Give it a Rest.

This one goes out to the burnt out, the worn out, the bitter and cynical, the rule followers, and the ones who need permission. I see you and I’m happy to have you in the club.

 

I’m about to wrap up my graduate degree (can I get an AMEN), and I’ve spent a lot of time learning about what motivates people within organizations. I have loved this area of study, not only for how I will use it in my careers going forward, but for how it has changed my personal life over the past two years. I’ve always considered myself a self-motivator. If you could hear my internal dialogue on any given day, you would catch me coaching myself – pumping myself up, giving myself new goals, setting the boundaries of success and failure. 

“You’ve earned a break in 10 minutes! Keep writing!”

“You earned that extra cookie with your work out this morning. Good job!”

“Study for another half hour and you can watch tv. You’re almost done.”

I’ve considered this a good life skill because it usually produces results and always garners praise. I achieve, and then overachieve. I perform well. I feel successful. And like any good cycle, the results perpetuate the action.

I have a friend who catches my restrictive language and rephrases it, because she’s bossy like that and knows I need it. A few weeks ago we were at the pool and I jokingly said out loud, “I worked out today for this second beer”. She quickly and kindly interjected, “or you can just have it because you want it”. Our closest friends have the ability to see through our self deprecation and fake jokes to address the truth behind the words. She knew that joke meant something deeper in my heart, and in her love for me she corrected it.

Who knows if she remembers it, but I’ve clearly been thinking about this for weeks. Our culture has begun to talk ad nauseum about the restrictive language surrounding dieting and exercise, and for good reason. There is a difference between self discipline and restrictive behavior, and I would suspect we begin to tip toward the latter when we fear judgement. I never want to be thought of as lazy, so I overwork. I don’t want people to think I’m a slob, so I place requirements on my appearance. And all along we fool ourselves into thinking we’re just self-disciplined and others are not. Suddenly self-discipline becomes the idol, rather than the fruit.

Galatians 5 lists the fruit of the Spirit as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. If you grew up in Sunday School like me, you just danced a little jig while you recited that scripture in song-form. And because I memorized it at such a young age, I’ve never spent much time trying to understand it in a different way. I just knew that these were some of the fruits of the Spirit – meaning that the more time I spend embodied by the Holy Spirit, learning and growing, the more these fruits develop in my life. I know that in my head. But I don’t believe it in my soul.

I often remember that song and consider the words like they are actions to exhibit. I love people. I am kind to people. I am gentle with my words. I am patient. A listicle of achievements, and all that matters is the performance.

“Good job controlling your words when you were really angry. You can say whatever you want in your head.”

“Keep being patient with people. It is okay that you’re slowly beginning to despise them as long as they never know.”

I prefer to do my casual reading in The Message version, and look at the unique way Eugene Peterson unpacks it:

“But what happens when we live God’s way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard – things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.” Galatians 5: 22-23

 

I cry just reading that last sentence. Jesus, how wrong I am all. of. the. time. My whole self, my internal dialogue that directs my life, is built around pride in my ability to force my way in life. Pride in my ability to push further, strive longer. There is no willingness to stick with things, but rather begrudging, restrictive behavior that requires me to do so. There is no involving myself in loyal commitments, but rather punishing myself for not seeing something through. I am not marshalling and directing my energies wisely, I’m throwing all of my energies at all of the things in my life, and I am tired. 

When Jesus tells us to come away with him and he will teach us rest, I believe him. I believe he will teach me to rest, but I’m terrified I haven’t earned it yet. At what point do I get to be tired enough? Burnt out enough? Broken enough to deserve the rest he offers. How long do I stoically have to withstand exhaustion and pain and “persevere” before I have earned the right to hear “Well done, good and faithful servant. You can take a nap now.” And who decides? Does it take an emotional breakdown before the world recognizes we need a break? Does it take a pastor’s moral failing or Twitter tirade before their congregation says they need to step back? 

Fruits of the Spirit are not things to achieve, killing ourselves along the way with internal punishments and requirements for performance. Fruits of the Spirit are pieces of character that develop, and they are never the goal – they’re the byproduct. 

I don’t know who you’re waiting on permission from. Maybe you believe like I do that we can’t take a break until our bosses have recognized our work and told us we look tired. Maybe you don’t think you’re allowed to use those company-given vacation days unless your supervisors do too. Maybe you’re trying to make up for lost time – playing catch up for the years you aren’t proud of or the time you think you wasted, and you can’t rest until you have. Maybe you believe you’re required to say yes to everything because it is your consequence for previously saying no. 

But here’s what Jesus says: You don’t have to earn rest. You don’t have to wait for permission or for someone to tell you you’re burnt out. You don’t have to make up for lost time by working yourself to the bone. You don’t have to make yourself ill or dying in order to get permission to live a healthy life. Jesus says:

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burnt out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you have 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’ll learn how to live freely and lightly.” Matthew 11:28-30

There is no fine print. There is no prerequisite. The only requirement is to keep company with him. 

I know why this is heavy on my heart, but I don’t know how it might be speaking to you too. I know that God is teaching me to let go of my need for permission. Permission to live, to be healthy, to enjoy the life he has given me, to follow the passions he planted in my heart. But maybe for you it has nothing to do with self discipline and everything to do with your lack of compassion for people who don’t agree with you about the pandemic. Maybe it has nothing to do with self discipline, but everything to do about having an exuberance for life even in this confusing and scary time. 

Wherever you fall, wherever your heart is aching, we have an invitation that doesn’t require permission: learn the unforced rhythms of God. Keep company with him, draw near to him and he will draw near to us, and the fruit will blossom. 

 

You Can’t Win a Pandemic.

You can’t win a pandemic.

And that’s a problem, because I like to win things. I like to automatically be great at all things, and I am not great at this pandemic situation. I’m not great at working from home without my teammates down the hall. I’m not great at being stuck in my house 24/7 with my husband and dog. I’m not great at being away from my friends for weeks. It all makes me cranky and lethargic. Being removed from people is like being removed from my purpose, because I’m a people pleaser by nature. There’s no one here to please, no achievements to succeed at, no gold stars to earn. All of that has been stripped away, because you can’t win a pandemic.

I’ve been trying to stay off of social media as much as possible (something else I’m not winning at, because what else is there to do?), because if we thought politics was divisive, WHOO BOY, did we not know what we were in for this year. Our feeds are filled with competing takes on the severity of the virus, what the new guidelines are and how they should be interpreted, how to best love and support your neighbor, and more and more and more. The information is endless and being generated in real time before our very eyes. And just like every other day on the Facebook, social media has drawn clear lines and formed teams. You’re either winning the pandemic or you’re losing, and if you’re losing, you’re the worst among us.

I’ll be clear: yes, there are right and wrong ways to behave right now. The federal and state governments have issued guidelines to follow, and I believe it is my job as a citizen, and a Christian, to follow those guidelines to the best of my ability. I believe it is the best way to love my neighbor, and I believe that my ability to follow some guidelines that others cannot is my duty for the benefit of the whole. I believe it is my job to think collectively rather than individualistically. And some people don’t agree with that. And that’s okay. 

Shaming people into action has never been an effective tool. It’s easy to get frustrated when I see someone not treating the pandemic as seriously as me or following certain guidelines, but it’s still possible to extend grace and compassion to them. All of our individual responses to the current situation are grounded in our past experiences with fear and stress, and remembering that should fill me with grace. I can love others and recognize the efforts they are making without shaming them for not doing more. I can encourage people to adopt new behaviors without shaming them for not doing it the “right way” the first time. And I can see other people from afar and choose to believe the best about their behaviors instead of assuming the worst about them. There isn’t an either/or here. I can both extend grace to my neighbors and encourage them to modify their behaviors. But if my encouragement is caked in shame, I’ve missed the boat. 

Just like each of us gets to decide how we’re going to respond to the government guidelines, we each get to decide how we’re going to respond to our communities. This situation will only make me more cynical about my neighbor if I decide to let it. I would rather let this mess be a master class in grace and encouragement. Maybe living sacrificially right now means letting go of my need to win and shame others into submission. Maybe it means sacrificing my right to be angry. Maybe it means learning that refusing to live in fear doesn’t mean living in rebellion, but peacefully following someone else’s lead.

Just like I’m learning to give my community grace, I’m learning to give it to myself. I’ve never lived through a pandemic before, and I don’t like it. I don’t like the emotions it brings, or the new rhythms I’m learning. I don’t like that some days are harder than others and my sense of normalcy and routine has been tossed out the window. But instead of shaming myself every day for not being as productive as the day before, or feeling a heavy weight of exhaustion from being home all day, I’m giving myself grace. Grace to show up (thanks Suzanne) every day, giving the best I have to give, and accepting it might look a bit different every day. 

There’s no winning the pandemic, only surviving.

But I want my survival to be soaked in love and compassion instead of fear and shame. 

 

Hard Hearts

I’ve been stewing on defense mechanisms lately. I’ve been considering the defense mechanisms in my own life to see which ones I created intentionally or developed on their own, and the effects they have on my life. The student in me gets it. Defense mechanisms are developed to protect ourselves. Often born out of some sort of trauma, our brains and bodies have developed hacks to keep us safe. But the “hurt person” in me gets it deep in my soul. I’ve created, both consciously and subconsciously, ways to keep people at arms length so that I don’t get hurt again, and they are slowly ruining my life. 

Let’s put something on the table before I go on: boundaries can be a defense mechanism but defense mechanism is not synonymous with boundaries. Healthy boundaries in relationships are crucial to living, but unhealthy boundaries – boundaries developed from hurt or anger or spite, etc – are not. Unhealthy boundaries may look like they’re producing the same external results as healthy ones, but the intention of my heart is completely different. In healthy boundaries my goal is to make my relationships the best they can be by making sure we all know the expectations and reality involved. In unhealthy boundaries my goal is to protect myself at all costs.

My number one go-to, default, most favorite defense mechanism is cynicism. I’ve been aware of this for a while, and I know I’ve written on it before. I first felt the heavy weight of conviction about my cynicism when I was listening to a podcast and the interviewee said “cynicism is a cheap form of grief”, and ever since this has been my mantra. Because it is true. Nine times out of ten, my cynicism is born from a lack of properly grieving an experience of my own or of someone close to me and that’s tough to swallow. Because grief sucks. Admitting hurt and seeking healing it way harder than allowing my stuffed emotions to create walls. More importantly, doing the work means I have to resolve something with, usually with someone else, instead of writing them off. What good and beautiful relationships I have missed out on through defense measures designed to keep people away, because I was too proud to meet them at the table?

It is time to get back to believing the best in people instead of assuming the worst. When did we stop seeing the hurt in each other and begin only seeing one another at our worst? It’s okay if we’re proven wrong. I’d rather be proven wrong a million times over for believing the best in someone than be proven wrong for assuming everyone was terrible. Does this open me up to being hurt by people? Yes. But what good is protecting myself from the world doing? Our cynicism is not protecting our hearts from getting hurt – it’s slowing hardening them. Slowly but surely our hearts are growing hard to broken people, which is ironic because we are just as broken. We were clearly given a commandment to love other people, and hard hearts can’t do that. Contrary to our belief, hard hearts still get hurt, and it just chips away until there is nothing left. 

If love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control are fruits of the Spirit, cynicism is an acid slowly eating away at the fruit and deteriorating the root. They cannot coexist. It is time to choose one or the other. If we are determined to hang on to our hearts of stone that have developed through cynicism and bitterness, we will never experience the full bounty of fruits born through the Spirit. We will never experience all the Spirit has to offer. But I guess we sure will enjoy sitting by ourselves in the dark after we’ve chased everyone away. 

Doing the work of releasing cynicism isn’t for the faint of heart, but we don’t do it alone. Ezekiel says GOD will give us a new heart, taking the one of stone and replacing it with one of flesh. It isn’t something we can discipline ourselves into – it is an act of submission to the Spirit. It involves submitting ourselves to conviction and choosing a different way. Take stock of your heart: where is cynicism beginning to harden you?

In your job? 

Your marriage? 

Your family?

Your friendships?

Aren’t you exhausted from carrying that rock around? 

I am. It’s time to submit to the work, friends. It’s time to let go of the cynicism we’re holding onto and start dealing with the grief we’ve ignored for far too long. Join me. I promise it will be worth it. 

2020

I’m not going to count off each of the past ten years.

I’ve enjoyed reading everyone else’s, but it’s not a healthy exercise for me. I like to get stuck in the good years and forget the areas of uncomfortable growth, but those are the important moments. There’s been a lot of joy in the past decade, but there’s been an equal (if not larger) amount of sorrow. That’s just how it goes sometimes – and there’s nothing wrong with that. Life doesn’t dole out joy and sorrow equally. But I’m proud of the way I handled both, and that’s saying something.

In the past decade, I learned to believe in myself. I had an exceptional boss early on who believed in me and helped me realize my love for people and business. Without his influence and instruction I wouldn’t have gained incredible work experiences that shaped the way I understood myself and my future. Experiences where I learned the importance of failing gracefully and learning along the way. I wouldn’t be on the career path I’m on today without those early years, and I’m so grateful.

In the past decade, I learned how to navigate grief. Because of the loving push of a dear friend, I was brave enough to start therapy where I began to accept the beauty of living with grief instead of conquering it. I learned (am learning) to be a healthier, imperfect version of myself, and it’s more freeing than I could have imagined.

In the past decade, I learned how to be married. When I read that sentence out loud it sounds strange, but it’s just a fact. It did not come naturally, and we definitely don’t do it perfectly, but we’ve learned how to be partners in life. Celebrating ten years together this week was an achievement to be celebrated, and it wasn’t lost on either of us how hard we’ve worked to make it here and beyond.

In the past decade, I learned how to be a better friend. I have a group of friends with the most beautiful souls who have taught my so much about how to be a good friend, a good sister. They continue to teach me how to live selflessly, authentically, and vulnerably. They’ve taught me the joy that comes from bringing your full self to the table and setting aside insecurity and doubt.

In the past decade, I’ve learned how to grow. I’ve learned to recognize my weaknesses and grow in them instead of hiding them. There’s plenty that happened in the last decade that I’m not proud of and deeply embarrassed by. It isn’t easy and I’m not always good at it, but I’ve learned that an opportunity for even a little growth is better than faking anything. And I still have to remind myself of that daily.

 

2020 brings quite a bit of change, like every year before it. The (hopeful) end to college classes. Continuing to learn a new job I’ve fallen in love with. Turning 30 and not freaking out about it. Starting a new decade and not freaking out about it. But with all the change, a remarkable amount of life stays the same. I’m still learning to believe in myself. I’m still learning to navigate grief. I’m still learning to be married and be a better friend. And I’m still learning to grow – even more so now.

vulnerability is a tricky thing.

The Monday after Mother’s Day, I posted something on my instagram story. I can’t tell you exactly what it said because instastories, by nature, disappear after 24 hours and I didn’t screenshot it and it came from me kind of stream-of-conscious-like so it wasn’t really curated in my brain. But it was a repost of a cutsie message board someone had shared that read “take a deep breath”, with a message to my friends struggling with the post Mother’s Day hangover feels to remember to breathe through their Monday. Breathe out the unexpected onslaught of emotions and remember that Tuesday will come. The day doesn’t last forever. Just breathe.

Personally, I had a hard day on that Monday, but it wasn’t as tough as past years. I made it through the weekend with a breezy heart, generally unaffected by a day that had typically crushed my soul in the past. No, this Monday was pretty different, because 2019 has been a pretty different year. I’ve hesitated to write about it because it’s deeply spiritual, and while I’m not ashamed of that, I realize that not all my readers are quite as woo-woo as me, and because the deeply spiritual parts of me are also deeply personal. So with all the clarity I can muster, let me try to explain that 2019 has me feeling freer than I have in years. I described it to a friend in this way: grief takes many shapes and forms, but for me in recent years it has felt like lugging a giant suitcase around. I used to travel a lot and lugging suitcases through the airport was by far the worst part. I was petite and not at all strong, with no upper body strength to get carry ons into the overhead compartment and much too shy to ask someone to help me, so stepping onto an airplane caused much anxiety and a weird combination of awkward embarrassment as I was determined to fit this dadgum suitcase into it’s spot while avoiding eye contact with all the strong men and women who probably would have gladly assisted me if I hadn’t been emitting such defiant independence. I was also pretty dramatic, clearly. But what I learned from being in airports all the time was that after a few months of traveling nonstop you start to forget how heavy the suitcase is. You just adapt. I don’t think I ever got stronger or less awkward, I just adapted to this new way of life. My grief journey has been similar. I felt like I was lugging around a suitcase full of weights, and over time I just adjusted to carrying it. So when the grief lifted in a sudden and spiritual way, I was confused because I couldn’t name what felt different about my heart. It felt lighter. I was smiling more, at nothing in particular. I was sleeping better. I had more energy. I was rarely thinking about children, and when I did there was no sorrow attached. It was weird. It wasn’t until someone at church came up to me out of the blue and said something so specific for me that I realized what was happening. She said “sometimes healing comes in the form of freedom from the burden of grief, rather than physical healing” (or something like that – sorry if I butchered it). And then it just clicked – the burden was gone. It was no longer holding me down or pulling me back. I had grown so numb to the weight that I couldn’t remember what it felt like to live without it.

Flash forward five months to Mother’s Day and I wasn’t surprised that I made it through the weekend so well. I was proud, even, that I had actually enjoyed it instead of being in my feelings the whole time. So when I started to feel grief kicking up dust in my soul that Monday morning, I was surprised. And confused. And terrified. Terrified because once you’ve lost that burden of grief, your worst fear is that you had only faked your way out of it and it’s going to come back. Confused because while I have gotten real good at identifying my emotions and labeling them fact or fake (salute, therapy), there was a jumble of things going on in my heart and I wasn’t able to separate them well. I was scrolling through Instagram on my lunch break when I saw that message board and told myself “take a deep breath.”. As I did I realized the grief wasn’t flooding me. I wasn’t having a panic attack or overwhelmed by my emotions. I was thinking of the women who were experiencing the Mother’s Day hangover I have felt for the past few years. I was thinking of the women who were pulling the suitcase of grief I had pulled for many years. I was sad. But I was light. This is my least favorite part of grief: the duality. I need to be either all in my feels or all the way out. While I pride myself on understanding the healthy gray of life, I need my feelings to be black and white. Grief doesn’t do that. As I sat there on my couch, I held both sorrow and joy in my hands, intermingling. Neither fighting for more space or the upper hand, both content to coexist and respect each other’s perspective.

And so I posted the cute picture to my instastory with my note for the women experiencing what I had experienced multiple years before, and a bit this year, A few friends reached out to check on me – because they are wise and loving – and I couldn’t explain everything I just told you. That I was better than years before, but experiencing a mix of sorrow and joy that felt strange. I didn’t know how to explain that I was both deeply sad and still free in my bones, because I couldn’t explain it to myself yet. So I gave them the answer I could: that I was trying. And spent the following hours and days experiencing a deep vulnerability shame for speaking up. Because I didn’t mean to post it in an attempt to garner sympathy for myself. I was truly speaking to the women in this posse of fertility misfits who I knew were having a hard day because I’ve had both the misfortune and pleasure to have gone before them. But my words were also for me, because I was hurting a bit too. And so I started to cave to this shame creeping up in me that says the only reason to speak out on this thing called social media, that we love to hate, is to receive love and affection.

This is where vulnerability gets tricky. I haven’t been writing much over the past several months, for a few reasons. Grad school is harder than I anticipated (eye rolls welcome), life has been busier than we thought it would be, I’ve largely been uninspired, and these pieces of me that are changing just didn’t have words to go with them yet. So I largely stayed silent while I processed. But the danger with staying silent is that you lose the habit of vulnerability. You grow out of practice. And I, certainly, need the practice and habit of vulnerability in order to engage well. Left to my own devices I stay bottled up instead of welcoming people into my suck. So when I spoke out this week, after months of not so much, I was immediately flooded with deep shame. Shame for being so open with The Internet. Shame for baring an unflattering piece of my heart. Shame for speaking.

I’ve become a big podcast listener over the past year, and today I listened to a host explain why they talk about themselves so much and tell such degrading stories about themselves when they know the public probably thinks they’re being self indulgent and narcissistic. This host said, the guest will only ever be as vulnerable as the host, so they’re willing to get deep in the muck first. I could feel my heart cracking as I sat at my desk. How beautifully true. Most people don’t show up in our lives ready and willing to bare the deepest parts of their souls, the good, bad, and gross. But it’s in all of us. If I want my table to be open to everyone and welcome to authentic, vulnerable, broken people, I have to be willing to be the first one to get down in the dirt and share my brokenness. And I’ve decided I will.

I don’t want to ever stop speaking loudly about the pain I’ve gone through if I think it will help someone else, because the voices of other women who have gone before me were some of the only things that got me through those early years. I don’t want to ever cower to vulnerability shame that tells me I speak out for attention or the words I speak have no power, because the words spoken TO me have more power than those people realize. Because God speaks to me through his word and through other people. And I don’t ever want to quit speaking out because I don’t think anyone needs to hear it or no one will get it. We are given voices that carry power, and refusing to use that power is disobedience. Refusing to speak up for and speak life into other people is what we’re made to do, but it starts with being honest about ourselves.

 

So here’s to getting back into the habit of writing and the habit of vulnerability. Here’s to saying no to shame.

Love,
Julia

 

Prescribed Burns

“According to God’s grace that was given to me, I have laid a foundation as a skilled master builder, and another builds on it. But each one is to be careful how he builds on it. 11 For no one can lay any other foundation than what has been laid down. That foundation is Jesus Christ. 12 If anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, or straw, 13 each one’s work will become obvious. For the day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire; the fire will test the quality of each one’s work. 14 If anyone’s work that he has built survives, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone’s work is burned up, he will experience loss, but he himself will be saved—but only as through fire.”  1 Corinthians 3: 10-15

Scripture snapshot: When reading the beginning of Paul’s letter, I can only assume things were starting to get a little dicey in Corinth. He’s tossing out some firm reprimands and corrections. Paul is trying to show the Christians in Corinth that they’ve placed their hope in their leaders rather than their savior. They’ve begun associating themselves with their spiritual guides (I belong to Paul, I belong to Apollos), those men who brought them the good news and instructed them in the way of Jesus, rather than in Jesus himself. Paul is trying to remind them that Jesus is the goal and the common denominator that holds us all together, no the spiritual leaders we have chose to associate with. And while doing so, he explains it in the way of a builder: as a spiritual leader, Paul has laid a foundation for the Corinthians. He taught them the way of Jesus and is encouraging them as they continue to build their lives, their ministries, and their dreams through the work of Jesus in their lives, so that the foundation is flowing up through them. But that’s not what they’re doing. They’ve laid the foundation of Jesus. They love Jesus. But now they’re building their lives, ministries, and dreams in the ways they know how: through wealth. Through effort. Through intelligence. Through earthly resources. And Paul is left telling them that holy fire reveals all: only those things left standing after a fire are of God. At least, that’s the Bible according to Julia understanding.

 

I spent my early childhood in rural Oklahoma, so I know a tiny bit about prescribed burns. A prescribed burn is when a farmer willingly and purposefully sets his or her land on fire to clear out weeds or remains from a previous crop and provide fertile, nutrient rich soil for the future crops (farmer friends, please don’t tell me if I’m wrong – just go with it). This always disturbed me as a child. There’s something violent and terrifying about a fire that large – like it’s unmanageable and could be out of control in an instant. But the farmer knows what they’re doing. In the same way, God knows what he’s doing with our lives. The fire Paul talks about in this scripture is intended to clear out anything that isn’t built on the foundation of Jesus. Anything that we created with our own hands, through our own earthly resources.

 

I think some of us are in a tug of war with God, and we’re bone tired. He wants to set everything in our lives on fire to clear out the weeds, to reveal what is of him and what is not, and we won’t let go. We’ve got a death grip on pieces of our lives where we have placed our identity. The pieces of our lives that we’ve poured so much of ourselves into, and we’re not letting go. We won’t let the all knowing father have his way, because we don’t know what will withstand the flame. We’re afraid our marriages won’t hold up. We’re afraid all the money and effort we’ve put into keeping our families health and happy won’t save it from imploding. We’re afraid the emotional energy we’ve spent trying to hold our careers together won’t be able to handle the prescribed burn. We’re terrified of the loss. But Paul brings us good news – he says “…if anyone’s work is burned up, he will experience loss, but he himself will be saved…”. God wants to save us, our heart and soul, more than he wants to save the earthly lives we have created for ourselves. He wants to save our spouses and our marriages, our families and our careers, more than he wants to save the versions of it that we built on our own. And he knows the version we built for ourselves will never withstand the flames like the kind of life he wants to build for us.  

 

Ecclesiastes 3:3 says there is a time to tear down and a time to build. Deconstruction has a bad rap right now in Christian culture. If you’re a follower of Christian Twitter you know what I’m talking about. If you tell people you’re “deconstructing your faith”, chances are the Christians in your life are going to assume you’ve abandoned biblical principles and are rebuilding your faith into a more people-pleasing version. I hate this. I hate it because I believe that going through a deconstruction and reconstruction of our belief systems is necessary to growth. I believe it’s biblical, and I believe it’s a process we should go through many times in our lives. Ecclesiastes tells us! A time to tear down and a time to build. It’s cyclical, seasonal even, to tear down and then rebuild. We’re only human – it’s natural that at some point in our lives our belief system and understanding of God will begin to look more like a version of ourselves and our spiritual leaders than it will the Jesus who died to save us. This is the crux of what Paul is teaching the Corinthians – it’s time to set fire to the belief system we’ve created and get back to the God of it all. It’s time to tear the building down to the foundation and let God do the work of building it back up, on his word, not on the word of our pastors or our parents, or our friends or Sunday school teachers. We have to get back to identifying ourselves with the Savior and not the churches with which we’ve chosen to live in community. But in order to do that, we have to let go of those areas in our lives that we’re holding onto for dear life. We have to be willing to let the parts of us that don’t reflect God burn in holy fire and see what’s left standing when the smoke clears.

 

The fire reveals the true position of our hearts. It puts on display the areas of our lives where we’ve bypassed placing our trust in God and instead used all our earthly resources to take care of ourselves and those we love. Some of us are quaking with the effort it’s taking to hold our lives together, silently screaming “what if the fire takes everything?”.

 

But you yourself will be saved.

The Art of Gardening

The most vivid memory I have of 2018 is sitting in my favorite chair on the morning of my 28th birthday and pouring out my prayers and dreams for the year. I don’t even need to go back to my journal to remember them – I know what they were. They were from the deepest corners of my heart, and they had nothing to do with babies. Nothing to do with doctors appointments, or infertility anything, or “clarity” for decision making. Not a dang bit. They had everything to do with community.

I prayed for encouragement; for friends with loving, challenging, encouraging hearts to come out of the woodwork and for existing relationships to become stronger. And the past nine months have been filled with some of the best friendships I’ve ever had. They’ve included celebrations, fr-amily dinner nights, 2am truth talks, movies, exhausted crying on hard days, the most ridiculous amounts of laughter, fancy dinners, concerts, obsessive discussions about the Enneagram, way too early in the morning gym commitments…the list could go on and on. It involved so much extroverting with my favorite introverts, which is surprisingly life giving every time.

I prayed for my marriage; for it’s continued growth and strength, and holy moly did that come through. We’re in the midst of our 9th year of marriage and I can’t think of a better year we’ve had, or imagine how it could continue to improve. We had so much fun together. We were goofy and adventurous. We challenged each other to yes to friendships and experiences instead of saying no out of habit or fear. We took control of our finances (what up Dave Ramsey, you scary man) and learned the awkward art of budgeting together. We each thought about the other person more than ourselves, and just continued to learn to love.

It’s easy to look at the things I prayed for and dreamed of last January or last June and say “God has been faithful”. He was, because he is good and perfect and for me. But that isn’t what I see when I look back. Sure, God was faithful to me, but I was also faithful to him. When I didn’t want to be. It wasn’t perfect by any means – I said more than things than I should have and stayed quiet when I should have spoken up and I’m learning the difference. I hurt people and am learning the art of asking for forgiveness more than defending myself. People hurt me and I learned to not let it push me away from the community I believe in, even at it’s ugliest. But I’m learning what faithfulness really means, when you get down to the dirty details. Scripture shows us that God is faithful, but it also tells us that faithfulness is a fruit of the Spirit and should be evident in our own lives. In a world currently bent on self care and boundaries (both of which are things I fully embrace, practice and believe in), how do I maintain the balance of faithfulness to people/communities that might hurt me and a God who doesn’t always feel present instead of cutting and running?

The ah-ha moment I’ve had over the past few weeks regarding fruits of the Spirit, like this faithfulness, is the reminder that fruit develops over time. I think we’ve fallen into this false idea that the fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control – are qualities that define our Christlikeness, and therefore should be present at all times. We should be joyful. We should be patient. We should be able to control ourselves. This is all so true, and I probably pray more for these three things than I do anything else, but the Bible clearly calls these attributes fruit of the Spirit, not gifts of the Spirit. They are not fully given upon our decision to choose Christ over all, wrapped up in a tidy bow, supernatural in their own right to bring glory to God, and they cannot be created and sustained through our own works and efforts. They are the slow growing, fully blooming, fruit that develops from the tending, nurturing, and pruning of the compassionate Spirit of God.

I can’t keep a plant alive to save my life. Ask my green thumb sister, who so patiently encourages me in my failed attempts to grow pretty green things every single year and brings me new plants that should live forever, despite me. But when it comes to the fruit of the Spirit, it’s not my job to grow them. When I wake up each morning, or make resolutions each year, to be more patient, or choose joy, or be kind, I’m already dooming myself to failure. I’ve already placed the impetus on my own ability and my own efforts. It’s not meant to be this hard. I simply have to wake up each morning and choose the Spirit. What a relief it is to let go of the perpetual nagging that I didn’t choose joy enough today. Or that if I haven’t practiced patience enough to master it yet. What a relief it is to remember these attributes are not the goal by which I measure myself. Scripture promises the fruit will blossom, but only when we lean in to the Spirit, time after time.

Confessions of an Introvert

I’ve spent quality time with at least one of my friends every day for the past five days, and you know what?

I’ve slept better than ever. Not the “exhausted and drained from being around people” kind of sleep, either. Good, restful sleep that has me waking up feeling refreshed instead of grouchy. Well, maybe a little grouchy.

I’ve been more in control of my thoughts and emotions instead of being ruled by them. Yeah, anxiety has still been present, but I’m more aware of what’s causing it and able to reframe it instead of letting it dictate my day. I can see it with a clear heart.

I’ve been more grateful. For the big stuff and the little stuff. Not in a cheesy “I’m grateful for this bread and the sustenance it gives my body” kind of way (but kudos to you if you’ve mastered that discipline), but naturally grateful and looking for the good in all my circumstances.

I’ve laughed so much more. Real laughter. With my friends, by myself, at the tv. As someone who struggles to freely express genuine emotions out loud, it’s a big deal for me.

I’ve cried more. Happy tears, sad tears, alone tears and public tears. The kind of tears that are more refreshing than they are a pit of sorrow, you know what I mean? Cathartic tears.

I’ve felt heard and understood instead of dismissed and irrelevant. The kind of heard that says my opinions and thoughts are valid and appreciated rather than a burden or white noise.

I’ve felt seen rather than forgotten. Like I’m not only welcomed to the table, but I’m filling a unique space where only I can fit  because of who I am, not what I can offer.

 

It hasn’t always been like this. I know some of you were quick to read through that and remark on how nice it must be to have good friends who make you feel that way, but not everyone is that lucky. And you probably did it with a little snark in your voice. I get it. If I had read that a year ago, or five years ago, or ten years ago, I would have done the same thing. But the difference between the past five days versus a year ago, five years ago, or ten years ago isn’t my friend group. It’s me. I used to see my community as draining and hard, because I can be shy and it’s easier to let fear overpower courage. It is easier to hide in my house or behind a manufactured version of myself than to get real. It is easier to assume no one is trustworthy after being hurt than it is to rebuild relationships. And when all those easiers took over, it became natural live life by myself. To cling to independence as a defense mechanism, while at the same time looking around feeling a little left out because everyone else seemed to be having more fun than me. They didn’t seem as burdened as I felt. And I realized that if I didn’t want to be lonely, if I wanted to be part of a community like the people I saw around me, I had to change myself and the way I viewed people. I continuously have to fight the habit that says to sit back and wait for an invitation from someone else, or a text from someone else, or for someone else to plan the party. I’m not saying you have to everything (I have to fight against that too), but it’s also not embarrassing or weird to be the one initiating friendship. And if we’re all waiting around for someone else to initiate, aren’t we all just going to be sitting in loneliness?

The kicker about being an introvert is we really do need recovery time. That’s not wrong, but the way we’ve been taught to recover is. It’s easy and tempting to believe the lie that says the only recovery when I’ve people-d too hard is alone time. Alone time with Netflix, alone time with Hulu, alone time with anything that doesn’t require my brain and just numbs my senses. If that alone time isn’t intentionally geared toward refilling my soul, I never feel refreshed. I just perpetuate the cycle of exhaustion. But I’m also learning there is sweet recovery that comes from sitting in a circle of my people with no phones and no distractions and just being. Being present, being honest, being available. Free to be fully myself with all my flaws, never excused but always loved.

Continuing to believe the lie that recovery will only come from alone time is just robbing myself of a real, full life. Because real, full lives aren’t lived in isolation.

 

Advent

“Well. This calls for a lot of Jesus this week.”

When I looked at my phone, my gut instinct was anger. I was telling a friend what a hard day it was, one of those days that highlights my childlessness in glaring detail. I felt like I was standing in a barren spotlight, between the baby showers and baby birthdays and baby Christmas presents and sweet family pictures. I was perfectly queued up to crumble into my feelings and she texted back that gem. She wasn’t wrong, and I knew it, but ever since I unleashed a tirade of anger and bitterness at God in my journal a couple of months ago we haven’t really been on speaking terms – mostly because I don’t want to hear it. I know that I will hear truth from him so clearly. The truth that he loves me more than I can understand. That he hates my barrenness more than I do. That our broken world and broken bodies break his heart more than I can imagine. That he can take my anger and then some and it doesn’t change his opinion of me. I’m not a disappointment. That he knows the death of my dream is painful, even when his plans are abundantly more. I know I will hear this and more, and it will break me all over again for the better. But.

But what do you do when you’re itching for a fight and the one you’re itching to fight doesn’t fight back? We’ve been conditioned to think that if we can win the fight or argument we will get our way, and right now I’m itching to fight my way out of childlessness in direct defiance to him. I’m begging for a mountain to climb instead of a valley to sit in. For a goal that takes physical steps and strength instead of a task that requires abiding and waiting. I know that waiting is creating strength in itself and abiding is a key to growth, I know. I don’t care. I’ve been focused on growth all year and I want to use muscles I’ve been building. I want to feel productive. I want to see the fruits of this year long labor of my soul instead of feeling drained and confused and questioning everything day after day. I want to fight my way into changing God’s plan.

We’re quick to tout the line that there’s nothing wrong with being mad at God. I completely agree, but I think we have to dig a little deeper. We have to learn the difference between processing our anger in healthy and unhealthy ways.  Over the past couple months, I have had to call out the specific unhealthy habits I lean toward when in conflict.

Unhealthy: Choosing my “yes men”. A few years that would have been my go to. In this case, while I was still certainly throwing myself a pity party, I didn’t turn to a friend who I knew would join the party. I chose someone who I knew would speak the truth to me, even if I didn’t want to hear it. For the past couple months I have been honest with these friends about what was going on, and they have offered me encouragement and challenging words and understanding hearts. We all have yes men in our lives, but it takes extra effort to go to the person who isn’t afraid to make you mad.

Unhealthy: Abandoning spiritual discipline. Even through intense anger at God, I didn’t “take a break” from my faith. I did the things. I did the things that came out of habit, and even with my limited effort I still heard from God. I believe there is a difference between continuously coasting in your spiritual life and continuing acts of spiritual discipline even when you don’t feel like it. Continuing acts of spiritual discipline out of habit, even when I’m angry with God and don’t want to hear from him, is an act of faith. It’s not coasting or pretending. It’s acting from the knowledge and experience that God has been faithful and will continue to be faithful even if I don’t feel it now. God is not disappointed in me when I don’t “feel like it” but do it anyways, or even when I do it anyways and feel like it was a waste of time.

Just because this adversary isn’t physically present when we’re fighting, like say our spouses, doesn’t mean we get to check out. If we value the relationship, we learn to work through them in healthy ways, even when we don’t feel like it.

 

December hits this weekend, and for the first year ever I purchased an Advent calendar. It came with a guided reading plan and activities, and needless to say I purchased it before the anger explosion of 2018. As I was setting it all up this week it was tempting to feel frustrated that my heart is clearly not in a baby Jesus adoration focused state, but I don’t think that has to be the goal. I know God isn’t shocked by my anger and withdrawal, and perhaps a plan to facilitate expectation and hope for a Messiah is exactly what I need. I need this time to continue crying out to God to save me from this brokenness that engulfs me. To feel the desperation that creates hope that he will do just what he promised he would.

I don’t know where you are as we approach the Christmas season, if you’re excitedly awaiting the arrival of a holy, miracle baby or if you’re like me, aching for the arrival of a warrior to fight for your frail heart. Wherever your heart stands, you’re not alone. And this advent season will meet you where you are.

The Fastest Way to Lose All Your Friends

Honest talk. This year I’ve found myself growing frustrated with some of the conversations that continue to pop up in my life.

As the middle child of five, I’ve always been the information hub. It’s the running joke in the family that if someone hasn’t heard from a sibling or a parent in a few days, I’m the first call. I’m an information oriented person. I crave the knowing and I find worth in being trusted with information. It’s pride, but it’s also a defense mechanism. If I have the information, I’m never taken off guard by anything and I can control how the information is used. It’s security for my worrisome heart. But not too long ago I was having a conversation with a trusted friend and I told her how tired I was of people coming to me for information on other people, or to discuss information they had. I was tired of being expected to know and to manage things. These conversations were draining me emotionally and spiritually. They were beginning to feel shallow, negative, bitter, cynical….just overall leaving me coming away sick to my stomach. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I knew that the closer I was drawing to Jesus, the more turmoil I was feeling in the friendships where I once found solace and refuge.

I’m sure you have immediately registered these conversations for what they are, but I never saw it. I was used to having and disseminating information, and I never saw it as abnormal or sinful. It wasn’t until this conversation that my friend gently (not so gently) called it out for what it was: gossip. The topics, the sharing, the attitudes – it was all gossip, and it wasn’t just hurting my heart, it was dissolving my relationships.

The funny thing is, I was angry with the people who were coming to me for the gossip. I was angry that they were dragging me into their nonsense and gave them the blame that I as stuck in this negative heart space. If people would just stop asking me for or giving me information, if I could hide from my phone and hole up in house, I would be much more at peace. What a lie. The truth of the matter is, people will continue to come to you for the things you continue to give away. There is no greater indicator of the state of your own heart than the conversations you’re having with those closest to you. If you are known for giving out encouragement, love, compassion, gratitude, kindness, joy, truth….people will continue to come to you for that. But if you are known for giving out gossip and bitterness or indulging sarcasm, anger, cynicism, slander, fear, nitpicking….people will continue to come to you that as well.

I once saw a counselor who loved to discuss boundaries. I’m an over-sharer, over-feeler, over-everything by nature. I would take everyone’s problems as my own and make it my own personal mission to help everyone fix their problems to the detriment of my emotional well-being. This counselor used to always tell me that if I wanted things to change, I had to create boundaries. But she warned me that creating boundaries wouldn’t be the hard part. Enforcing them is the hard part. If I set up boundaries but then let everyone tear them down because I wasn’t willing to enforce them, the people around me would never learn. But it started with me training myself to hold firm boundaries.

This is exactly the same. How silly of me to be angry at the people coming to me for gossip, or to wallow and encourage their bitterness when I am the one making the choice to engage in it. The more I participated, the more I was establishing what others could expect of me, and the more I was sabotaging myself. The only thing I have the power to change is myself.

My church has a retreat coming up soon and the theme is “Belonging”. How appropriate for this time in my life. I know of so many women, myself included, who have openly discussed how hard it is to make deep friendships with other women in the Church. It’s easy to feel like everyone else already has their friends, or no one “gets us”, or like we have friends but we would really like to be part of that group over there. I have a wonderful group of friends who lift me up and encourage me, but none of us are immune to feelings of loneliness. I do believe that we, as humans, need to do a better job of promoting inclusiveness, but I also think it’s time to take personal inventory of what is holding us back from healthy relationships. I can guarantee that when you make intentional changes to quit giving away the negative pieces of your life you will lose friends. 1 Peter 4 tells us that not only will these people turn away from us, but they’ll slander us. Negative people will search out negative people, and when you cease to be that outlet for them they will find another. But the life you gain by living in a positive mindset – the PEOPLE you will gain – are without measure.

Does this mean I never get to complain to my friends when I have a crummy day, or I go about life pretending that everything is perfect? Absolutely not. I don’t believe in “fake it till you make it”. But when the core of my friendships are built on the joy of the Spirit, when our focus is on spiritual growth instead of shallow gripes, I can go to them for truth and encouragement instead of being indulged in my whining. It certainly isn’t easy. Training myself to keep my mouth shut when I have information that relates to the conversation is hard. Learning to not speak the first negative thing that comes to mind and instead turn it to a positive is a challenge. Seeking out joy in a really crummy Monday is not my default. Looking for the best in someone instead of judging them by their worst is difficult. But it’s necessary, and it’s what we’re called to do. We have the choice to be the one bringing in the negativity and growing unhealthy relationships, or the one setting the boundaries and flourishing. I want to flourish.