What I Learned from Whole 30

Yesterday marked the end of an experiment for our family.  Well.... more specifically my husband and I...  Shortly after we were married my husband expressed a desire to try out this thing called Whole 30.  Now if you are a woman you can probably totally relate to my initial reaction... 

"Another diet?  I've tried diet after diet and they just don't work for me.  Not only that we haven't been married long enough for you to see me without sugar...  That's worse than me without make-up!"

So we shelved that idea... For about 5 years to be exact...  Enter an author I very much enjoy, Jen Hatmaker.  Randomly across my Facebook feed comes a post about her experience on Whole 30.  As I watched her pictures of amazing food find their way across my social media over the course of the next 30 days, I found myself thinking, "Maybe, just maybe I can do this."

Jump to a few months following her experiment with this life change and I found myself listening to her interview with one of the creators of this system.  The thing that caught my attention in this particular interview was the idea that the purpose of the 30 days was to deal with our addictions to food.  That hit home for me.  

What I know to be true about myself is that when I'm happy, sad, depressed or anxious food is how I celebrate, cope or hide from the pain.  If I needed any reminder of that it had come the year before when I heard the thing no one wants to hear at a doctor's appointment...  I had gained rather than lost weight after the birth of my second daughter.  

In the months following this realization about Whole 30 my husband and I decided that we would definitely do this.  Finally, the day came when I finished the bag of Oreos and realized I just felt yuck.    The food hadn't filled the void that it usually filled.  Shortly after that I did what any rational person would do.... I bought a half gallon of unsweetened almond milk and determined our start date from that singular plastic bottle and it's expiration date.  

That was about 40 days ago...  

When my husband came home five years ago and told me that he wanted to try this thing called Whole 30 I never would have expected to learn about myself from what I thought of as a diet.  What I've learned from our Whole 30 experiment is how I can abuse food.  Crazy thought, right?  I mean we need food to live, don't we?  

What I realized as we progressed through the Whole 30 is that I really don't need all of the food I typically manage to consume in a day, week or month.  The Whole 30 helped me realize to recognize when I was genuinely hungry and when I wanted to eat because I was bored  The Whole 30 by taking away my sugar and processed foods made me think about what "treats" really hold value for me.  One of the things I spent the last week doing is anticipating my first Starbucks visit after our 30 days was over.  Prior to Whole 30 I made excuses to go big on my Starbucks visits, guzzling a venti latte or mocha in short order.  This time I found myself like a kid in a candy store with enough to only get one piece of candy.... What was the exact thing I wanted to savor....  What was the smallest size that would give me the greatest enjoyment?  

The Whole 30 made me realize that I had stopped enjoying the things that should have been special.  I was using them to mask or medicate a feeling that I didn't want to experience.  Our experiment with Whole 30 has made me realize that one of the dangers in the addictions that we allow ourselves to have in areas we deem socially acceptable is the way they dull our senses.  We no longer allow ourselves to anticipate the simple things.  They become commonplace.  

When I had to spend 30 days finding some way other than snacking to fight boredom I found time to invest in things that had been on my to-do list, but just never managed to trump sitting on the couch snacking and watching a movie.  I  decluttered our bathroom closet, pantry, bookshelves and half our basement.  I found more time to read and visit the library.  I found time to spend special days with my daughters.  I don't think I've ever tried a "diet" that made me do the soul-searching that Whole 30 did.  

The Whole 30 brought me face to face with my socially acceptable addictions in the form of food and in some respects my laziness.  There were days where the urge to go get McDonalds for the convenience it afforded was so strong, I had to make a decision to make to not make the fast food run.  I discovered there is a part of me that wants to make things easy for myself.  I in no way believe that my struggle with food is over....  I'm human.  I think that this will be an issue I need to continually be aware of, but before Whole 30 I did not see food addictions in quite the same way I do post-Whole 30.  Will I live the remainder of my life sugarless?  No, but I believe that I will choose more wisely how I spend my newly developed sugar allowance.  

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!"

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?

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.

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.

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!

Intentional Updates

In my last post I shared about some things that I've been doing to be more intentional.  I thought in this post I would share an update on how some of those things are going.

The first is my Bullet Journal.  At this point we are three weeks in to February and I am finding my Bullet Journal invaluable.  I had some things that I wanted to keep track of as a way of creating better habits in my life.  

Some of the goals I had were:

• Drink more Water
• Read more Intentionally (outside of school)
• Listen to Podcast 1-2 times a week
• Intentional Whitespace
• Naps (yes, I often adult way too much and my body has started to let me know that)
• Eat more Salads

Water

I gave it some thought to how I would count things a success and how I would mark off my daily progress.  I found an awesome app for my phone called Waterlogged.  It's been a great way for me to track how close I come to my daily goal of 64 oz of water.  

I had a really bad habit of clicking on my Facebook app when I am bored or waiting.  As I decided to be more intentional one of the things I did was rearrange my phone apps.  In the place of the Facebook app where my finger would automatically go, I placed my Waterlogged app.  Now I think a lot about how I'm doing on my goal of water intake.  At the end of the day if I am within a few ounces of my goal I check it off as a successful day in my Habit Tracker in my Bullet Journal.  So far I have met my goal nearly every day and I'm feel much better for it!  My default is now water much more often than tea or soda.

Reading

The reading is a bit more challenging.  Some days I find myself struggling to get through my school work so when you add on caring for a toddler, who is potty training, and an 8 month old it can be trickier.  Since I draw the line at counting the ten times I read "Marvin K. Mooney, Will You Please Go Now" in one night, this one is progressing slightly slower, but I have successfully finished 3 books in the last couple of weeks.  

Hollow City

Library of Souls

(Both from Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children)

and

Breathing Underwater 

by Richard Rohr

Most of these I started in January, but I finished them up this month.

Podcast

  

At the first of this month I decided to make Podcast part of my monthly Habit Tracker.

I've wanted to listen to podcast for quite a while, but always struggled with how to make that happen. Enter the realization that I can plug my phone in to the USB port in my car and let the podcast play as I am driving.  Not a surprise that I can let it play, but hey, in our family we often just plug in the phone to see how many times the toddler wants to here "Gitchee Gitchee Goo" from Phineas and Ferb.

Finally!  An adult use for the USB!

Whitespace

This was really important for me after coming back from my personal retreat.  I knew coming back I needed to take care of myself better.  Taking care of myself means that I am a much better Mommy and Wife to those who live with me every day!  I am less cranky.  I can do more around the house.  Overall, I'm just a better person!

I have definitely developed a better pattern so far this month.  

I have always enjoyed wandering through our city's art museum so I took some time after an appointment last week just to wander around the IMA (Indianapolis Museum of Art).  

Another day I visited a local nature preserve and just sat on the lake for a short period (it was crazy cold that day!).

Another day I just watched movies I enjoy because I enjoy them at home.

Whitespace looks different for everyone, but it is a way to invest in your relationship with God by doing things that bring you joy.

Naps

I know this one sounds a little crazy and lazy, but one thing I have realized is that in the time since Eden was born I have pushed myself entirely too hard.  My body was screaming for rest long before  I gave it the rest it needed.  So I decided to start listening when my body says stop.  Now do not assume that because I am tracking it that I nap every day.  I don't!  I usually do take a few naps a week though just to care for my body.

Salads

This was just another goal I made to try to introduce more balance into my diet.  I thought that focusing on salads and water at the same time made sense as an easy first step for that.  

In addition to my habit tracker I have found the Daily Log a great resource in setting broad goals for myself each day.  It give me the flexibility to do it when I am able, but gives me some things that I can focus on for the day.  Some days I check everything off.  Other days things shift to the next day.

The second thing is we started our Finance Class last weekend.

It is a three week class so we still have two weeks to go, but it has been encouraging!  We realized there are a couple of things we need to work on ASAP, but we have the beginnings of a solid foundation to build on.  It's kind of nice to know those stupid mistakes from our 20's aren't going to haunt us the rest of our adult lives!  The great thing about the timing is that we are doing this right as our tax refund is coming.  We get to start being intentional with our tax return!  That's a good feeling.

So that's how our Intentional Life is going right now!  

My Word for 2017 - Intentional

2017 is nearly a week old and I am already finding my word for the year is challenging me.

For the past few years I have chosen a word or phrase.  

2014 was Pieces - my life felt like it falled apart.

2015 was Reckless Abandon - We started the year by leaving a church we cared deeply about and I ended the year by leaving my job due to my second pregnancy with no idea how we would manage as a one income family.

2016 was Exhale - I have felt deeply the loss of relationships I once thought were solid, experienced the loss of not one, but two of our pups and found that I needed to let go of much more than I realized

For 2017, I found myself wondering whether I wanted to go down this path of one word yet again, but God kept bringing the word Intentional to my attention.

Now I should probably mention that our family has spent the last 3 1/2 years working to be more intentional about many things.

Resources...

Finances...

Time...

Even our Trash...

Just last fall I invested in an amazing new planner to help me plan my year, month, week, day and even hour more effectively.  

Not even a full week into the year and I am already learning that intentional is not just about the planner.  

Starting the new year I determined I would begin to walk our dog several times a week.

I would implement a schedule for housework.

I would plan out the time that I would spend on church work, school work and personal time.

It looks great on paper.

Tuesday started out good!  I implemented my plan.  The dog took a walk, the housework was tackled, I was on a roll!

Wednesday went well, I got a good handle on some school work, housework was tackled and the dog had his walk.

Then Thursday hit.  

I'm not sure what felt off about Thursday, but I struggled.  It was hard to get off the couch and move.  I didn't want to leave the house and to be honest, the new LuLaRoe outfit I wanted to put on was the only thing that motivated me to get out of the house.  

I made my way to Starbucks to study and as I arrived I had a realization....

Intentional is not just a list of things to accomplish.  

Sometimes Intentional is looking at that To-Do List and recognizing that of all the things I need to accomplish today these two things are the most important and just getting them done is a win.

Intentional is evaluating every day what is important, what is urgent and what can move and flex.  

I am realizing that my Word for the Year can be something I try to force into my life...

Or it can be a focus Word that allows God to guide my steps through the year.

My word becomes a learning opportunity.

It becomes a way to really focus and listen to what God wants to speak into an area of my life.