2018 One Word - Hope

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD. "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."

~Jeremiah 29:11

For the past several years I have adopted a Word for the Year.  

2014 - Pieces

2015 - Recklessly Abandoned

2016 - Exhale

2017 Intentional

Quite honestly, most of those years those words have seemed really difficult.  They have become reminders though that words can have more depth and meaning then we ever imagine.  In 2014, leaving a job meant feeling like my life was falling apart.  It meant feelings of loss and abandonment.  It quite literally felt like life as I knew it was falling apart.

The crazy thing about words though is that they create a story.  When the end of 2015 came along I found myself once more leaving a job (which honestly seemed a little reckless), but this time it was with a sense of anticipation.  We were expecting our second child and I was about half way through school.  There was the offer of a volunteer position in the field I was studying and things looked promising.

2016 saw the birth of our second daughter and the releasing of various relationships, expectations and learning how to be a one income family.

As I have reflected on 2017, I find that once more the idea of being intentional has impacted my life in ways that I never expected.  It meant that in a year that held a lot of change my approach to that changed was different.  I wasn't just reacting to everything that was going on around me, I began to learn to slow down and be intentional about how I responded.  Our family as a whole has tried to be more intentional about how we spend our resources.  It has meant saying no to some good things so I could say yes to better things.

As we neared the end of 2017, I began my usual conversation with God.  It seems like every year my monologue with God goes something like this...

"So, God, are we doing a Word again this year?  I'm not really sure I want to.  Last year sort of hurt.  I'm not quite sure I liked the way that word played out.  Could I maybe have a "happier" word if we are going to do this again?"

Inevitably it seems that when I start this questioning, God begins to show me just how much having a word that year changed me.  I never hear that one word the same way.  I have started to think of it a experiential living.  We live our entire lives using words, but do we fully absorb their impact?  We use words to argue our point in a debate.  We use words to build up, but also belittle others.  Even if you chose a word for the year, have you ever asked God to speak that word over your life for an entire year?

This year God indicated earlier that usual what my word for 2018 would be.
Hope.

I'll be honest.... I'm a little nervous about this word.  I have learned over the past few years that there is always more to a word than we see on the surface.  I think of hope as something clean and pure, a light at the end of the tunnel.  I am a little afraid to have that definition challenged.  What if I don't like what I learn about hope this year?  But what if a new understanding of hope changes me?

And in that comes once again the reminder that words can be one dimensional or they can be experiential.  To live a year allowing God to demonstrate the multi-dimensional facets of one single word or phrase is truly life changing.

Hope will change my life this year.
Will I like all of the ways that happens?
Probably not.
But will I have a deeper understanding of that one singular word Hope by the end of 2018?
Most Definitely!

An Intentional Christmas

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

Then it happened...

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

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

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

So I listened 

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

And I stopped...

And then I started to hear again...

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

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

I loved the visual this creates....

It makes me think of my own daughters...

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

"I love you so much!"

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

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

"I love you so much!

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

and I am working it all out in my time.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Can you ride with me?"

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

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

It can look great on a motivational poster.

It sounds really inspiring.

The reality...

It is really hard...

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

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

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

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

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

"I love you so much!"

Unforced Rhythms of Grace

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

It was the perfect plan.... 

Until it wasn't.

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

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

Neighbor

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

Abraham

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

Neighbor

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

Abraham

"Yeah, but God said go..."

The crazy thing...

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

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

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

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

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

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

Psalm 119:105 (NIV)

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

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

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

"Learn the unforced rhythms of grace."  

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

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

Intentional Boundaries

"Boundaries define us.  

They define what is me and what is not me.  

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

~Henry Cloud

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

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

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

leading me to a sense of ownership.

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

~Henry Cloud

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Healthy boundaries can create the opportunity for amazing community.

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

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

Intentional Love

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

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

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

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

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

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

But the greatest of these is love.

~1 Corinthians 13:13

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My husband shares a piece of wisdom from his counselor

 "Anger is fear trying to control something". 

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

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

There is no fear in love;

but perfect love casts out fear:

because fear has torment.

~1 John 4:15

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

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

So who can you intentionally choose to love this week? 

Today? 

This moment?

Relationships

Life has been crazy the last couple of weeks!

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

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

Now this is huge because I am an introvert.

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

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

Guess how much training that took?

None. Nada. Zilch. Zip. Zero.

Photo by Makole Photography

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

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

Matthew 18:3 says:

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

you will never enter the kingdom of heaven"

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

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

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

The Roman Empire was an environment where position was valued.  

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There are now complex steps and formulas for making friends.

Social class does not effect them.

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

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

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

We have complex formulas for how to make disciples.

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

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

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

you will never enter the kingdom of heaven"

What happens if we forget the formulas and charts?

What happens if we discard the hierarchy?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Embracing Change

This weekend marked a series of changes in my life.

I have a love-hate relationship with change.

Sometimes I love it because it can be exciting. 

Change can mark exciting new adventures.

Or it can be the result of really painful endings.

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

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

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

You see, the pain is familiar.  

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

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

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

Sadness that things had not ended differently.

Sadness at ending a chapter of my life.

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

That is where the fear comes in to play.

Change can be scary.

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

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

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

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

The chapter that screams community.

As one door closed another opened,

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

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

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

I started to see the community around me differently.

I began to engage differently.

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

See I am doing a new thing!

Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

I am making a way in the wilderness

and streams in the wastelands

Isaiah 43:19 

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

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

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

Forget the former things;

Do not dwell on the past.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The opportunity is given for life to begin.

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

What change is God trying to introduce in your life?

Does is scare you to death?

You're not alone if it does!