandoned by definition means giving up control, but when you add Recklessly its meaning becomes to give up control with no regard for the consequences.  I think that's why I like the phrase over the word.  I want to learn to live saying no to the less important things in life so I can say yes to the most important things.  I want to learn to simplify my life so that spiritual whitespace and sharing my story (all of my story, not just the pretty pieces) become second nature.  I want to learn to cut out the busywork and white noise so that I can build relationships in unlikely places.

While I'm one of the first people who will argue that life is much less overwhelming when you have some structure and a schedule I want to live holding those things in an open hand, using the structure and schedules to enable me to live intentionally so that I can give up control in the areas that matter most.  Sounds crazy doesn't it? But I believe it's possible.  In 2015 I want to learn to use those tools to enable me to intentionally live Recklessly Abandoned.  

So I find myself thinking that while it seems that in some ways the words I use to describe what I want to do with 2015, simplify, intentional living, whitespace...  While they all could be words for my year, they become the action verbs to my year.  Pieces of a story that God is putting together to create the story of me.  So what's your word and your story?