Be Yourself

This post is part of the Faith Barista - Faith Jam Thursdays

where Bonnie encourages us to write on a prompt and join in sharing our hearts in community.  This experience is different from the spontaneous, unrehearsed writing for Five-Minute-Friday.  Bonnie gives us a week to write on her prompt and no time limit for our writing.  It's all about being real and healing togehter.  You can join by clicking the link above.  

Today we are writing on "Be Yourself" so buckle up, this one has some hairpin turns:

I sit here pondering all the different people I have met in my life:  Different.  Unique.  Not one like another.  So many variations flutter in my memory like snowflakes past a windowsill.  God has made each of us to be unlike any other.  There will never be another me -- another you.  I have been pondering this special "self-ness" of each of us.  Created, Crafted, Chosen.  You could spend a silent day going around looking at each person and thinking, "God made you just as you are because you can reflect Him as only you can and you can experience Him as only you can."  Granted, not one of us is either reflecting Him nor experiencing Him to our full capacity and some are falling woefully short, but consider how each of us are like points in a diamond, created to reflect the light in the way that only we can.  That is self.  Uniquely made and loved in that uniqueness.

Ordinary

Ordinary.
Plain old me.
I wanted to be ordinary when I was little and my parents knew I was "gifted" and allowed my teacher to skip me ahead a grade -- a not even five year old attending 1st grade.  I could do multiplication and read at an eighth grade level, but when I went to first grade -- with sweet Mrs. Booth -- the kids there looked at me with a look that told me I was anything but ordinary.  When I had to leave the classroom during reading time because the other kids were learning to read and I was reading chapter books -- big ones -- to go to the library to read to the librarian, I had one longing.  I wanted to be ordinary.

I didn't want to stick out, be different, be "bright" or "gifted."  I just wanted to fit in and be like the rest of those children.

I wanted to blend in.  I didn't want to claim the me He made me to be with quirks and insights beyond my years.  I wanted to fit and meld.   

These days I feel very ordinary much of the time.  I wake up and take care of my children, clean a kitchen (sometimes), do laundry (sometimes) and teach my boys at home.  I have a husband, two cars and a dog.  We're pretty ordinary.

And yet, God steps into the ordinary and calls out the extraordinary that He designed in the beginning. 

The manger was ordinary and obscure.  Riding there on a donkey was ordinary.  Being a boy from Bethlehem, a small town with no notoriety -- pretty ordinary.  Yet, from that ordinary and plain beginning, God Himself came in the form of a baby and rescued the souls of those who would be saved.  He, the extraordinary God stepped into humanity and provided Himself so that any and all as dark and broken as they may be can come and be transformed.

And He steps into our ordinary whenever we invite Him.  He is the God Who stoops to bless.  He'll come into the mundane world of laundry and Candyland and two-year-old tantrums and mommy burnout and touch those moments.  Extraordinary love piercing the ordinary and transforming even now.

STOP.

Write

Okay.  Here it goes.

Write.  Whew.  Just the thought of that word knocks my breath out and fills me with dreams simultaneously.

I have wanted to be a writer since I was four years old.  I couldn't even physically write then and I knew in my bones I wanted to write.  To express.  To let myself be heard and known.  And, back then, in four-year-old land, I was able to be and do anything without any fear or harm.  Those days were not completely carefree.  I was in the middle of a life filled with perfectionism and expectations.  My father had an iron fist and I was sometimes on the other end of that tragic, awful, painful experiencing of manly anger gone awry.  But, still, there were periods of peace and childhood undisturbed and I had hopes and dreams.  I was going to write and I was going to matter and be heard.

Years went by and my father got ill.  He had a polycystic kidney disease and had to travel out of town for hospitalizations, treatments, surgeries, dialysis.  My sister and I lived in various homes of friends and even with people we only knew a little.  My dad was emotional and distant and yet at times he was still there, loving me despite his own issues with rage.  My mother was frazzled and harried.  I wrote.  I loved my writing.  It was a place of solitude and comfort and refuge.  I could pour out and sort through thoughts as I wrote.  Writing wasn't to matter.  Writing mattered.

My father got more and more ill.  I grew to be a teenager and the disease won one night when I was twelve years old.  He was wheeled out past us on a guerney with his eyes as big as quarters and the life all gone out of him.  Writing became my pouring.  I needed to bleed out the pain and anguish of grief, of love lost and lost too soon.  I was a heart-stricken adolescent and writing became my therapy.

Years passed and I grew older.  I kept sporadic journals and wrote on Facebook and sent letters of encouragement to friends.  People always said, "I wish I could write like you." or "You always have such a way of saying things."  But in that time since the four-year-old magical world slipped by and the real world of rejection and loss crowded in, I lost my dream of writing for a while.

This past year or so I have heard God's whisper: It is time.  You can write.  I am starting now.  I am writing.  I am blogging.  I am crafting.  I am expressing.  I am stepping out and allowing God to move and restore dreams.  I write now to encourage, to share and to bless.  Writing has come full circle. 

Stop. 

Rhythm vs. Schedule (Part III)

Just say "no."
Nancy Reagan made this slogan famous in the 1980s as she promoted sobriety through a method of refusing to give in to temptation.  In those days you could get the board game (yes, it's true) or a T-shirt, mug, even a baseball bat, all with this slogan emblazoned upon them.

In terms of time and our use (or misuse) of it, I think one of my dearest and most difficult lessons has been learning to just say, "no."  That one little word is so difficult.  I get really serious and dedicated about simplifying my life and keeping our commitments at a minimum and then I can turn around and we are chock-a-block full all over again.  How does this happen, and what is the impact spiritually?

Yesterday was a prime example: County Fair in the morning ... We met some friends there and walked through livestock pavilions, played in the children's area, saw newborn pigs suckling on their mother and spent time petting all sorts of animals.  By the time we got home we were burnt out.  We had planned to return to the Fair tonight since a friend's band was on the main stage.  I called my husband at work and said, "I don't think we should go."  We decided to provide a "consolation" to the boys and we all went out to ice cream after supper.  It was so calm and peaceful in our home tonight.  We didn't miss the Fair even though we did miss seeing our friend play guitar.  Sometimes enough is just enough.  We said "no" to a good thing and in exchange we had a really sweet night of connection as a family and we will all got to bed on time and be fresh for the rest of the week 

In my twenties as I made my way through graduate school, we lived near the beach and met with friends regularly to play volleyball.  One afternoon when I should have been working hard making progress on a reading list or writing my thesis, we got invited to meet friends for a game on the sand.  We got there and only one other person showed up.  I walked to the edge of the water and asked myself why I had felt compelled to go to this game instead of staying the course and getting work done.  I realized I just didn't want to miss out on anything.  In my heart I longed to be included and to get everything I could out of life.  That longing was driving me to over-commit and keep a schedule that left me frazzled and scattered.

It has taken years to learn what that day revealed.  The glimmer of a lesson started that day, but years later I still struggled with saying "yes" when I should say "no."  Reasons for "yes" abound and not all of them come from a healthy place in the heart.  When we get down to it, there is only one reason we need to say "yes" to things and that is that it lines up with what we know God has for us in this day, hour or season. 

Two summers ago my husband and I went through a process of defining our family's mission and vision.  It sounds really nerdy, I know, but I found this wonderful book by Tsh Oxenrider called Organized Simplicity.  In it there is a list of really good questions to help you define your mission.  My husband is not a "let's define our mission" kind of guy, so I had to corner him on long drives to our summer camping trips.  He was a sport.  We answered these questions and through the process we came up with our mission and it has helped us greatly.  We have an idea of what we are about as a family and what each person is being called to by God.  We are now able to say "yes" and (sometimes more importantly) "no" to opportunities by filtering them through our mission. 

Spiritually, our ability to sort and discern has left us what is commonly called, "margin."  And in that margin we have breathing room which means we can serve people when we see needs around us or even, as we did tonight, turn the whole plan around and go in another direction without causing havoc. 

What is it that keeps you from saying "no" more often?  Or, if you have been learning more about the blessings of healthy limits and knowing your purpose, I'd love to hear about that too. 

Rhythm vs. Schedule (Part II)

But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.

Crowds were hearing about Him.  They clamored for His touch - healing, cleansing, authoritative.

But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.  Luke highlights this aspect of Jesus' purposeful life.  In the midst of chaos, real needs and demands, He withdrew -- regularly and often -- to pray.

He is our Master and our Teacher and He was also living the perfect, sinless life.  He withdrew to pray -- to find communion (experience intimacy with the Father and the Holy Spirit).  He withdrew to clarify and refresh.  He may also have withdrawn to leave us a pattern.  If He, sinless and perfect, did this, what do I need to do in the midst of chaos and demands?  Are my demands greater than His?  What makes me hesitant to let go of these demands and withdraw to a lonely place and pray?  He is inviting and instructing me to do so ... often.

I will confess one thing.  There are times, more often than not, with two crazy-normal boys in my home when I do think I am the very key to stability in the home.  If I withdraw and pray, what on earth will happen short of 9-1-1 being called in following a great "idea" of my younger son being implemented in my absence?  But that is not the only thing.  There is more.  I fill my time with other things.  I could withdraw and pray, but I do something else.  I let the mundane overshadow the essential and eternal.  Somehow we all lean towards filling a jug to the brim with water and wondering why we can't fit all the big rocks in on top.  What happens when we put the rocks in first?  There is a miraculous truth about time: when we put the important in first, there is room for what else needs to be added.  But, when we get it backwards, we just don't have room.
Watch this. 

Just before this revelation about the importance of prayer and solitude in Jesus' earthly life, we see the people ask Jesus to stay with them and He tells them, "I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent."  Jesus knew His purpose.  He wasn't swayed.  He graciously gave to people, but He didn't let their agenda and expectations pull Him away from His purpose.  He knew why He was sent.  Do I know why I am sent?  What is my purpose?  Surely Jesus states several purposes of His own earthly life in various parts of Scripture and He lived out each of these.  But, He remains true to this: I can do only what I see my Father doing.  I don't think we can fairly say that Jesus had an "edge" on us so that somehow we just can't do what He did.  Yes, He had communion with the Father in a way we can only hope to have, but He has promised us that we too can have access to the Spirit and the Father as He does.  To have that access we must do what He did.  We must withdraw to lonely places and pray often.

Jesus did what He saw the Father doing.  God is still doing something in our midst.  He is actively doing things all around each of us.  He is engaged in the world -- not just the world "over there," but the world right here.  Right here is an opportunity to do what we see the Father doing and in your life, in my life, He has very specific opportunities for each of us.  We only need eyes to see and a heart to join Him.  He invites us to include Him and to be included.  This is communion and this is purpose: to engage with Him as we wipe snotty noses or listen to the simple things our children want to share with us or hear a friend pour out a burden or smile at someone who is downcast.  It doesn't have to be earth-shattering.  God said whoever gives a cup of water in His name will not lose their reward.  We join Him when we settle into our calling here-and-now.  We can be in Him and with Him where we are because He has planted us here for such a time as this.  We can bring Him to those around us merely by abiding and listening and then responding.  This is living by rhythm and it is the abundant life He came to give us.