Category Archives: Faith Musings

What a Mama Needs Most on Mother’s Day

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The internet has literally exploded in the last few days with all things mother. My inbox is a glut of all the different ways one can celebrate moms – Flowers! Brunch! Pastel clothing! Chocolate! Workout gear! Kid-friendly recipes! Family time! Jewelry! Craft Projects! Plants!

I’m starting to agree with Anne Lamott when she says, “No one is more sentimentalized in America than mothers on Mother’s Day.” I can’t go anywhere online without being confronted by tear-jerking, snot-inducing, warm and fuzzy YouTube videos about the sacrifices of moms in bathrobes making school lunches before the sun comes up.

Don’t get me wrong. I totally watch them. I’m a sucker for a good emotion-inducing experience. And if you’re in the mood, definitely check out this one about the one word you’d associate with your mom, and this one where the little blindfolded kids pick their moms out of a crowd, and this one and this one from the Olympics which both make me BAWL.

It’s OK. Go get some Kleenex. You’re welcome.

There’s something that sticks out to me from all these videos and pictures and ads. The ones that really get me sniffling are the ones that show moms in the mess and mundanity of every day. I love watching a mother combing a child’s hair, adjusting a baby’s blanket, wrapping a twisted ankle. Why?

These are the moments that no one usually sees.

Let’s face it. Motherhood is comprised mainly of stuff no one else will ever notice: the late night stumble into a crying child’s bedroom, the scrubbing of stains, the lunch that no one mentions. These things are done every day by a quiet army of women across the world, women who know at least one thing about motherhood that’s always true.

Mothering is lonely work.

Care and love and constant attention are draining on even the most patient of women. And just when we think we have a hold of what motherhood is supposed to mean, or look like, or feel like, it twists and flips and we’re left with nothing but a handful of slime.

Big_4391833_0827Sometimes it’s a day to celebrate. Sometimes it’s a day to feel, to remember, to be overwhelmed. But always, it should be a day where mothers everywhere are SEEN.

Seen for the work they do, (or did.) For the carpets they vacuum. For the meals they put together. For the budgets they balance. For the clothing they wash and the miles they drive and the hours they spend at the table, the piano, the game.

Not that motherhood is all about work, but those things – those boring, every day unseen things – are acts of love. When we shine a flashlight on them, even for just a day, we tell our mothers a very important thing.

I see you.

I see your love tucked in Tupperware and folded in clean jeans. I see your heart in your offers to help, to paint, to take my little ones for an overnight. I see your attentiveness in your phone calls, your emails, your vigilance, your prayers.

I see you even when you’re gone. I look at pictures of you, and see the laundry basket in the background, the pot simmering on the stove. I see clean clothes and combed hair. I see the way you held me as a baby, like I was the most precious treasure you’d ever found.

I see you.

Which can also lead to other great phrases like, I love you. I appreciate you.

You know. Gooey stuff. Good stuff. Heart stuff. It’s Mother’s Day after all.

See her, and let her know she’s seen.

Why I Disciplined my Daughter for Eating Kiwi

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My daughter said something yesterday that I haven’t been able to get out of my head. We were talking after a timeout, one which she’d earned for getting into the fridge without asking.

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Check out the number of implements my three-year-old used to get into this kiwi. Impressive.

The culprit? Kiwi. Sweet, luscious green kiwi. (It’s day 25 of my 40-day fast. Forgive me if I wax poetic about anything food-related.)

Okay. I know. Who punishes their child for snacking on health food? Well, me. Why? Because my daughter doesn’t just stop at the fruit drawer. Yesterday alone I caught her sneaking a juice box, graham crackers, a kiwi, and carrots. All harmless, really, but it’s the principle that I’m worried about. I don’t want her taking things without asking.

At this stage, she has no concept of the need for self-control.

So after her third mistake/timeout session, I sat down on the stairs next to her and said something like, “Don’t you care that mama told you to ASK for something that you want, instead of just taking it?” Her response was so close to human nature that I couldn’t help but laugh.

Well, sometimes I do care, but sometimes I don’t.

Bless my baby. At least she’s honest.

That’s simply the black and white of it. Sometimes we care about doing the right thing, and sometimes, we just don’t.

For children, it seems to be an issue of motivation. In my house, the consequences of getting caught with contraband food usually aren’t that bad. Timeout. Discussion. Besides. What mom wants to punish her daughter for eating a carrot?

For adults, it’s another story. Most of us know right from wrong. Motivation still plays a role, but it’s different sort of reward we’re after now. And self-control?  Not if we can help it.

No one wants to tell themselves no. It’s like a rite of passage for adults. Maybe we went without when we were kids, or teens, in our twenties or as newlyweds, but dang it NOW we should be able to have everything we want.

We earned it. We deserve it. We think we need it, because want and need have become two inextricable things in our mind.

But when did want become as honorable as need?

Twice yesterday, the topic of self-control came up. The first was my best friend telling me that Katy Perry prays for self-control every day. (Katy Perry is the LAST person I’d think would be praying for self-control, so I was shocked, and also a little envious at her brilliance for praying for something that could make all the difference in the course of one’s day.)

There’s also a matter of this verse, which God pulled into the conversation when I was talking with my high school small group girls last night about what faith in real life looks like. It’s from the new testament book of Galatians 5:22 & 23.

2 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

I’m learning a few things as a result of my fast. One of them is this: I REALLY don’t like to tell myself no. And when it comes to food, I don’t know that I EVER really tell myself no. If I want it, I make it, buy it, drive to a restaurant and order it.

Should I be surprised then that my daughter does the same thing on a smaller scale?

I think Katy Perry is onto something.

Stumbling Into my Need for a Better Sabbath

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In third or fourth grade, on “bring your parent to school day”, my mom came and taught my class how to set a table. It wasn’t anything crazy. There weren’t multiple layers of special use forks or plates of varying sizes and functions. It was simply a lesson in basic table setting etiquette, and I’ve never forgotten it.

Start with the plate in the center of the setting. Next, the fork, which goes to the left of the plate. The knife flanks the plate on the right side, cutting edge turned in, and is followed by the spoon. The cup nestles in above the knife and spoon on the upper right side of the plate – not quite touching anything, but pulled in close enough to belong to the setting.

This is the format we followed most days during my growing up years. Plate, cup, fork, knife, spoon. A simple ritual in the rhythm of our day to day.

Yesterday (Sunday) was a feast day in my 40-day fasting journey, an amazing break in the rhythm of fasting that happens every seventh day. To me, it meant one glorious thing. For one beautiful day, I could eat whatever I wanted.

Last Sunday I was shocked by the bounty of a feast day. After four days of millet, bananas, rice, chicken, bread and spinach, I was physically exhausted. Friday and Saturday night I went to bed before nine pm. Then came Sunday.

My food brain went into overdrive. I started with my favorite Bon Appetit  Ham and Cheese waffles with maple syrup. (If you haven’t tried these, set aside a weekend morning, give yourself a pass on how much butter you’ll be consuming, and go wild.)

The rest of the day was a beautiful blur of feta and spinach chicken sausages, veggie hash, sopapillas and sangria and cupcakes. Church felt, for the first time in a long time, celebratory. The amazing friends who came over that night (many who were also fasting/feasting) sat around our big, wide kitchen table and talked over the sounds of our crazy, giggling children running wild through the living room.

Heaven on earth, all of it.

In the natural cycle of spiritual life, there’s this thing called Sabbath. It started as remembrance of God’s day of rest and enjoyment after six days of creating the world. Later on, in the book of Exodus 20, the Isrealites are told to “Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Work six days and do everything you need to do. But the seventh day is a Sabbath to God.”

Sounds great, right? A prescribed day of rest.  Except that usually, the idea of a Sabbath is a little like an estranged friend in my vocabulary. Sunday is no different than any other day in terms of mothering work. There are still messes to pick up, diapers to change, squabbles to sort out.

In fact, if I were to be completely honest, Sunday is usually anything but restful. Usually, either Jason or I are playing on worship team at church. The girls are shuttled into nursery and Sunday school. We get home well after nap time was supposed to start, and still haven’t had lunch yet. The house is usually in shambles, and the last thing on my mind is claiming a holy Sabbath.

And yet.

Somewhere, somehow in this journey, I feel myself waiting to lay a better claim to Sunday rest, to the idea of Sabbath or Shabbat. I don’t want my feast day to just pay homage to all the food I can eat, or worse yet, just be a giant day of gluttony before I go back into couscous mode.

Here’s what I’m thinking. I need a better way to observe the idea of a Sabbath feast. So I started digging around the interwebs and, after wading through a lot of interesting sites, found myself pulled up short with these words.

This is a Sabbath reading from Rabbi Naomi Levy. I felt a little creeped out, like this stranger had a glimpse into my kitchen window for a day and then said hey, friend. I wrote something for you.

Regardless of how they reveal all my flaws, these lines are simple and straight, like small arrows pointing the right direction out the back of my pierced and defective heart.

“I love to change the world,
But I rarely appreciate things as they are.
I know how to give,
But I don’t always know how to receive.
I know how to keep busy,
But I don’t often listen.
I look, but I don’t often see.
I yearn to succeed,
But I often forget what is truly important.
Teach me, God, to slow down. May my resting revive me.
May it lead me to wisdom, to holiness
To peace and to You.

– Rabbi Naomi Levy

Next Sunday, I will prepare for Sabbath. It might be simple – a candle on Saturday night and a quiet, purposeful prayer time. An early morning wake up to get ready before the family is up. A meal that’s ready right after we get home from church. A table that’s been set the way I was taught. A nap for every member of the family – not just the four and under crowd. Another candle at the end of the day, another pause to pray, write, or read.

Shabbat shalom. (Hopefully.)

Do you have any Sunday, Sabbath, or Shabbat habits, routines, or practices that you observe? I’d love to hear about them!

Diary of an Overconsumer (day 2)

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IMG_20150323_095029_001Confession: This is what my fridge looked like three weeks ago. That day, I opened it up and whined, “Why are we always running out of food?”

*Gulp*.

Two unopened gallons of milk. Carrots. Eggs. Bread dough. Black rice. Peach cake. A 48-count package of sliced havarti and gouda cheese. Deli meat. Gorgonzola. A gazillion pound bag of chia seeds.

I was definitely running out of something. How about reason.

Today is day 2 of the 40-day fast, and all day long I’ve been stumbling into this truth:  I have a lot of work to do in changing how I think about food.

An hour after lunch today, my stomach felt empty. Heaven only knows why. Lunch today was a spinach salad with shredded chicken, dried mango slices, peanuts, and watered down mayonnaise as makeshift salad dressing.

I’m hardly starving over here, folks.

I got up, filled a glass full of water, and drank half. I stared out the window, watching the driving sleet, and thought about why I was hungry. Because really. Was I hungry? Or was it something else?

Did I simply need a new flavor in my mouth?

Psalm 19:10 –  God’s Word is better than a diamond, better than a diamond set between emeralds. You’ll like it better than strawberries in spring, better than red, ripe strawberries. (The Message version.)

I love strawberries in spring – the brightness, the tart-sweet juice. Deep breath. (stop drooling.) God’s words are better? Another deep breath. Yes. I believe that. Even today, when all I want is SWEET, RED FRUIT.

Why are God’s words better? Because truth lasts longer than the my ongoing cycle of crave and satiate. Truth teaches me how to live life. And right now, I want my living to get beyond the circle of myself and my family and into the world and it’s places of need.

Oh right. This was a call to action. 

I took a second and prayed for housing for Djeneba and her six week old daughter Nana. Becky and Hedi, the missionaries on the ground in Segou asked me to keep these two at the forefront of my prayers for the next couple of days.

Looking back at this, I see these little blips all over in my day. Moments when I’m hungry, tired, bored. Moments when I want a new taste in my mouth. These are the moments I need to stop and pray. Nothing big, nothing long, nothing flowery. Lord, provide a home for Djeneba and Nana. Give them peace in their day. Help Djeneba not to be overcome with worry. 

It’s going to take a little bit of practice to immediately turn my cravings for food into a prayer for the needs of others, but if that works, this will all be more than worth the effort.

PS – best news of the day? We get to break our fast on Sundays for a day to feast.

And all the people said AMEN. Please pass the ice cream.

Commonly Asked Questions re: a 40-day fast

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image courtesy of yogitrition.com

image courtesy of yogitrition.com

I’ve been asked a few questions about my choice to enter a 40-day fast, so I wanted to take a second to lay it out for you. Oh, and after a quick double-check, I realized I had my dates wrong and our group is starting on Wednesday, April 8. Phew. I still have to figure out how I’m going to cook millet.

What is a 40-day fast?

The 40-day fast I’m participating in is a decision to step back from my normal, American diet and eat a diet similar to what the people in Mali, Africa eat for forty days.

Wait. I thought a fast meant NOT eating at all?

In some cases, that’s the truth. When Jesus fasted in the wilderness for forty days, he went completely without food. However, fasts can also be a person choosing to “eat only sparingly or of certain kinds of food, especially as a religious observance.”

Where did you get this idea?

My church is doing a study together on A Place at the Table: 40 Days of Solidarity with the Poor by Chris Seay. Seay describes his book as “a passionate journey of radical faith, personal action, solidarity, and extravagant grace.” The group studying the book will meet weekly, and although I know I won’t be able to make it all the time, I’m going to try to go when I can.

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Hands of Honor program participants

Why did you choose Mali

I’ve always felt called to ministry opportunities that encourage and strengthen the faith of young women. Recently, my Christian Missionary Alliance church family became partners with a program called Hands of Honor, which serves vulnerable girls in Segou, Mali.  Below is an overview that Becky, one of the program founders, emailed to me.

Hands of Honor, a literacy, skills, health, and discipleship training program, was launched last spring as a ministry to vulnerable domestic workers in the city of Segou, Mali. My colleagues and I started this outreach because of stories we heard from the girls in our prison ministry, who had arrived in Segou from rural communities to seek employment as domestic workers. They were vulnerable to abuse from their employers and naïve to the dangers of life in a big city. Each of the young women had become pregnant; out of desperation, they abandoned or killed their babies at birth. They were serving five years for this crime.

Becky went on to tell me a few of the girls’ stories. They broke my heart. As a young woman and a mother of daughters, I read their plights with dual understanding. It became clear that praying for the girls in this program was supposed to be the focus of my fast.

How is this going to make any difference?

This has a two-fold answer, and the first part is pretty practical. I’m planning to use the money I save in groceries to help the Hands of Honor program. It won’t be a lot, but it should be enough to sponsor one of the young women for a few months. I’m also planning to pray for the very specific needs that the girls have.

Then there’s me. My heart. My desire to see change come awake in my own life. This Richard Rohr quote from Simplicity does a good job summing up my thoughts as he talks about Jesus’ own forty-day fast.

“Jesus went into the wilderness, ate nothing for forty days, and made himself empty… Of course, emptiness in and of itself isn’t enough. The point of emptiness is to get ourselves out of the way so that Christ can fill us up.”

As a result of that filling, I hope to find a way to alter how I live and start making a better practice of, like Seay says at the end of chapter one, “taking only what I need and sharing the rest.”

Isn’t it a little ironic that you’re choosing to fast? Malians don’t have a choice.

I struggle with this question, because I don’t want anyone to come away with the wrong idea about why I’m doing this. Yes, I’m a privileged American who can go to WalMart and buy the staples of a Malian diet without blinking.  Yes, it’s ironic that I can choose to fast. I get it.

But that irony and privilege is costing me a few things, namely, my ability to remember that I can get by with less so that other can have more.

I want this fast to break my habits and open my eyes to the excess in my life so I can start reducing it. It is more than just raising awareness – it’s choosing to act now that I am aware, and doing so in a way that directly helps someone in need.

So what are you going to eat?

Here’s my list of ten Malian staples that I’m adopting for the next forty days. After consulting with our missionaries and reading up on Mali cuisine and food stuffs, this list seems pretty accurate of the whole foods I’d find accessible at market.

  • Chicken
  • Fish
  • Peanuts
  • Spinach
  • Okra
  • Banana/plantain
  • Mango
  • Rice
  • Millet
  • Couscous
  • White bread

Is this just a Christian version of a fad diet?

No. You won’t find me posting any before and after pictures. I don’t own a scale, I don’t know how much I weight right now, and I won’t know what I weigh when I’m done. I still plan to eat three meals a day and exercise as usual.

This fast has nothing to do with my outside appearance, but everything to do with the inside of my heart.

I’m interested and want to know more.

Fantastic! If you are local to the Chisago Lakes, MN/St. Croix Falls, WI area, the group is planning to meet on Sunday mornings from 9:45 – 10:45 am in the Alliance Church of the Valley student center auditorium.

If you’re thinking about doing this on your own, with friends, in a small group, or with your church, go check out the resources that Chris has for the book at www.chrisseay.net. So much good stuff.

If you want to join me online and interact through my blog, I’d love to have you come alongside. I’d also be happy to share more about Hands of Honor program and the girls involved. Feel free to email me for more information.

Planning a 40-Day Fast

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If life is a river, I’ve hit a snag with my easy-going motor boat ways.

I told you that last week, I felt a current of change in my life. Most of it was because of the combination of reading this book Seven, and spending a lot of time talking things over with God and feeling that something was amiss.

Then I started doing some reconnaissance. I’m watching my life, seeing its areas of excess. I’m noticing how often I let my toddlers turn on the faucet and play in the sink. I’m noticing how many times a day I want to open the fridge or the cupboards for something to snack on. I’m noticing that I tend to throw clothes that aren’t dirty in the laundry instead of putting them away.

I’m noticing how much food we throw away. I’m also becoming aware of how much of my life is spent consuming or thinking about consuming, food or otherwise. And I know this is the place to start, for me. This book – A Place at the Table – and the commitment to a 40-day fast.

And then I read this today. Isaiah 58: 6-9.

“This is the kind of fast day I’m after:
    to break the chains of injustice,
    get rid of exploitation in the workplace,
    free the oppressed,
    cancel debts.
What I’m interested in seeing you do is:
    sharing your food with the hungry,
    inviting the homeless poor into your homes,
    putting clothes on the shivering ill-clad,
    being available to your own families.
Do this and the lights will turn on,
    and your lives will turn around at once.
Your righteousness will pave your way.
    The God of glory will secure your passage.
Then when you pray, God will answer.
    You’ll call out for help and I’ll say, ‘Here I am.’

Well then. Sounds a little like divine placement in my day.

My country is still up in the air, but I’m leaning towards Mali, Africa. Our church has a partnership with them, and I have a strong interest in their Hands of Honor program, which works with young women who don’t have much of a future. More on that later. PS. I’m going to ask for your help brainstorming something.

Side note: I’m not planning on roping my family into this. As the head chef and grocery shopper in the house, I’m the one who has the most to learn about my perceptions, preparations, and mindfulness surrounding food. What I buy, the habits I keep, the food I serve – everything I do pours into my family.

This will mean extra work on my part, which is fine. It will also mean going into BEAST fasting mode in order to keep myself from snagging bites of my girls’ sandwiches and snacks, or whatever off-limits deliciousness I concoct for everyone else for supper.

What it mostly means is that I’m going to have to figure out this self-denial thing, which is probably the flabbiest part of my brain. I don’t really deny myself much of anything right now. I also have a strange habit of eating bowls of cereal before bed, because I think I sleep better on an occupied stomach.

Both of those things are going to have to change AND I somehow have to change them gracefully, because it won’t be fair to my family if I turn into a zombie. I probably won’t get any good writing done either, because I’ll mostly just be shaking out the keyboard looking for cookie crumbs THAT I WONT EAT. I swear. I just want to smell them.

Start date: After Easter. That means April 6, if I can research my foods, figure out how/where to get them (within reason) and get a hold of the book. A group of lovely people from my church are doing this as well, so I’ll have a good support group (read: people I can text and whine to about the gastrointestinal effects of eating so many beans.)

Wish me luck.

Better yet, if you’re interested, join me? Leave a message in the comments or email me if you’re interested in taking part. 

Stepping out of the way (blog hop with the Creative Jayne)

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Hey guys, today I’m linking up with Kayla over at The Creative Jayne for her Encouragement Community blog hop. Kayla and I got to spend a day together letting our kids play while we talked about her ideas for starting a mama’s group in our church, and I was so thankful to get to know her better. Her heart is wide open and she’s funny, sweet, and has an amazing eye for design. Please take a few minutes to poke around her beautiful blog, check out the other two lovely writers in the hop here and here, and explore Kayla’s recommended vendors. Then head back here to hear what I learned from *gulp* speaking in front of a group of teenagers this week.

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The room was mostly dark, save for the stage lanterns and a string of blue lights slung across the front. I stood on the corner of the front steps, microphone in hand. The group of high school kids I was speaking to were all on their knees, bending over a giant roll of brown butcher-type paper rolled out across the floor, scrawling down things they were thankful for.

Just moments before, they had been huddled, arms out, everyone finding a shoulder to reach out to. They gathered around one boy in the middle – a boy who came up to me during one of the opening songs and whispered a story that broke my heart. A boy who asked if we could pray for him as a group.

Later in the evening, I looked back and saw every body standing, singing, their voices wide with emotion. For the sake of the world, burn like a fire in me.

And me? I had been preoccupied/worried for days. Reading. Writing down verses. Staring at my computer screen. Not because I was afraid to get up in front of high schoolers to talk about prayer. Not because I dislike public speaking. Not even because I couldn’t figure out anything to wear except a flannel shirt, which has become some sort of uniform for me.

Honestly, I just didn’t want the students to think a praise and worship night was weird.

Here’s the great part of being a mom to children under five. THEY DON’T THINK I’M WEIRD. They don’t judge. They accept me as I am. The greasy hair, the tired eyes, the clothes I may or may not have worn yesterday… none of it matters to them. (And for these things, all mothers of young children say amen.)

But I know they will get older, and inevitably, it’s not going to be cool that mom can talk like a monster with her belly. That beautiful innocence. Gone.

So I want to believe I was maybe a teensy bit justified being worried about standing in front of high schoolers, talking about PRAYER and GOD and singing quiet songs in a dark room.

Except that I shouldn’t have been. The kids I spoke to that night were incredible. They listened. They reached. They cared for another and, according to what I was reading in their scribbles and pictures of gratitude, they cared A LOT about the world around them.

Who was I to *almost* get in the way of something they needed to learn and experience because I was too worried about what they would think? What would have happened if I allowed myself to worry too much about their opinions.

I know it’s cliche to say it, but I had to step out of the way. I had to quit worrying what the students were going to think about a prayer and worship night.

I had just had to talk honestly about the things my heart knew about prayer – how it’s easy and beautiful and real and raw, and how God wouldn’t have it any other way. How communication between our heart and His needs no filter, no formula.

What more can we do in our day to day lives if we take the fear of what others might think about us out of the equation, and simply love them for all they are worth? How would that change the way you interact with the people in your life and around it?

Let’s be a community willing to speak from the realness of our hearts and the blue and broken honesty of our lives.

Change afoot

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IMG_4161 (1280x853)Something is moving in my life.

I could call it spring awakening, and perhaps that’s part of it. My outside world has been become broad and welcoming again, the snow replaced with soft brown grass and earth that gives beneath my rain boots. The landscape is damp with life and the promise that in another month or so, my backyard will look like this again.

I could also call it mental awakening. True confession: I used my birthday money to order books. It’s been a while since I felt this hungry for words, but suddenly, I can’t get enough. Consequently, my brain is on overtime, processing stories I’m can’t put down, ideas I don’t want to escape from. The one that’s had the biggest impact thus far is a title called Seven. Don’t read it unless you’re ready to confront the excess in your life HARDCORE.

These new ideas are dovetailing with things I learned from the Bible a long time ago, and I’m suddenly I find myself looking those old stories up in their entirety and spending more time sitting inside God’s words (thank you, biblegateway.com).

IMG_4449 (800x533)I feel strangely alive in the same way it feels before a giant thunderstorm, an unnamed current in the air and everything eerily quiet, waiting.

Something is afoot. And I wish I could tell you what it is.

The scary part is this: I don’t know.

I’m still praying, wrestling a few things out. (Read: arguing with God and trying to lose gracefully.)

But I think it involves a few things that are pretty far outside my physical comfort zone. One of them is a 40 day fast in solidarity with the poor. Don’t choke on your coffee. I’ll eat, but the foods I eat will be the same as the day to day foods the people in X country survive on. More on that later.

It also involves me digging deeper into the idea of who is poor and who isn’t, and what it means when Jesus says “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall see God.”

I might ask a few people to join me in an event to give away our extras and better outfit a local organization that’s doing some great work with women in transition.

I have the feeling all of this is going to involve spending my fringe hours at the computer, writing. It might also involve me reading the book The Fringe Hours to see just how that author went about using her time in such a way as to serve and honor everything she loved.

Best I can say is stay tuned. Keep your heart open. Pray for me if you think of it. And if anything I’m about to say in the next week or two makes sense, please feel free to chime in. Ask questions.

In the meantime, I’m stealing a new line from Linda, my friend and pastor’s wife of our church.

Carry on.

Battling Enough

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This view was pretty 5 months ago. Now it’s just cold.

This week, writing has been like piecing together a busted skeleton. I keep typing, searching out the bones of my experiences but never finding the joints. Nothing comes together. Meanwhile, it snowed. Again.

And here it is. Friday. The four days behind me look like some sort of bipolar episode – incredibly bad rebounding to deliciously good. The computer screen can’t make sense of it, and for the record, either can I.

I wanted to write about Lent, and how even though last year I had an epiphany about giving up ANGER instead of sugar, this year I haven’t managed to do more than remember to pray every morning before I slog my way out of bed. The post I started got deleted (guess who) before I had a chance to publish it, and I was too tired to attempt a rewrite.

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Duck face. It’s still a thing.

I wanted to point you towards my writing group compatriot Addie Zierman’s blogging trip to Armenia for World Vision, and how she’s quietly, perfectly capturing what need looks like.

I wanted you to see the beautiful, laughing pile of girls that gathered in my house to make wantons and nachos and talk about the best and worst parts of their days. How they filled the room with life and grace and ideas, and how, even though my co-leader Brittany and I are supposed to be guiding them, they are the ones showing me a deeper understanding of heart. 

I wanted you to commiserate with me about spring cleaning when it looks nothing like spring, and how clean is a relative term when three little bodies are doing their best to destroy any sense of order I’m attempting to create.

I wanted to do everything I could to stay away from what I’ve really been afraid of, because it’s not clean, or trendy, and it doesn’t look good on Instagram.

But if I take a deep breath and really get down inside everything I wrote this week, the underlying story line is that my feelings of inadequacy come dangerously close to ruining me, over and over. 

Everything I did this week was tainted with insecurity – spiritual failure to find a Lenten practice, parental inability to keep calm, writer’s frustration and envy that others seem to do so much with their words while I struggle to write a six hundred word blog post every week or two.

In short, not enough.

I thought, by now, in my 30’s, I’d be done with this. But it is work. It is constant, demanding work to refocus my thoughts and beat back the voices that tell me I’m not good enough at this, great enough at that, pretty enough for this, thin enough for that, smart enough for this, capable enough for that.

More often, I fail. And yell. And berate myself. And binge on homemade brownies. I start wanting to quit.

And yet somehow, God has the patience to put His finger under my chin, tilting my head up toward the mountains I can’t see, the help I don’t feel.

He’s there. Maker. Creator. Author. Perfector.

Finisher.

He’s not done yet. Either am I.

——————

Friends, what are you best tactics for fighting insecurity? Can we make a running list and encourage one another?

When creativity goes missing

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IMG_7177Forgive me for being quiet lately.

My creative process packed a rucksack and went whistling away down December’s open road.

It hasn’t yet come wandering back. And now I’m on a mission to find it.

This is easier said than done. With three small girls at home with me during the day, the needs are endless. Someone is hungry. There are booster trays to wash, and sink traps clogged with tiny trees of broccoli. There are miniature fights to break up. Frowns to tickle out. Books to be read.

Every day, creative ideas form and cluster like soap bubbles. And then I look at the clock. And my to-do list. And back to the clock.

Someone <skips a nap><cuts a molar><scribbles on the computer screen with permanent marker>. The soap bubble idea pops.

Everything falls in a swirl down the drain.

***

One of the authors I studied in grad school was a psychologist named Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, ($5 if you can pronounce that) who says, “Creative persons differ from one another in a variety of ways, but in one respect they are unanimous: They all love what they do.”

I fell into a slump after Christmas. The house felt claustrophobic and close – newly gifted items didn’t fit into my already less-than-perfect organization scheme. Suitcases from coming and going needed to be unpacked. Everything needed attention.

Finally, I gave in and spent two weeks using my free time (a precious commodity) doing things I didn’t necessarily love. I organized. I laundered. I folded. I scrubbed. I purged. I went to bed strangely stressed, and woke up tired even after eight hours of solid sleep.

I had no idea something was wrong until the night I put the girls to bed, kissed my husband, and went to worship team practice at my church. For the next hour and half, I banged out chords on that big black grand piano. I sang. Slowly, I fell out myself and into Grace.

Leaving the building that night, I felt lighter. It occurred to me that singing was the only thing I’d done in two weeks that was for sheer enjoyment.

Not because I had to. Not because I needed to. Because I wanted to.

Just then, I saw my creative process waving in the distance.

Deep breath. Right.

***

The last couple of weeks have been a study in balance, and slowly but surely, I can see my creativity levels start to build.

I’m baking bread. I’m making up stories for the girls. I’m going to the gym with a regularity that surprises even me. Today I’m sitting down at the computer, wading through the rhythm of putting words the page.

They aren’t perfect. They don’t have to be. I’m happily lost in my craft, and that’s the point. When I’m doing the things I love, I’m a better, kinder, more expansive version of myself.

Friend, if you’ve somehow found yourself in a similar creative slump, please take a deep breath. Ignore the overflowing laundry basket, put in a pizza, and schedule a block of time to get out and do something you love.

Let it overtake you. Change you. Give you new ideas. Your creativity is the truest expression of who you are. Don’t let it get away.