hole up, shut out, board up, & lock down

I have been on a few short term mission trips. There is something about being away, immersed in Jesus, scared, needing him, overcome with self awareness that makes it hard to come home. Those few weeks away soaking up the Son with such intensity redefine what's important. Seeing the face of those less fortunate smile bigger than I do in my abundance reshapes "want" and "need". The return is unsettling. The world you left hasn't changed, but YOU have. You want to fit back in but you can't. 

I haven't been on mission in years now. Church talks about mission being right where you are, in your neighborhood and with your community. As an introvert what I hear is I'm NOT missional. 

I struggle with the word evangelism. It's churchy and sounds disingenuous to me. I picture a person on a street corner with a bullhorn or a van with a sticker that says JESUS SAVES. 

I don't DO Jesus like that. I don't receive him like that & I don't share him like that. 

On Sunday I was encouraged for the first time in awhile that as a mom, I actually AM missional. I seek to raise and grow boys who pray with a genuine spirit of thanks to Jesus, boys who ask me real questions about heaven & wonder about their peers going to church, boys who get to know God by my own love for them.

Despite that encouragement, I'm finding being a Christian lately to be hard. Not the act of loving & or the reality of knowing Jesus, but what it means in the world. I'm finding it hurtful to love & yet impossible not to. I'm digging at the reality that I hurt people, too. 

I am finding my humanity challenging, my mistakes annoying, my sins frustrating. I WANT to be this person that loves without flaw and that is impossible. I want to be loved without injury & that will never happen on this earth. I am finding all of those complex emotions under the umbrella of saying I'm a Christian are incredibly hard for me right now. 

The more I sin, the more I'm ashamed. The more I love, the more likely I am to get hurt. The more I hurt, the harder it is to love. 

The God I know doesn't want me to feel shame, wants me to love, says this world is imperfect & will hurt. He Himself lived in this world and felt that hurt. 

I'm finding I want to go on retreat. I want to go on mission. I want that disconnection in order to connect that comes from saying TIME OUT. The problem is, I want to live in that place right now. I want to hole up, shut out, board up, and lock down so I can exist as this person who doesn't hurt others, doesn't get hurt, & just lives with Jesus unashamed. 

I know I can't do that, but I want to. 

I want to.....

Do It Afraid

I follow Joyce Meyer Ministries & often find myself clinging to words she shares. Last night she shared this:

"The feeling of fear is not that abnormal. We all feel that, but just because you feel fear, doesn't mean you have to let it stop you. You can feel fear and still 'do it afraid.'"

It completely resonates with my heart. I keep finding the more things I say "I'll NEVER do that" to, the list of how wrong I am keeps growing.

I'll NEVER get Married. WRONG
I'll NEVER have kids. WRONG
I'll NEVER do direct sales. WRONG.

All of those I'll NEVERS stemming from FEAR. Fear of failure, fear of hurt, FEAR.


                               .......................................

January was a weird month for me, and that word doesn't even FIT. I walk into February with this same off-putting feeling that I am not emotionally, physically, spiritually where I should be. I feel trapped inside my own head & heart trying to sort out a pieces of my soul that have all become dislodged. And there's no reason. There's no catastrophic moment that gives reason to this; which honestly makes me feel crazy.

I woke up at 3am this morning haunted by dreams that felt so real, full of people I love & have loved, full of moments I fear, remember, and anticipate, FULL of burden. I had to get my bearings: what is real, where am I, where do I live, what day is it?

I tried putting myself back to sleep mentally drawing bubbles my me-hood is segregated into.... And ALL of this is what I can't shake!

I am drowning in my own division, pouring the best of me into being employed because it FEELS the most validating, falling at the feet of Jesus throughout the day knowing it's not where I want to be & not sure how to touch bottom in the shallow end again. 

I keep looking for answers for the mental chaos. I keep WANTING to withdraw, seclude, isolate and recharge but there's no time for that. So, how do I rebuild & recenter? 

I turn my worship on and while the toy cars crash and the kids fight I let the words sink in and the truth starts to warm me. 

So today, I am regurgitating this. I am going to keep stepping out, doing it afraid, working to realign and reword the lies to truths. 

plant, grow, harvest, sow

I started the year empty & foreign to myself, I wrote about that the other day, & since that post I've reawakened. I feel like myself again! My skin feels like MINE again! 

Something quite literally clicked. 

I walked downstairs and I saw my microwave and my refrigerator and my heart felt SO thankful so I just said, "Thank you, Jesus!" That little whisper of gratitude created this avalanche of internal unfolding and my gratitude snowballed into greater & greater thanks!

I took my son to school yesterday and decided to get with the current century and try my first podcast. I went back to our former church for a resource and rediscovered Drive Time daily devotions. I turned the first one on & in 4 minutes, I was refueled. The prayer at the end made me re-listen 6 times & eventually type it out. 

The prayer RESTORED me. It put words to what I couldn't put my finger on. I was anxious. I am unknowing of where I need to plant my gifts. Unsure of how He wants to use my gifts to provide for our family & the purpose He has for my life.  

Are you feeling just...stall-struck? 

Maybe this prayer will speak to you, too?

God I trust this year into Your hands 

and whatever harvest you want to come out of this year 

of relationships, hope, and love of ministry of finances of family of growth 

all those things in my life

anything and everything

God I want Your harvest in my life. 

I want what You want for my life. 

So show me where to plant and then how to trust You for what is going to grow. 

Show me how to plow and how to trust You to send the rain. 

God show me what You want me to do and then I trust You for the harvest. 

You are the one who is going to send the harvest and I will bless You and be blessed by whatever harvest You send. 

At the beginning of this year I put my faith and trust in You in that way. 

And Lord I pray that,that would cause me to have less anxiety this year and in place of my anxiety there would be this sense of trust that God You know what you're doing. You're at work in my life. You're going to bring blessings through and in my life this year. 

I trust you with that. 

In Jesus name, 

Amen.

{you can listen HERE} 

I started my day feeling restored but it ended with a challenge.

My husband sought to encourage me with words but they unintentionally shook my spirit. He reminded me I needed to be thinking about my future with work when our boys are in school. He mentioned my strength in marketing for others and how I should turn it toward my own business. I panicked and told him, "I can't talk about this right now" and I rolled over and put a pillow over my head. 

I realized, my husband doesn't realize how deeply I am trying to push into what's blocking me from success. Without being able to put words to it, I couldn't even express how intentionally I am seeking the direction I need to take. 

So, husband, I am sorry I panicked. I am pressing into the places to plant knowing that He has always blessed us even (& especially in) the seasons of burden. 

Jesus, I surrender my anxiety right now and each time it bubbles to the surface remembering that I am Yours and You have plans to prosper & not to harm me. Thank you for your grace and strength as I will eternally need them.

restoration

It's 2015. The hype that comes with the conclusion of one year and the start of another didn't have it's usual zest for me this year. The Christmas season left me worn down & hyper sensitive to noise (not exactly ideal with two babes 6 & 3). While so many blessings encompassed the ending of 2014, I couldn't shake the physical & mental fatigue that had taken over me.

For the past several years I have shied away from lengthy resolutions & instead focused on a word like renew, intentional, or this year's: RESTORATION. 

I long deeply to restore.

Spiritually, I crave restoration in my connection with Jesus.

Physically, I want desperately to restore my body to a healthy state.

Emotionally, I will always need to restore my heart when I discover new areas that call me to grow. 

Mentally, I need to restore my self image. 

So I came upon a binder I had misplaced and left untouched. It was filled with "powersheets" and the aim of "goal setting." Lara Casey poured time, effort, and intention into a tool that I could only DREAM of creating one day. Six months of homework for the soul covering action plans, dreams, & self focus. 

I opened it and stared. For the first time, filling out forms felt....daunting. Because, truthfully, I don't have a lot of the answers. As someone who spends an enormous amount of time in my own head, I felt alarmingly stunted. 

I feel a lot of doubt lately. A lot of fear that I don't see NEW on the horizon, timidity that I may be being asked to stay in one place for awhile, frustration that I'm becoming accustomed to things in a physical place I need to stay new longer. But I'm trying, and this is the meek start to a lot of immensely dream-freezing thoughts I'm sifting through.... 

It's shockingly vulnerable to let myself write all of that down; to unlock that which I know is there but pretend is not. Seeing it, facing it, means I'm calling myself out. Letting the ink drip out of my fingertips means it exists. 

I have no answers. I have only the knowledge that I am wading in the deep end wondering when my feet will touch bottom. I need to give myself permission to feel this, put my hands into it, and see what the wheel and I spin into art together. I want to stand and walk out the door, let the clay slop down and unform but I will try to be here, deep into "this,  knowing I'm not a potter but a puddle of confusion. I will SEEK restoration so I can love who He already loves so dearly, then I will be set free!

Borrowed Faith

I stood in the corridor, still and mildly confident. The warehouse church had emptied aside from a few staff stragglers. Christmas season was a upon us. I was in a weird place all my own not quite knowing which way was up or which way was down, but my life felt down. 

I had graduated from college 6 months earlier and where I had imagined being was not where I was. With a degree taking me nowhere, a job donning an aloha shirt at a hotel front desk, living in my mother’s 2-sheets-as-walls dining room, I was sure twenty-two was a punishment. If it weren’t for Karen, I know I wouldn’t have been standing in church that night. 

I am the oldest of three children but quintessentially an only child. My parents divorced when I was five. Truth be told, I have no idea how they were ever together, but at thirty-two, I am beginning to understand people really ARE just people! Early on I became my mother’s best friend & at five, it emotionally matured me to thirteen. I carried her burdens, I cared for her in my heart as my own child, I sot to protect her from everything, not because she asked, but because it just came to be. I looked after my brother and sister (only a year and one week apart, they were like twins and I was too old to fit in), I championed for them in wars that were not mine to fight. At fourteen I internally became mother to my siblings, best friend to my mother, distanced from my father, and broken teenage girl. 

My first memories of religion were formed in pre-school and Sunday school. I remember the Sunday mornings my mom towed us 3 kids under 4 in a Jeep Wagoneer to Sunday school alone, “Daddy isn’t coming. He is sleeping.” It didn’t matter to me then, but the message was built on a thousand other actions & statements: Daddy is absent. 

Mom took us to church throughout our lives, but after the divorce and the move five hours north of Dad, Sunday school wasn’t a comfort, it was a tension, a cause of separation anxiety. So, I grew up in “big church,” listening to messages far above my head, bored to drawing on the church handouts, but eventually deciding I wanted to be baptized at 12. Perhaps because, that’s what good girls do. 

It was December 16, 1992, and my brother and I in our Arroyo Grande, California church, made our public statement of faith. I had invited a few friends and don’t remember much else except for plugging my nose, getting wet, & receiving a gold cross necklace, yet every December 16, I remember it. 

Life carried on in what I called my traveling circus but the further on the years went, the more I tried to lose myself in everyone else’s God. 

Catholic school presented the opportunities to perform and behave within the right groups yet break the right rules. I was Christian Ministry leader, a speaker at retreats, yet, so broken inside that boys were the hollow answer to feeling loved. No matter how many religious talks I could give, or chances I had to turn down drugs & alcohol, I always managed to find the ways to become the monocle of spiritual failure. At 19, standing outside of my college dorm building, freshly home from a month living in Italy, I made it clear to God, “I’m done with YOU to punish them. I’m never good enough so this dance I’ve done is over.”

I was angry. So, so angry. I was in an abyss years deep of isolation from my family. My platform in life existed to champion for one victim & hold contempt for one villain. I felt I had every excuse to have been a statistic of what goes wrong when parents suck, but I kept fighting to be the antithesis (and failed).

I wandered through Catholic college bouncing between the vision of devoted bible student and entertaining the party life. I found the wrong boyfriend & learned how good it felt to fight. All of my pent up frustration came out in the form of this one awful relationship. Truth is I was as bad for him as he was for me. Somehow, though, I left college without that engagement ring we had talked about and moving back to the land of the trapped yet free. 

I was 22. I was home and lost. I stood in a church my life-long friend had invited me into. I was tied up in a bondage of depression and I wanted more. I was ready for more. 

I stood in the corridor, still and mildly confident. The warehouse church had emptied aside from a few staff stragglers. Christmas season was a upon us. I was in a weird place all my own not quite knowing which way was up or which way was down, but my life felt down. I was ready for up. I was ready for Jesus. I realized, with two sets of hands on me,  answering yes to the question, “Do you believe that Jesus is your savior?” that all of these years of thinking I was a Christian, I was merely living on borrowed faith. 

A brush of wind pulled from my back as I was prayed over to be made new. I felt Jesus then. Jesus became mine, not my mother's, not the church’s, but mine. On December 21, 2004, I wasn’t just a Christian by title, I knew I was God’s daughter. That night I understood Jesus is REAL. He is safe, forgiving, ever-present, the one who works all my brokenness for His good. 

This Christmas, I am taking a moment to hold closely what Karen invited me into ten years ago and celebrate His perfect love for my constant imperfection.

O Come O Come Emmanuel

I'm wondering where Christmas is, because it doesn't quite feel like it's here.

It should be here, as in my heart, nestling in and rooting itself within me, but I'm detached, feeling it slip by, aching for a way to hold on.

The ornaments aren't hung, and I kind of like it like this.

Simple.

The outside brought in.

The rearranging of furniture to make it fit.

Now...if only I could rearrange my mind and my soul to make it fit inside my heart.

Simple.

The glory of Jesus' birth brought in.

I am going through the motions.

Staring at boxes nestled away 11 months of the year and the part of me that was eager to open them two weeks ago is tired now.

I'm tired of the "clean up your toys" battle.

It makes me feel like I'm failing at nurturing gratitude & is robbing me of the joy I find in giving.

It makes me feel like Christmas decorations are just another mess.

I want to embrace my Savior's birth.

I want to remember the Christmas I lost our second baby but gained a sliver of perspective on JUST what Mary gave.

She gave her son.

HER baby boy.

Born in a barn, far from home, fulfilling promise for mankind.

For ME!

I will come to the table and meet with Him.

Over and over each day

Laying down my heart churning with both gratitude & burden.

I'll let Him in to change the spirit of Christmas from adorned home to adored life.

And I will praise.

That is what I will do. 

O Come O Come Emmanuel

The Gift of Experience

Christmas is coming.

I love this season for the magic it brings. Twinkling lights, Rosie Thomas Christmas music, the smell of a fresh turkish fur, chilly weather, decorations, & the spirit of intention; that's what I see in the still small anticipatory moments. I fear however, like every month, the time ushers past me too quickly and I'm caught up in the navigation of daily life with the added holiday agenda.

Already I am dreaming of Christmas morning and seeing the faces of some of those I love opening up presents. I have spent possibly too much time considering just what to wrap up for them before purchasing. Then there's the worry that my children will MISS the reason of the season: Jesus. That I will miss JESUS in the season!

Yesterday, in an epic toy explosion we call KK, we had the chance to examine every single toy we own strewn out around the living room. Wide eyed, my husband and I stared at each other: this is NOT what we want!

I shared, "Sweetie, I really WANT to ask people NOT to get our children toys for Christmas," and he acquiesced.

Now before you think I'm a horrible mother trying to strip the magic of Santa's delivery or rob grandparents of their ability to love long distance, it's NOT that I want to rob my children, it's quite the opposite, I want to GIVE to my children. I am not against the idea of gifting (after all, it's MY very own love language. I LOVE gift giving). What I want though for my children is the gift of experience.

I know, Skylanders are an experience (a technologically odd one but an experience none the less), blocks expand the mind, remote helicopters are fun (for dad), & nerf guns are fabulous but they all lose their magic. Each toy that was so highly coveted soon becomes a thing of the past and only remembered if in generations to come they are resurrected again, like Ninja Turtles or Strawberry Shortcake. What takes longer to dissipate, what builds bonds, what grows relationships is the gift of experience.

From my childhood, what I cherish most now is the gift my grandma gave of The Candy Cane Tree. Before she arrived at our house, she'd hang a barren tree with dozens of candy canes. All three of us would line up at the end of the street and at the word GO would race down and strip the tree of it's new peppermint leaves and see who won the "who got the most!" contest. I remember all of the clothes we would get and between cousins our eyes would meet and silently say, "I can't wait to return this with you on our after-Christmas shopping trip!" I LOVE the annual gift my Aunt and Uncle gave us of family bowling WITH team shirts. And of course, there is always the gift of Christmas Dinner at the castle. Gifts of love, time, & laughter that just STICK in my heart like cinnamon roll frosting on my fingers.

I don't want my children to relive my experience and the magic it brought me. I want them to have their own. I want them to be sown into with opportunity: college support, swimming lessons, a chance to go to the movie theater, an art class, a pottery painting hour, a date for a shake at Sonic, a trip to Dutch Brothers for a hot chocolate. Some of these experiences are less than $5 and give the gift of living life outside of our own financial ability to provide or sustain.

The humbling part is that I realize in writing this that my wish to dictate what is given to my children is selfish. I want to orchestrate the love that is sent to them, given to them, doted upon them to fit within my parenting dreams.

In this moment, I stare at the sea of legos, the ninja turtle figurines, and the endless supply of hot wheels and wonder, is this not relational experience too between brothers? Perhaps I am off base. The heart of this rant, however, is my acknowledgement that time is invaluable and what an amazing opportunity to gift others in our lives with small gifts to encourage relationship. At the very epicenter of my heart is the desire to spend less time frustrated at the chaos of cleaning & more time GIVING LIFE to my family in the art of making memories.

{Looking for ideas on how to give non-toy gifts?? Check out this post!}