The Exhale in Our Journey

There comes a moment in every journey when the one traveling must exhale.  

On a hike it might be so you can crest the next hill.  You draw in a deep breath and push through to the top.

In life it often feels like the need to exhale comes before moving into a new phase. A new place of being.  Out of necessity we find ourselves driven to release something from the past so we can move on.  

It feels like I am at that point of my own journey.  I am feeling this need to exhale.  To let go of the voices that try so overwhelmingly to silence my own voice.  It is funny, but up to this point I had not realized how many people and influences I allow to silence my voice.

Somewhere inside I let a lie take root that various people over the course of my life have spoken into in a way that made me believe it as truth.  A lie that said my words do not hold the same value as another's.  The lie that said I was not good enough in a particular position.  The lie that said because I happen to be female my voice should not be heard as much as someone who happens to be male.  

I look at my journey and realize that as far as I have come and as much as I have grown, I still have pieces of the lies that have been spoken into my life that influence how I use my voice.  I move slower toward what I know to be right because voices with authority in past parts of my journey have convinced me that they hear God's voice for my life better than I could.  It makes me hesitate and think that God speaks to them differently than he does me because I hear a different message from him.  It convinces me that what I hear has to be wrong. 

Right now the need to exhale at this part of my journey feels so strong it is almost tangible, like I could reach out and touch it.  

Exhale.

The word is like a breath of fresh spring air wafting through the open window.  An invitation to forget the death and cold of winter and the past and an opportunity to welcome and embrace new life and new beginnings.

Exhale.

It is an invitation to rest in the present moment of our journey.  To welcome God into the very second we are in and to experience his truth in a completely new way.  It is an invitation to be still, to hear the still small sounds that we ignored in the busyness that has been our past.

What does that look like for you today?  How does it change your present to say yes to the stillness that allows us to hear most clearly from God?  

Living Today

How often do we fly through our day, making our way through the to-do list and rushing to get the kids to the next event they have committed to?  We talk about wanting time, but how often do we intentionally make time to let life happen rather than allowing things to dictate our actions?

I know you're already thinking, if you only knew my life.  It's a season of busy.  While I understand that seasons of busy happen, I am also learning that those seasons last much longer than they should when we continue to just let life happen to us.  

Do you know what I notice when I browse the "Christian" book section in any given book store?  The current popular books for women all have a theme.  They are instruction books on "Breaking Busy", giving "The Best Yes" and overall how to incorporate rest into our lives.  Why is it so hard as women to actually limit what we do?  Why do we need our children to be involved in multiple extra curricular activities simultaneously?  

As mother's we often talk about impact in our children's lives, but do we ever stop to question the lessons we are teaching when we over book our own schedules beyond what we can humanly sustain?

Last year for the first time I created a mission statement for life over the next five years.  Where do I want to be?  What do I want life to look like?  How do I make that picture happen?  

My reality?  I have been hearing God tell me over the last couple of years that he wants our family to live more intentionally.  I have heard and tried to incorporate different things into our lives that will move us that direction, but the reality is that most of those things have managed to fall into place prior to last year without planning.  It has kind of been dumb luck that we have managed to embrace parts of intentional living.  

Last year, thanks to author and blogger Ruth Sokup,  Living Well Spending Less, I discovered the concept of setting goals and breaking down life into smaller chunks of time.  While as with most things when you first try them, there are parts I was not completely successful on completing in her suggested list of ways to accomplish goal setting, what I did find is that I met all 5 goals for the year by December 31, 2015!  It's an amazing feeling when you can look over the year and see what you accomplished despite the varying challenges that we face over the course of a year.  

So I met with success in goal setting last year.  Setting goals should have been something I focused on prior to January 1, 2016, right?  Nope, I was sooooo busy.  There was always something else begging for attention so I spent the month of January operating in survival mode always putting off what I needed to do for what was in front of me demanding my attention.

This weekend as January came to an end, I took some time to pull out that 2016 goal setting workbook and filled out those little spaces that made me focus on what the rest of 2016 needs to look like.  Do you know what I realized?  When I take the time to calm myself, separate from the chaos and put some effort into planning, the life of our family begins to settle down.  Rather than letting life happen to us, we begin to intentional decide what happens.  

As a result of my taking the time to decide what needs to happen this year to move our family toward that goal I set for 5 years from now, we are moving forward with purpose.  Once I put down on paper that I wanted to get our kitchen remodel done by a certain date, I began to realize if we break it down into small manageable projects, it moves toward a reality rather than just being something we "want" to do (and not even a week later 90% of the wallpaper that covered our kitchen floor to ceiling is down).

When I live today in survival mode, it effects my entire family.  When I live today intentionally, with a plan, well, then the reality is our family has more time than we imagined possible.  That wallpaper that came down in the kitchen since I set some goals, that has happened while my husband and I still take time to play crazy with our little girl nearly every night and manage the other household tasks along with school for me and work for him.  Oh, and did I mention that we both are volunteer staff members at our church?

Life has moments it gets overwhelming.  Whether we live in the overwhelming moments or pass through them is entirely up to us.  If you have never tried goal setting before I encourage you to try it!  It gives you a purpose, something you are moving toward.  Set dates on those goals for the year.  You'll find some of them you accomplish way before their due date and others need to flex to later dates in the year because life happens, but being able to look at where you have been at the end of the year is an amazing feeling.

Don't know where to start?  Check out Living Well, Spending Less for a great starting point.  She has a free Goal Setting Workbook via email that she offers when you sign up for her email.  She has lots of other amazing resources on her site that she has made available as well.  

When we live life running from commitment to commitment we are never giving the best part of ourselves to anything, including our families.  When we chose to actually begin to be selective at what we say yes to, well then we are able to give the best of ourselves to multiple things, most of all our families.  We give ourselves the ability to live in today rather than being overwhelmed by tomorrow and the things left to do from yesterday.

Choose to live in the today, this moment, with the people you are with right now.  Choose to stop the crazy cycle of letting life happen to you and create intentional moments and memories today.

The Rest of Exhale

Exhale.  

My One Word for 2016.  

Just a few short weeks into the month and I have already started to find myself challenged by the word.  Have you ever stopped to realize how quickly our calendars attempt to fill themselves up?  It kind of makes them sound like they are living beings, but often I think we fail to remember that they are inanimate objects that can be of great use or they can become the albatross around our necks.

A calendar can be the thing we look at to create space in our lives.  Or it can be the thing we fill to the max in an attempt to find our purpose and passion in life.  I have been so guilty of doing the later.  Feeling like I need to be doing to be productive.  It makes the moments when I am not experiencing forward movement feel like moments of failure.

Exhale.

Have you ever stopped to just observe your breathing pattern?  It is an exercise that both of my counselors have needed to remind me of occasionally as a means to manage my anxiety and panic attacks.

With my word for the 2016 being exhale, I have found myself this week doing that exercise not because of panic attacks, but because it serves as a reminder to rest in the moment.  

When I take a moment to exhale while purposefully grocery shopping it makes me observe the flowers that will add happiness and emotion to my living room.  

When I exhale while struggling with the varying moods of a 16 month old. who is still trying to figure out how to communicate what exactly it is she wants, I find myself seeing pieces of myself in this beautiful little girl.

In a world where we are surrounded with the latest medical journals, available with a mere click of the mouse, how do we miss that the most basic function of our existence is dependent on the act of exhaling?  We do it every day without thought as we breath in and breath out, but in our mental and emotional worlds we continue to push ourselves to the extreme trying to be productive and discover ourselves.  

Somehow in those moments I think we lose ourselves the most.  We lose sight of who God created us to be.  God creates some of us with amazing energy and drive, but if we focus only on that we lose endless opportunities to be present in the moments and with the people that surround us.  

Exhale.

Rest.

When we exhale as a physical function it provides our lungs the opportunity to rest.  We then have the ability to run marathons, climb mountains and if you're me.... Chase a 16 month old around the house.  These things are only possible when our lungs have that split second of rest.  But think about it.... How much resting do our lungs do in one day by the mere act of exhaling? 

In contrast, how often do we rest ourselves, our emotions, our bodies, our minds?  God creates our bodies with endless reminders that we were made to rest.  God begins the story of Creation by resting on the seventh day.  

One of my favorite stories from the Old Testament is the moment Elijah is hiding in a cave when this happens:

The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”

Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.

(1 Kings 19:11-12)

Wind.

 Earthquake. 

Fire.

All of these are high energy, driven occurrences, but those are not the moments when God chose to speak to Elijah.  God spoke in a soft whisper.  And when Elijah hears that soft whisper and responses, God is able to use him to do amazing things!  It's in the moments of silence and stillness when God has the space to speak the strongest into our lives.  

So whatever your word for the year might be, I encourage you to think about how it looks when you add the component of rest to that word.  

Reflections on 2015 and My One Word 2016

It's been months since I've posted.  I debated whether to even bother with it.  I'm pregnant, a mommy to an extremely active toddler, a wife and an adult college student.  All of those combined make life feel really overwhelming at times.  It's not really extreme busyness, but all of them combined mean that posting on a blog that isn't accomplishing a school assignment has fallen off of the radar for me.  

I suppose that all of that led to what has become my One Word for 2016.  2015 was full of choices made by myself and with my husband that definitely lived up to my word/s for 2015.  Recklessly Abandon.  In one simple year with only the agreement to follow God wherever that phrase led I find that it's been a year filled with change and challenges for both myself personally and for our family. 

Following God with Reckless Abandon means that you are challenged on whether you will do the things that do not make sense to anyone around you.  For us it meant leaving the church we were part of and over the next few months joining our lives (however painful slowly it might seemed to have taken) to a church plant 30 minutes away because God says "that is where I want to grow you".  It means reaching out to someone you've admired from a distance and risking rejection by asking "Will you mentor me?"  It looks like starting school when it hardly makes sense as you are no where near being in the career field that this degree will qualify you for and it means saying "yes" to God when He says you are finished with the job that is helping pay some of the bills.

For the past two years, I have chosen one word to live out through the year.  To be honest, the first time was largely driven by the fact the church I served at on staff decided to do a series on One Word and as part of the staff I felt a certain amount of pressure to perform and felt I should chose a word.  I find it funny how God can take something that you do out of a sense of duty and make it something that redefines your life.  That first year my word was Pieces.  I don't think I will ever forget that year...  It literally felt like my life fell apart.  I lost the one job I had that made sense to me and felt like it was suppose to be in line with my calling.  I experienced an isolating pregnancy and went into the end of 2014 depleted, alone and feeling extremely broken.  Coming into 2015, I had a certain amount of trepidation at choosing another word, but this time the challenge came from a blogger and author I had come to love and respect so I decided I would once again try the word for a year.

Entering 2016, I once again wondered if I really wanted to chance letting a word define my year and my answer came as I listened to a song that had come to my attention over the past few months.  Plumb's Exhale.  

Exhale.  It's a word that speaks of letting go.  Getting rid of the toxic things that hang over our lives and moving toward the grace, freedom and love that God offers us.  One of the things I have learned about myself is that as a relational introvert, I can have a tendency to hang on to relationships long after they have outlived their purpose in my life.  What I'm finding in this season of my life is that I have less capacity for things so I am going into the New Year knowing I have to be intentional with my time, energy and resources.  It means choosing wisely in what I hold on to and what I let go.  

Exhale.  

Let go. 

Somehow I already expect 2016 to be painful in some ways, but I have also learned out of two years of words that proved painful that in our greatest pain, God is doing some of His most powerful healing in our lives.  He is growing and stretching us because He knows what we are capable of becoming.  We become the one's to halt our own growth when we let fear dictate our lives and decisions.  What about you?  Have you ever tried One Word for a year?  Is this the year to try it?  I'd love to hear if you do!

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.

#nospendOctober

Earlier this year I purchased a book titled Living Well, Spending Less by Ruth Soukup.  Can I share that I loved this book and jumped on board implementing most of the ideas.  Except that crazy idea of a no spend month.  That was the one thing I was certain, I did not have the strength or will-power to do.

Fast forward 9 months later and I find our family nearly one week in to a no spend October.  I think the number of people I've had tell me they could never do that made me reflect and realize.... That was me back in January and February as I was reading this idea for the first time.  I had a long list of all of the reasons that it didn't make sense for us.  We had baby.  We "needed" to have the ability to eat out.  We needed date nights.  My list of rationalizations went on and on.

And then something happened....  God turned our life upside down.  In January, I could rationalize the need to meet people for a meal out.  The need to invest in relationships that made it impossible to give up the dining out budget.  Going to a church service took everything I had so what else were we to do, but go grab lunch out afterward?

The interesting thing about inviting God into your everyday life, something that our family has tried to do more consciously this year, is that God starts to show you what is really a value and what is just taking up space in your life.  As God moves more fully in to the life you invite Him to share, He starts to push out the things that are taking up space that He intends for something else.  

What I've discovered in my journey from "Just Say No (to this crazy idea)" January to "No Spend" October, is that when I let Him in more fully God starts to push out the unnecessary.  In some cases it's relationships that while they aren't "bad", they aren't pushing me to find ways to draw closer to Him.  In other instances it was busywork that I had allowed to consume my life over the past few years because it was "for a good cause".

The crazy thing is that our No Spend October is becoming our busiest month this fall.  We are finding opportunities to practice hospitality that we missed in the busyness of our "full" life.  We have the opportunity to take part in a Family Day at a local orchard with our daughter's daycare (ok, so I reached a little bit and justified that as a grocery expense since we're getting a bag of apples out of it).  We get to spend time with 3 different groups of friends (and that's just what we have scheduled).  We're going to the Halloween Hike at our local park on the last day of our No Spend month.  It's crazy, but our life is being stripped down to purposeful things.  Things that I walk away from feeling like I've received an amazing blessing by God in being able to just stop the craziness and allow God to push some of the unnecessary things out of my life.  So I have room for the life He wants to invite me into with Him.

My "Ouch" Moment

Have you ever had that moment when you come up with this amazing idea?  I mean it seems borderline genius!  And so you begin to work toward that idea and then comes the "Ouch" moment.  The moment you realize it's going to cost you something.....

I had one of those this week.  Our church has been doing a series called Moneybomb.  It's one of those series that one moment is encouraging, the next moment is challenging and in nearly every moment provides this underlying conviction about how I've used money unwisely.  

One of the things I've been learning over the past few years is to stop living in the guilt of what I haven't gotten right and to move forward into the future that holds the things I can change.  I can beat myself up over my tendency to cope with issues using retail therapy.  Or I can celebrate the fact I found an awesome counselor and am getting more out of what I spend for that therapy then a credit card bill.  I can look at where I've overspent in the past and beat myself up.  Or I can move forward finding ways to change those habits and re-channel that spending.

Which brings us to my brilliant idea of last week...  One of the books that has had a huge impact on my life this year is a book written by blogger Ruth Soukup titled, Living Well, Spending Less.  In this book, Ruth shares her own struggles with money, debt and how she's taken steps to change her habits.  In her book she briefly talks about a no spend month that her husband suggested they do while they were struggling with their own finances at one point.  I acknowledged the idea at the time, but quickly moved on rationalizing all of the reasons that it didn't work for us.  And then last Tuesday, Ruth posts to her Instagram account the news that their family in getting ready to do a no spend October.  This combined with the series at church led to a little voice inside saying.... "this might help that budget line item titled dining out".  So before I could talk myself out of it again, I texted the idea to my husband.  

That's how I find myself with a week left before we begin our no spend October.  Can I share it's kind of scary?  I have all of these "what ifs" popping up in my head.  What if the starkness of a month of no spending triggers my panic attacks?  What if I forgot to prepare for something I didn't realize we need?  Our concessions since it was rather last minute has been to keep our grocery budget as usual, but to see if we can have left over at the end of the month to roll into the savings and to keep previously made appointments with mentors and family.  I still find myself a little apprehensive though...  

I think my big "ouch" moment came in realizing I need to give up my Starbucks study sessions for four weeks.  That's a little hard.  We actually discussed whether I keep them or not, but I know our purpose is to reset our priorities.  As much as I like to think it is, Starbucks is NOT a necessity.  It's a luxury.  One of the convicting realizations that I've had over the past week is the way we have come to view our dining out as a necessity rather than a treat or a luxury.  Part of me knows we really need this reset, but another part of me fears the unknown and what comes with it.

What about you?  Does your life need a reset in an area?  Maybe a no spend October is something your budget needs, too.  Want to join us in the adventure?  Company always makes the trip more fun! 

Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10