You would think...

For someone who has been a follower of Jesus for as long as I have, I dwell way too much in the land of the humanly possible, the physically believable. Those things which are provable and measurable by human and earthly laws.

But for someone who believes in a God—

        who created everything from nothing

        who made a walking path through the Red Sea

        who gave a donkey the words someone needed to hear

        who arranged a ride for a wayward prophet in the belly of a whale

—you wouldn't think that I would get so hung up on the challenges of my own life.



You would think that I would trust more in a God—

        who used a little mud to cure blindness

        who walked on water

        who raised his friend Lazarus from the dead

        who raised Himself from the dead

—than in my own logic and only that which my eyes can see.


You would think...

expectations

after so very many years on this planet, you would think that i would have learned that a vast majority of all the disappointments i have had in life have been because reality neither matched nor exceeded the expectations that i held.

why am i surprised by this?

i have a good imagination. so many nights as a child waiting to fall asleep, instead of counting sheep—which i never saw the merits of— i would concoct marvelous stories in my head where i would be the heroine and not only save the world of monsters, aliens and all sorts of evil, but look very stylish doing it. {yes, even as a child, saving the world was equally as important as having good hair}. and when you add to this imagination, the unlimited resources of a rich dream life, well, anything is possible.

everyday-variety real life scarcely has a chance to compare.

"Expectations kill relationships." Ann Voskamp quotes her mother in her beautiful book, One Thousand Gifts. since reading it, this sentence has stuck in my head for days, slowly bring my world of unrealistic expectations versus everyday life reality to the forefront of my mind.

Expectations kill relationships.

there are so many situations flooding my mind where unmet expectations—both on my part and that of others—has strained, bruised and even ended relationships.

including my relationship with God.

how many times have i asked for something, already believing that it should be mine?

how often in the dark of night, illuminated only by the blue haze of the alarm clock, have i rehearsed all the things that i should have?

not to mention those times when it almost seems like i am fighting God to try to get my heart's desire, Him being the proverbial bad guy, one hand holding my dreams away, the other hand holding my head at a arms length as my own arms flair to reach what is not rightfully mine?

this morning in my Life Journal reading, Mark wrote about Jesus' disciples trying to keep children away from Him, so as not to bother him. but Jesus wanted the children near Him. perhaps because of the fun they bring. maybe their laughter. but perhaps, it was because they came to Him without expectations. they didn't want anything from Him, they were just there.

a part of me wonders that if in their lack of expectation, in their innocence, with wonder still fully intact, if those children saw more of a glimpse of the God part of Jesus than all the adults standing around, eyes clouded with expectations of what this teacher could do for them, ever could have.

this child-like, expectation-less, wonder-filled way is the how i want to live my life.

routine

“I travel a lot; I hate having my life disrupted by routine.” —Caskie Stinnett

this quote pretty much explains how i used to feel about routine. whenever possible, i would take a different way in to work. i refused to be nailed down to traditional meal times. a career change took me from the banker's hours of a job at a credit union to a retail store position, and loved that my schedule changed every day, not to mention every week. basically, routine was pretty much a four letter word.

but i'm feeling different about it these days.

since getting home after almost a month with my family, i have been struggling to get back to even the most basic of schedules. from the time i wake up, right on through until the time i go to bed, i am pretty universally routine-deprived right now.

and now, it needs to stop.

i know myself well enough to know that if i begin to put too many rules in effect, that i won't do anything. so i need to work within my own limitations, and sell myself the benefits of doing the things that i know i should be doing, instead of simply saying, "do it!"

{does anyone else play mind games with themselves? does it actually work?}

so much of my day is lost if i waste the morning away, so it is important that i start things off right. but it's not even so easy as actually getting up the first time the alarm breaks into my sleep. it's going to bed on time. and making sure that the kitchen is clean before that, and the table is cleared of all distractions, and my life journal, bible and morning pages notebook are where i can find them. and my lunch is made and ready to take to work. and...

you get the picture.

so, tonight, while i do my much-neglected laundry, i will turn up Charlotte Martin's new CD {which you should totally get, by the way}, and i will get some organization and new routine-making happening in my little world.

who knows? by next week, i may be unstoppable...

falling

there are days when it feels like everything is out of control.

falling.

not doing what i want, or need, or think it should be doing. but rather, spinning wildly, jerking erratically and heading towards the floor, only the sound of the crash remaining.

i was facing the window while in a meeting yesterday, and had to force myself to not simply sit and watch the constantly falling leaves. there wasn't a second where at least one leaf was making its mesmerizing, spinning, beautiful journey to the ground.

the trees appear to be wiser than i am.

to graciously give up what you cannot hold is a lesson i am still learning. to remember that there is a season for everything. to trust that the Maker of the season knows more and better than i, is a place i need to rest more. a place i need to live.

given all this, it is only fitting that i let Rilke weigh in on the situation. as always, i am silenced by his words...

Autumn
by Rainer Maria Rilke

The leaves are falling, falling as if from far up,
as if orchards were dying high in space.
Each leaf falls as if it were motioning "no."

And tonight the heavy earth is falling
away from all other stars in the loneliness.

We're all falling. This hand here is falling.
And look at the other one. It's in them all.

And yet there is Someone, whose hands
infinitely calm, holding up all this falling.

weight

while emailing my good friend Alicia this morning, i started to explain to her why sometimes doing the things that i know are good for me are just so darn hard. it's not that i'm lazy, or i don't understand how important these things—writing, exercise, etc.— are. it's actually quite the opposite, i know how vital they are to a healthy me, and paradoxically, the weight of their importance, at time, cripples me.

when i am about to embark on something good for me, be it writing or working out or whatever, it is never just a single event in my mind. somehow my brain takes that event and turns it into something bigger. as though if it is worth my time to do today, then surely, here and now, i must make a commitment to do this good thing every day for the rest of my natural-born life. merely doing it once would be a 'why bother?'

then, the weight of a lifetime of said good thing starts to wear and feel incredibly daunting. the fatigue that plagues my mind as it attempts to wrap itself around this heavy commitment, and all the other things i will never do because i will be doing this forever, makes me want to go take a nap... which is not very conducive to getting anything done.

my challenge, it seems, is to not put added weight onto the daily tasks that i need and want to do. the writing i do today, is the by-product of today, not the rest of my life. walking to work is merely a 25-minute jaunt. not 25 minutes times 365 days times how many more years i will live. first off, i probably couldn't do the math, but no one can expect to live a lifetime in one day.

i only have to be faithful and disciplined for today. for right now.

and deal with tomorrow when it gets here.

doubt

i think if i had to pinpoint one flaw that most keeps me from doing and being all i can, it would have to be my super-human ability to doubt myself.

there aren't many areas of life where doubt and second guessing doesn't factor in. my writing {is what i'm writing really relevant, intelligent, informed, or am i simply spewing the ridiculous randomness in my head?}. the job {this design isn't as good as the last one. what if i never have a creative thought ever again? what if they find out i don't have a clue what i'm doing?}. even conversations that i have {did i really say that? she's going to think i am an idiot. why did i have to open my mouth at all?}.

all these things and more are subject to the harsh and glaring critic living inside my head,whose only job, it seems, is to constantly tell me that what i'm doing isn't good enough, creative enough, intelligent enough... or simply enough.

it's far too easy to let the questioning, negative voices actually run the show that is my life. and besides, i don't even like living like this! if i was wearing a pair of shoes that was so painful as to ruin my day, i wouldn't hesitate to change them. so why have i allowed doubt to inconvenience, and at times, even sabotage me?

i want to be done with the incessant self-doubting. i want to stop second guessing myself, and begin trusting in the gifts that God has given me. and if i make a mistake, then i pick up and go on from there.

there are enough things in life that serve to derail you from your purpose... there's no sense in adding to it.

control

while i wouldn't describe myself as a control freak, there have been those in my life who have wandered into that neighborhood, and made such an assertion.

okay, so i like to be in control. but let's not blow this out of perspective. i don't want supremacy over the whole world. i have no such secret ambitions. {now, if we were talking my own small island near the south of france, i think i would make a very good Queen Susanne... but we digress.}

all this to say, that while i may have degrees of desire to be in control, i wouldn't really call them issues. there are simply things that life goes better when i have the power to manage them.

let me say that this week, in my work life, there wasn't a great deal of control to be had. a new {and faulty} version of Photoshop took over my life, and refused to let me do my job. do you know what happens when i cannot do my job? i didn't, until it all came to a head yesterday, and while i won't go into all the details, let me just say that it isn't pretty. one thing that i definitely did not have control over yesterday was my reaction to the situation.

basically, as i sat at my desk, the fifth time i tried to do the one thing i needed to do to finish the sermon presentation for sunday, and the fifth time Photoshop crashed my computer in an hour, i had the grown up equivalent of a temper tantrum. there were tears—angry tears, definitely not the pretty kind. there was anger. there were pouty faces. there was grumbling.

i was a mess.

you want to believe that when life doesn't go your way that you will handle it with grace and poise. not to mention the reminder that even if Photoshop doesn't work ever again, God is still God, and in the big picture, nothing has changed.

i want to believe i am this person, but yesterday proved that i am not yet her.

being daily aware of the fact that i am not a perfect person, i rarely have illusions of sainthood. but the place i went to yesterday, simply because i could not do my job, has reminded me that i still have so far to go, there is still so much more inside me that needs to be illuminated by God's grace, and changed to be more like Jesus.

so far to go...

more

as i was writing this morning, it became clear to me that writing wasn't the only thing i was doing. even as words made their way into the composition notebook, my mind was somewhere else, rehearsing all the things that had to be done before i would be ready for work. make the bed. put last night's dishes away. clean the sink in hopes that the faucet will get fixed today. make lunch.

sometimes i wonder why i cannot simply live in the moment i am in, without feeling the weight of every other moment to come, and all that will fill those moments. i cannot help but think that if i could find a better way to live in the moment, that perhaps i would want less.

all this reminds me of this Henry David Thoreau quote that has haunted my mind for years...

i went to the woods because i wanted to live deliberately,
i wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life,
to put to rout all that was not life
and not when i had come to die
discover that I had not lived.” —Henry David Thoreau

in these moments when my focus is split, i don't think it is possible to live deliberately. like the old cliche says, you can't be two places at once. perhaps in this age of multitasking, we are losing the ability to simply focus on one thing. one person. one task. whatever is right before you in that moment.

but then the little voice creeps in, why do one when you could do more?

when i design, i usually follow the less is more approach. but living that way is something i have yet to embrace. i always want more. but then, the line that i have quoted time and time again from the movie Sabrina hits me...

more isn't always better, Linus. sometimes it's just more.

i need the wisdom to know the difference.

rest

“Sometimes the most urgent thing you can possibly do is take a complete rest.” —Ashleigh Brilliant

yesterday, after a three and a half hour nap, i woke up with a sore throat. this morning, the sore throat has been joined by other cold-like symptoms. i can feel in my throat that i am once again on the verge of losing my voice.

this time, i am going to try something different. instead of pushing myself and thinking that i am all so invincible, and if i can just keep going, i will work through it, then ending up with laryngeal-tracheal bronchitis {as has happened twice in the last year}, i will rest today, and with the help of Advil C&S, tea and sleep, tomorrow will be a much brighter day.

let's see if this plan works better than the other one...

wasted

you know how every once in a while you have to do something, it doesn't really matter what it is, and for whatever reason {procrastination, fear, unsure of how to do it well or perfectly, etc.}, you put off doing it right away.

then it gets a bit bigger. so you wait a little longer.

then it gets bigger. surely you cannot do it at this time.

then it gets even bigger.

then it is huge.

and what at one time was just a thing to do, has now become this huge, looming undertaking that is closer to impossible than you'd like to imagine.

this has happened to me recently, and i hate the feeling of helplessness that accompanies it. i don't want to be the girl who is afraid to face the hard things, even when they are hard only because of my own decisions.

so, this morning, when i woke up at 5:00 am, instead of doing my Life Journal and writing as the plan usually is, i had to pull out some old boxes filled with stuff i haven't seen in a really long time, and search for things that i wasn't sure were still going to be there.

but they were.

i found them.


the time spent worrying and wondering was wasted, as everything i need is sitting in the desk drawer beside me as i type this.

when will i learn?