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Find Your Happy Pace

In March, I ran a half marathon for the first time in nearly 13 years. When we started training somewhat late, I maintained that my goal was to finish, and that alone would be an accomplishment. I hadn’t been running regularly, maybe 3 miles once a month, and I knew my training schedule was going to be very different this time around – ever since kids, especially my third, it had been hard enough to fit in a regular workout, and my gym time almost never went over 40 minutes.

Try as I might, however, I couldn’t get my goal of “just finish” to sink down from my head to my heart. I’m too competitive. I know my self, the (sometimes unrealistic) bars I set, and the hopes I have that push me forward. Even when I’m saying “just finish”, my head is shadowing thoughts of “but I will have a feeling of disappointment if my time is slower/I’m over two hours/I have a hard run/etc”. I speak what I hope to believe. I “fake it till I make it” 90% of the time. But my mind would not let me solidify my comments that didn’t give 100%.

I was full of angst and nerves and so very many emotions as I looked around, revisiting the place and the memories from my first half-marathon. Clothed in green that first time, I’d placed my dad’s company on my shirt, naming him my “sponsor” since he’d paid for me to run. During today’s race, I was blessed with so many moments of remembrance from my dad. Song playing while on the coast/base, flashbacks of my dad coaching me through track and a pace I began to run that I never knew I’d had in me from there on out. (Even when I’m running now, whatever kind of day or run I’m having, I can’t kick my faster-paced stride.) I’d come and left alone, that initial race, but I’d run hard and enjoyed, thus leading me back here 13 years later.

Pre-race jitters have always been a tagalong for me, but this time, I’d been feeling it all week. What if I can’t finish? What if I get hurt (I was battling toe and foot pain)? What if I ran really, really slow?

I know. I know. Even typing that last line feels silly. I’m just so darn self competitive that even with totally less and different training, 3 kids, and 13 years passed (is that really true??) I still wanted to compete with my old time. That’s where I had set the bar, and my mind would not let anything shift that.

I grew excited waiting in the corral as the adrenaline and nerves spiked, and I watched everyone warm up. There is SO MUCH inspiration to be found at a marathon. A lady in the bathroom who started running at 54 and was running a full for the very first time at 56 to fulfill her 16 year old self’s dream. A mama pushing a stroller with a little who couldn’t have been a year. Inspirational quotes, shirts, people joining together, encouraging teams or couples or runners pushing those who can’t run for themselves. Generations of ages from all walks – and runs – of life. All working to reach the finish line.


Early in the race, however, was the gem that inspired this blog. A mile or two in, I was not quite at my “pace” but was still bursting on adrenaline and just trying to stay with the pacers from my corral. And on my left, a lady with a sign. A simply written poster…”Find Your Happy Pace”. 


This sign was what pushed me through the entire race. It’s what kept me going, and often came back to me as I tried to compare or compete or follow or shift. Find your happy pace. Who cares how fast she’s going – find YOUR happy pace. Foot is starting to hurt? Find your HAPPY pace. You’ve hit your stride and might pass (or lose) your pacer? Find your happy PACE. FIND it. An action. Intentional, determined, focused. Not based on anyone else’s training, ability, or time. Not even based on my own past or future. Just based on now. Find it. Find it, stop comparing, and keep it. Just. Keep. Going. 

In the Middle of my Mess

A few nights ago, as I watched a well-ordained Glee episode (yes, reruns are still an occasional guilty pleasure…) that was spiritually themed, I heard from God. Not right away. And not aloud. Before turning it on, I had been reading a devotion from my Freedom study regarding how to make worship part of everyday life, and the regular “you can’t keep anything focused in your mind” thought came through. So, feeling determined and a bit defiant, I pressed through to the end of the chapter in spite of initially thinking I wouldn’t go more than 15 minutes or so. I’d poured myself a glass of wine – this day was the first I’d had in a week – and as I nursed the second glass, frustrated with myself that I’d poured more than my original one-glass limit, it hit me.

THIS was satan’s hold on me. I would have one glass, but I wouldn’t be able to stop there. I’d want a second. I’d stay up to watch another show. I’d get to bed late AND a bit tipsy. So I’d have trouble getting up the next morning and wouldn’t feel clear-headed – both of which would make morning devotions difficult if not inevitably gone altogether as I pressed snooze, desperate for the rest I had missed. I’d tell myself all day long that I would find time and if I didn’t, I’d do them at night. And the cycle would start again. I cursed. And I got MAD.
THIS was a foothold. THIS was one of the pieces that kept the perpetual cycle going. I prayed. And I got mad. I cursed at Satan in a way that felt SHOULD be reserved only for him. And then, I realized that when my dad died, I’d been mad at the wrong..being. I should’ve been mad at Satan, but I was mad at God. I think I should clarify – I do believe that it’s okay to express anger with God. This time, however, I’d held onto it, and I’d blamed Him. I’d been angry with Him for taking my dad way too soon, and too suddenly. Contemplation flashed through my mind…What if….what if my dad was in satan’s grip and getting to where he was no longer fighting it? What if satan had a foothold on my dad and death caught him before he completely walked away from god?
As I thought about the years, my patterns and disengagement, my struggle and my pain, my anger grew. My face flushed with that feeling that often comes with shame and humiliation and anger. Satan will NOT have a foothold in my home, and he will not have a place with my children, my marriage, my finances, my home, my emotions, my mind. I cursed him 3 times (as somehow felt appropriate) and then continued to scold and denounce his place in my life. With anger I ordered him out of my home. He may have had a foothold in my past, but his power reigns no longer. He. Is. Finished. Done. No more. I will not be his minion to destroy my life and those around me. I am no longer willing to do his work or listen to his purrs. I was furious.

And at the same time…grateful. “Be still”, I recalled. I had been wrestling with what that was supposed to look like all week. I support I still am, to some degree. But there was a revelation in this moment, this experience. ALL I needed to do was to literally keep doing what I was doing. Read some. Clean some. Pour a glass of wine with a snack and watch a show. And there it was. I had no idea why, but I knew it as soon as they started the spirituality episode that I was being spoken to and I became alert.
God used my mess, my strongholds, my dissociations and patterns and routines to speak to me and speak to my heart. He didn’t need stars to align. He didn’t need me on my knees in a quiet sanctuary (though quiet time with God is definitely recommended). God could get ahold of my heart right where I was, in the middle of my mess. It is a truly beautiful thing, because while I’m not great at getting my ducks in a row, I DO know how to be in the middle of the ponds I find myself in.
God can – will – use you, just where you are. Seek him, and you will find him.   “Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, declares the LORD, and I will restore you from captivity and gather you from all the nations and places to which I have banished you, declares the LORD. I will restore you to the place from which I sent you into exile.” Jeremiah 29: 12-14

Be Still…and just be.

Flipping through photos from this last week*, I came across a video my daughter had taken. I remember it vividly – messy hair, no makeup and in my pjs, I was sitting at our new keyboard and attempted to play from an old piano book. She saw my phone and snapped it up, then began to video me as I played. Self conscious from both my looks and my rustiness of years without a piano, I had almost asked her to stop.

The memory hit me differently today as I began to connect the similarity of my response in that moment and themes that have been coming up in my relationship with God. My daughter didn’t care if I was dressed or ready or put together. She didn’t care if my voice was squeaky, or if I was missing notes or playing slowly. She wanted to capture a moment, an experience. I wanted it to be perfect, she just wanted it to be. My daughter’s love isn’t based on whether or not my life is put together, I have makeup on, or my voice sounds like an angel. She doesn’t care if my clothes are put away or my dishes are washed, if I’m size 2 or 20, or if my hair is blonde, black, or purple (well, she does, but it doesn’t impact how much she loves me 😉 )
Recently I have been prayed over by two different people, and both offered very similar words and visions while praying for me. The theme, it seems, is that I’m trying and striving and fighting, doing all I can. And while God sees it, He’s instructing me to just Be. Still. To just be. To be free. To be me. While processing these prayers, I realized, I’m not quite sure how to do that. Yes, “be still” in its very basic sense is to sit, quietly, contemplative, open. But in the day to day of life, what does that really look like?
And how, exactly, do I just be me, when I’m not quite sure what – or who – that is? So much of my life, I’m pretty sure I’ve sculpted who I am based on what I thought others would accept and love and want to be around. I quieted my loud, obnoxious, blatant honesty and over-the-top-ness, replacing it with someone who was more reserved (and unfortunately lacked confidence).  I lost weight. I dressed nicer, dyed my hair, and learned (attempted) to do my makeup. I became slower to speak or respond, which led to a significant hesitance to share my thoughts or opinions at all if they significantly conflicted with someone else’s.
To know me, to meet me, you may not believe half of this. I am not a demure, quiet-spoken person who is perfectly shaped, coifed, and organized. But words, comments, beliefs, and life has a way of sticking with you, of leaving a lasting impact that you sometimes don’t really realize has interwoven into the tapestry of your being until you look back. Somewhere along the way, most likely in small bits and pieces, I lost a chunk of who I was. Of who I am.
But I’m on a determined mission to find her again. To find me again. To introduce my husband and my kids to pieces of a person they’ve never known, to be free to love and free to live, free in God’s presence and free in my purpose, whatever that may be.
And I kinda like the thought of being defiant, determined, and perseverant…it speaks to a kindling inside me that was starting to go out. It seems a good place to start <3
*written April 26, 2019

Don’t Take Away Your Own Power To Choose

It was one of those days. Nothing extraordinarily stressful, but not exactly calm. Crazy with moments of beauty that fueled the stamina to get through another day of my husband traveling. Times of patience, times of crying, and times of gritting my teeth to not scold, become short with, or unintentionally insult or offend anyone. Just one of those normal, chaotic-life-that-we-live kind of days.

About five minutes ago, at the end of this not-so-particularly-significant day, I was washing our not-so-particularly-significant dishes that were still in the sink and began listening a God Centered Mom podcast episode, my heart looking for hope and guidance and direction and comfort, feeling ever so slightly (…) crushed  and defeated from the week. And within the first five minutes of this podcast, I listened to the guest, Paul David Tripp, state the following in response to the host’s prompts:

“So maybe start with some questions here. If you’re a parent, what keeps you going when you just don’t feel like going anymore? What makes you willing to do the same thing over and over and over again? What gives you hope when your children don’t offer you any hope? That’s where we all live. We all live with the repetitive nature of parenting, with times when we just feel like we’re at the end, or when we want to think hopefully about our children but we don’t see the things in our kids we’d love to see. And I think that’s when this deeper sense of the beauty and glory of ‘what I’ve been called to’ is what makes me willing to do that again.”

{pause for ugly cries here}

Whoa. Just…whoa. It hit my gut hard, in the, I’ll leave the dishes soak while I go type my thoughts to process kind of hard. I’ve been wanting to write for the last two weeks, and have not been able to get the wheel spinning. Thoughts with no depth, no direction, no exploration. But today I kept thinking about a conversation I had a month or two ago with a dear colleague. As we always do when we meet, we cover a thousand topics, personal and professional, and she is always, ALWAYS, a gentle, insightful soul to be around. During this conversation, I was talking about the difficult dichotomy of being the “unorganized parent while simultaneously being the parent who organizes, administrates, and plans”. She offered the empathy that she always does (the true depth of understanding empathy, not the “I know that must be tough” kind, but the kind where she can explain better how it feels than you can), and as I went to offer my routine, “I have to…”, I stopped.

For the first time, I couldn’t say, “I don’t have a choice”. It didn’t feel right. Instead, a swarm of thoughts rushed me at once; thoughts of parents I’ve worked with, people I’ve known, foster children I see, people who don’t make that choice. And I realized…and said…”You know. I’ve always said I don’t have a choice. But for the first time, I realized I do. And I need to stop saying that. Because I do have a choice. There are so many days I’ve wanted to just drive away. To quit. To make sure the kids were taken care of, and take off. To stay in bed and not get up. To check out. But I don’t. And I wouldn’t…I couldn’t. But it’s not because I don’t have a choice. I have that choice. I just don’t make it.”

So I guess tonight’s podcast, well…it makes me take that a little deeper. What makes me keep making the choice that I do? I didn’t keep listening – my thoughts were swirling too much to hear anything else that was being said – but I’d imagine that much of where he was headed was faith and our “calling” due to the couple of sentences that followed the above quote. And yes. Faith has a role. Faith and the belief that life is bigger than me, that God is lending me the beautiful souls I’m blessed to call my children, that there is a bigger and higher purpose. These play huge roles.

There’s also something in me that refuses to quit. It won’t let me, even if I want to. Even if I want to make the choice, consider the choice, explore the choice. There is – and always has been a piece of me that will not give up.

There’s a morality piece. A piece that reminds me that it’s not just about me anymore. The piece that says, “once you decide to have children, it’s not longer about you” that runs through the very depths of my being. That they didn’t choose to be here, and I have been given the responsibility AND the privilege of raising them the best that I can. It’s self-sacrificial to become a parent. While the sacrifice should not be at the cost of your own health and well-being (in classic airline style, please put your own mask on first…), but it SHOULD be a change.

I have never been a person who believes we can just “choose” to be something. I can’t “choose” to be happy when I’m depressed, I can’t “choose” to be focused when I’m distracted, and I can’t “choose” to be calm when I’m stressed. Contrary to the belief, it’s similar to being told to “calm down” or “just smile” or “be happy” or “pay attention”. If we could, wouldn’t we? I mean, really think about that. Of course. And if we wouldn’t, then it’s so much deeper than that single choice.

You see, it’s a practice. A practice of self-discipline. A practice of gratitude. A practice of mindfulness and meditation. A practice of self-care. A practice of coping skills, reminders, breathing…repetition of things to help until they become the norm. A rebuilding of the natural neural pathways.

But I’ve tree-branched, and I might be losing you. So I digress.

At the end of the day, YOU need to be able to answer Paul’s questions. And the bottom line? You do have a choice. You have a choice to be different, to do different, to learn different…you have a choice to find the skills, the people, the resources, the tools to help you find a different path. To practice, to learn, to find accountability, to grow. You have the choice to learn if it’s a choice you want to make. It’s not easy. At. All. But we have the ability to say, “enough is enough” and to keep saying “not today” if we need to. But…if you can’t find it in yourself to believe that you have a choice? Well. I’d love to hear from you, because maybe we can find it together <3

There is always a choice.

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What I’m Reading Now

Recently I was listening to a podcast by the Minimalists (I’m a podcast junkie…to the extent that one will ask me if I’m still interested in listening because I have too many in my queue and can’t keep up!) and one mentioned that when he originally started blogging, he wasn’t sure how he would come up with something to write every day. So he decided to just start writing about “what I’m doing now”. Well…most people could probably care less, but I thought it might be a great way to process what I’m reading and finding intriguing or thought-provoking!

Currently, one of the books I’m reading (ADD much?) is “Peaceful Parent, HAPPY KIDS” by Dr. Laura Markham. One of my dear colleagues and friends presented this book, insisting “you need to read this”. And, as life would have it, I was talking treatment to another colleague about one of our shared clients and the struggles I was having finding resources, and she showed me a powerpoint from a seminar by none other than Dr. Laura Markam. This was my third encounter on the book/author, and when things happen like this for me, I pay attention.

I’m only a few chapters in, but this…this is such a wonderful read. It’s a fabulous perspective on why children act up and the reason it can be so detrimental to yell, scream, fight, or otherwise invoke fear in the name of “discipline”. But here’s the thing. It’s what I stress with families, and it’s what I continually remind myself…a child’s behavior has a PURPOSE. When a parent talks to me about a child being manipulative, I help them reframe the terminology, and I say, simply, that I don’t use the word “manipulate” in regards to behaviors. Does it? Yes, at the foundation of the word, it does. But so does everyone. We all engage in ways to help mold, shape, and impact our current and future situations. Behavior has a purpose…a message…and if it’s working, it will continue. I was so tickled to read, “Because no matter how bad your child’s behavior, it’s a cry for help. Sometimes the behavior requires a firm limit, but it never requires us to be mean”. YES!!!

But circle back to the yelling…did you know that when you escalate, you are teaching your children that is how to handle emotions? Did you know that, in order for a child to “self regulate”, they must FIRST learn to co-regulate, or use a trusted caregiver to model and assist in the facilitation of the said “calming down”? AND, if we teach children that emotions are scary or wrong or dangerous or inappropriate, we MISS teaching them the skills of what to do when the (um, inevitably…) arise???

Believe it or not, no matter how good it may feel or how difficult it may be to control, yelling does not teach your child anything but how to be afraid. Of you, or of the emotion. Or, more likely, both.

Still so much more to read…and so much more to practice myself. But I’m going to quote one of my favorite sections so far,and leave you with this lovely bit of knowledge:

“When kids are scared, they go into fight-or-flight. The learning centers of the brain shut down. Your child can’t learn when you yell…Your child needs you to witness her outpouring of emotion and let her know that she is still lovable, despite all these yucky feelings. Explanations, negotiations, remorse, recriminations, advice, analysis of why she’s so upset, or attempts to “comfort” her (“There, there, you don’t have to cry, that’s enough.”) will all shut down this natural emotive process. Dn’t force her to express herself in words; she doesn’t have access to the rational brain when she’s so upset. Of course, you want to “teach” – but that needs to wait. Your child can’t learn until she’s calm. You don’t have to say much. Your calm, loving tone is what matters.”

Until next time…

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Don’t Stop Believing

This song. This concept. This idea. It’s overused. But when dissected, it continues to ring so very true.

We used this song at our wedding reception entrance. My husband and I both loved Journey, and this genre had composed much of our childhoods and our parents’ music. Isn’t it funny how, when we are young and innocent, we compose ideas that we have no idea how true they may become? But what’s more, isn’t it “funny” how deeply memories can run and how random circumstances align to bring them all to the front?

At night, somehow our family transitioned from singing songs to playing songs on YouTube, often classical, as part of our daily bedtime routine. My husband insisted on beginning to teach them the classics, and it stuck…a little too hard. They now request two of three songs. Every. Night. Now don’t get me wrong – I’m a sucker for tradition, repetition, and consistency. But…well…the songs get played out. As an episode of HIMYM depicted in a long road trip and a stuck car cassette tape, “it comes around again”…and every once in awhile, the song hits.

Tonight, as I lay in bed with my oldest, our normal “quiet, in bed” song ‘Moonlight Sonata’ ended. My oldest begged me to stay another “one couple minute” before going to my middle’s bed and so, as YouTube has it, another song began. Tonight, it happened to be the third of our three…’Canon in D’, or, as my girls have dubbed it, “the marry song”.

Guys, I have listened to this song a thousand times. Honestly, likely more. It plays at Christmas. It plays at weddings. It plays in our evening routine and in our classical piano Pandora “get-the-kids-to-fall-asleep-in-the-car” playlist. Heck, it was the song I requested played as I walked down the aisle myself in lieu of the traditional wedding march. I have heard it played by piano, harp, guitar, and everything in between. But tonight…tonight, the synapses flared, connected…and punched me in the gut. Tonight, I had flashbacks of my wedding…and my dad walking me down the aisle.

It’s funny how the paths fire from there. I have fully watched my wedding video maybe one (or two) other times…the most recent being last September. (Of course, I think of my dad often, but not often in the depth of “holy crap, he’s gone” mentality…well…not as often as it used to be.) But tonight – tonight hit me like a ton of bricks. Tonight swarmed me with memories and smells and senses that I thought were lost. Experiences I thought I was no longer capable of remembering. So, of course, I went straight to our pile of CDs and watched the wedding video, slightly disappointed at the lack of footage of the classic father/daughter dance but delighted at close ups of my dad walking me down the aisle and cracking jokes. Enthralled with watching his face as he danced with my mom. Ecstatic at just seeing him be him. “Don’t Stop Believing” was our reception entrance, so of course, I watched that too, and enjoyed once again the thrill of the wedding reception entrance and the celebration that ensued. As I completed paperwork later tonight, one of my guilty-pleasure sitcom reruns (don’t judge…I was in “glee club” too…) played a flashback episode, performing “Don’t Stop Believing” with a now deceased actor in a lead part. Yes. I lost it again. For the third time this night.

But the point. To continue with the theme of seasons, my memory, my health, my mind, my emotions…they were in a winter. I couldn’t remember experiences, even with my hardest attempt. I could literally barely remember the day before in spite of practicing mindfulness even in a moment I wanted to hold, so without extreme intentionality and a direct (unknown) trigger, I could not recall a whole heck of a lot. I couldn’t write, I couldn’t process in my head, I could barely hear my own thoughts in the midst of dead silence and stillness and struggled to think things through. I honestly feared I was watching a vault close on a very deep, important, intricate, and complex part of what has always made me who I am.

A few days ago, my family and I traveled to Hampton Roads and used many of the roads and areas of our old stomping grounds…my work, our old church, routes we took, places we camped…and a flood of memories I couldn’t even fully bring to consciousness began to come. Things I never thought I’d remember and just added to the list of the “unknown life” that had been my past. A time that stress and overwhelm and extremities and changes pushed into the depths of the darkness that had become “my story” and my past.

But tonight I think I’m forming a new hypothesis of how memories…and memory recall work. Tonight gives me hope that not only is a vault not closing, but that there are areas of my brain that can still be awakened. Tonight I felt a sense that perhaps – just perhaps – those memories in times of great stress and struggle are still formed, but require something a little bit different to bring to recollection, and that there is a possibility that the person I was, the person I could be, isn’t gone at all.

Tonight, I realized that if I keep believing, I just might find me again.

More Than Words

Buckle up, guys…I wrote a novel tonight…

water overwhelm

I’m sitting here at the table, looking around at what there is still left to do. A husband on nights, a couch of unfolded laundry, food to make and pack, a load of clothes from a sick child, random toys that didn’t make their bins, trash to empty for garbage day, and dishes to finish cleaning….all before I settle (slump) down on a chair to finish reviewing paperwork that I need to catch up.

Most days are like this. A scattered brain with too many things to accomplish, and all just to keep the house and workload in some type of “working order”. Busy, young children, all vying for conversation and time and touch, talking so much that having a thought long enough to remember what you needed to do for work in that moment is a long shot. Going, going, going.

I’ve been composing this post for a few weeks in my head…along with many others, and I know full well it may become a messy conglomeration of tangential thoughts. Ever since an oceanfront revelation, my brain has finally been going there again during the day. But by the time I settle to write (or work), it’s 10pm, and the headspace I felt during the day that was able to process ideas (usually in the car) has become a puddle of sludge, just hoping to finish the top of the list before I crash with my computer on my lap.

seasons

At church, we’ve been going through a series titled “Seasons”, and it’s all based off of a very well-known series of verses in Ecclesiastes…”to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven…” (Eccl. 3:1, KJV) I love the series. It’s been refreshing, insightful, encouraging, and uplifting, to the very definition – it’s provided hope. Hope that things can change. Hope that this season is not forever. Hope that there is more.

But I can’t help but wonder, do we overuse this phrase? Has this become yet another cliche? How many times have I heard, “this is only a season”? Probably as many times as I’ve been told, “I’ll pray for you” or “this too shall pass” or “he’s in a better place” or “you’re doing great”. Don’t get me wrong, these things are awesome. The logical, rational understanding and internalization of these ideas IS hope providing, and well-intentioned. But the older I get, and the more I pay attention, I realize…I’m an actions person. I used to argue it. I mean, I’m in my head CONSTANTLY, and sometimes with simultaneous thoughts running (that’s more for another day). But I really am an actions person. You love me? Show me. You’re concerned for me? Show me. You can tell I’m anxious/overwhelmed/ depressed/decompensating? Show me. You want to help? Show. Me.

We’ve gotten so caught up in our lives that we have lost the idea of a village. Of a community. We don’t have the time to offer it. And we don’t get offered it in return. I’ve often thought myself, “How can I help someone swim when I’m drowning?”

I have the sweetest friend. She and her family have been here almost a year and a half, but are originally from Portugal. They do things so much differently…and I’m almost jealous. It’s not that I want to completely emulate her life or culture (though I’m not sure I’d completely complain…). It’s more…well…it seems to me (from the outside) that they’ve got a strong piece we’re missing. When you build a house, you prep it to hold you for as long as you are able to live independently. When you go to church, it’s to the one your entire neighborhood/area goes to. Holidays are a progression of family and friends. Life is about community. She is currently a stay-at-home mom after being kind-of a big shot in her business (my words…she’d likely balk at the notion). She’s loving it, and is so thankful. But if I need help? Whether or not I ask, she’ll offer, “because we’re neighbors. That’s what you do”. She could be tired, her kids could be sick, she may have slept three hours the night before and is a single mom much of the time due to her husband’s work schedule. She plans their trips, cleans their home, gets up multiple times with her young children, and doesn’t bat an eye at offering to take on another child so you can get a task completed. It’s definitely a mentality. And to me, it’s a heart thing.

Sometimes I wonder if we’ve started to rely a little too much on our cliche responses, feeling good that we offered a prayer or a half-hearted “let me know if you need anything”. I heard once this offer being described as adding another weight to shoulders who are already too burdened. And honestly, how often do we know how to answer this? How can we? The thought of needing a live-in person daily, or every morning, or every evening…well, that’s my first thought. “can you come over every evening?”.
need anythingThere’s a song that’s hit my heart many times, knowing full well the countless times that I’ve been both the offerer and receiver. In ‘Shine the Light’, Babbie Mason sings, “In the parking lot of the coffee shop, Just the other day. She smiled and she said, “Well I’m doin’ okay” But I felt her pain. I took her hand in mine, Said, “It’s gonna work out fine”. But as she turned I wondered, did I just hand her a line?”  We pat ourselves on the back, *hopefully* lift up the prayer we promised, and move on our way.

I know, I know. We’re all stressed and overrun and tired and busy. I get it. But I also had to ask myself, how can I expect something I’m not giving? If you feel the need to tell someone, “this too shall pass” or “enjoy it now, it’ll be gone too soon”, use this as a red flag for yourself. I PROMISE the person knows this, tells themselves this daily, even feels guilty for still struggling. I PROMISE the person is trying so hard to get through the day to day and WANTS to enjoy the season or push a little harder and a little further. Trust me.

So, let me put out a challenge to you. To me. To us all. If you find these words on the tip of your tongue, think about what they really need so you can HELP them enjoy (survive?) this season. To paint a picture for you, let me go one step further and be very raw and very real. Words like “it’s only for a season, enjoy it now” sometimes make me cry. And not because I feel warm and encouraged. Because I KNOW this to the very depths of my heart, and I cringe that I’m so overwhelmed that I can’t often stop and enjoy it without decreasing my 5-6 hours of sleep even more (less? I digress). I fear that I’ll forget it because I’m stressed and exhausted, and I can’t remember what I did yesterday, let alone that super funny, adorable, cute thing my daughter did an hour ago. I covet prayers, and I’m so thankful for them. Prayers can move mountains, and I believe that to my core. But I also know that I need real-life, hands-on support, and I think I speak for us all.

We were made for community. For connection. And not just for joy. What can you do? Say the words if you need, but follow up. Be more than a passer-by on the street. Check in on them. Clean their bathroom. Bring them coffee or dinner. Wash their car. Take the kids randomly for an hour or two. Don’t ask for permission. Just do it. If you can’t? Send them a good, old-fashioned letter, flowers, a $5 coffee shop gift card, an audiobook, a song, a movie. Call them and be ready to listen, not fix. Be ready to sit in the depth – the muck – of what might come out, and let it be okay for them to vent, even if it doesn’t sound pretty. Offer encouragement to strangers. Pay for the next order in the drive thru line. Recently, I heard a woman speak of a friend who would put a wreath on the person’s door, and one concept I heard of helping kids be Santa by identifying someone to give a surprise gift to by figuring out what they would like/need and giving it to them with no credit just melts my heart. I cannot count the number of times I have been brought to tears by a godly-timed letter, text, gift, or blessing, large and small. But on the flip side, nothing makes a person feel so incredibly insignificant than being heard but not listened to, seen but ignored.

support

I look around our world, our country, and my heart breaks. SOMETHING has got to give. A little kindness, a little connection, a little community – can go a very, very long way. It starts with us, my friends. With me, with you. Be more than a greeting card…we have enough of those already <3

 

Day 8: finding the balance 

It is my heart to share my journey, with hopes to connect with others who are experiencing the same, whether physically with me now, or spiritually with me later. But I am realistic. Realistically, I know that I have 3 kids under 4, with one being a mere month old. Realistically I know that balancing a blog and balancing life need to find perfect harmony as I venture into what my health journey will look like now, in a new chapter of my life. Realistically, I know I am not alone. 

In my head and in my heart, I know this balance will come. But I’m also striving for it currently, in my work, in my fitness, in my diet, in my relationships, in my family, in my faith, in my self. Balance seems to be this “thing”, so far out of sight but just out of reach. Tempting us with the promise that it’s achievable but never truly being reached. 

So, for now, I will continue in prayer for balance and will continue stumbling forward, seeking a community who is also stumbling, praying, reaching, searching, hoping, grasping. Maybe, just maybe, we can support each other in our journey, and the balance will be found there in.