Learning Along The Way

What’s Keeping Your Head Down, Girlfriend?

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Saturday I created a writer’s retreat for myself.

The Hubster was in Chicago visiting our son, so instead of being Eeyore and saying ‘Woe is me I am all alone” I planned to use the day for writing and reading.

I went to the store ahead of time, got some healthy and not so healthy snacks, veggies for soup, and came home for the weekend.

Intentional alone time to be quiet, to listen, and to capture the thoughts that percolated to the top.

I have to say it was a successful day!

But like so many things I do, I was focused with my head down, and I almost missed this:

I was stunned that I had been so consumed with what I was doing, my head down, focused on what I thought was most important at the time, that this almost escaped my view.

So I watched. He got my attention.

It was a glorious sunset. God painted the sky and I watched the colors shift with the changing light.

My perspective remained the same; He shifted the world as if to remind me that what I can see is not all there is.

I wonder, what else might I be missing when my head is down, focused on what I deem important in the moment? When daily routines require attention, do I miss the wave of a neighbor while I sweep? Or the flutter of a butterfly around the flowers?

There have been times when I’ve been “too busy” to reach out to a friend when the Spirit prompts me, only later to learn she was grieving and feeling alone at the time when I didn’t lift my head from my work.

This begs the question: Whose time is it anyway? My time? My way? My work?

I sigh, realizing I missed an opportunity to be God’s gift of encouragement to another.

I share this to help us both remember our time isn’t really ours; time is gift God gives us to steward for His glory and others’ good.

Teach us to number our days that we might present to You a heart of wisdom. 

Daily we have opportunities to be about the Father’s business. There is a lot of need for good to be done. But the question is, are we doing instead of being? Are we so focused on the work that we forget the relational components?

I know there are seasons when quiet moments to simply be still are few and far between. I know it can feel like the noise from all the needs is making you feel under so much pressure that your ears might bleed. I’ve been in that place. But God. My two favorite words in scripture. But God invites us to be still and know that He is God. We are not.

If we listen to the invitation, take the risk and press pause, tune our ears to His voice of love, acceptance, Presence, we just might be renewed. We just might be filled up to be poured out for the good of others. We can’t keep pouring out without being filled up again.

What’s keeping your head down, girlfriend?

Does lifting your head sound impossible? Do you see only obstacles instead of opportunities? Do you need options?

I’m a trained listener, a person who journeys with others who need and want a guide as they learn along the Way.

Curious to know more? I’d love to hear from you.

 

Are You Too Busy to Count?

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I’ve been reading 100 Days to Brave and sharing some of my reflections here, but I’m curious for those who have been reading along too:

Are you too busy leaning in to being brave to count where we are?

Just this week we’ve achieved 31 days; I know this because we started October 1 and Wednesday is October 31, Halloween. We’re a third of the way to unlocking our most courageous selves!

Just two quick questions for you to reflect upon;

What area(s) of your life have you seen that you’re already brave?

 

What is keeping you from taking a brave step in an area that you know you need to lean into?

 

 If you want to let me know I’d love to hear your answers!

If this is your first time dropping by, welcome!

I’d love to have you join in the community to receive encouragement and have some laughs (sometimes) but most of all to consider how your story and my story connect to God’s story!

Summer Fun!

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I’ve been quiet on the blog for quite awhile. I’m such a word nerd; I love using quiet and quite in the same sentence. They gave me fits as a student, but I digress.

There was a protracted season of my life that was very hard (think grief, loss, ugly crying) whose good intent was to develop stillness. Like a child on a time out chair or one who has a secret, I didn’t sit still well. The season necessarily was extended until the stillness settled down, seeping into my soul. This became my way of being. A beautiful gift that was uninvited, undeserved and definitely rejected before being accepted.

I grew so enamored with the stillness that I withdrew from people in order to be quiet, to read, pray, and reflect. But like the Dead Sea which is dead because there is no outflow of water, I was stagnating in my own stillness. Not a pretty picture.

I sought outlets to serve; places to encourage, engage, uplift. There were glimmers of response but nothing shone bright enough to hold my attention. I was used to being alone now, had I lost how to be with people? Not this extrovert! I had lost my sense of place. I got quiet outside of myself because I began to believe a lie: I was not needed. My age & stage was sidelining me. Somehow I began to believe I was to grow content with looking at life in the review mirror rather than out ahead through the forward facing windshield.

I tell you these things that have made me sigh for months to set the stage for why I’m speaking up now.

As I’ve turned my face forward I’ve realized that I have a lot of ideas. I have a lot of connection points I’ve seen through this season, connections that are meant for others, not just me. I’m eager to share, to encourage, to point out resources, to create!

My raison d’être will be revealed through my words. I want you to be a part of the fun of discovery!

Here are my plans for the next 31 days.

Share

Have fun

Observe the World

Write Daily

Unpack big ideas

Post fun and engaging stuff here.

In other words: SHOW UP

 

I invite you to engage here and all the Social Media places. We’re going to have fun learning along the Way.

30 Days of Giving

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Gloucester Cathedral doorI have been blessed – and challenged – by many bloggers’ 31 Days of … posts through October.  They were wonderful. Beautiful. Graceful. Fun.

I have also been reading and participating in two online communities focusing on two different books.  One is A Confident Heart by Renee Swope.  The study is being led by Melissa Taylor and the Proverbs 31 OBS team.  It’s a good and hard book- focusing on my developing a confident heart trusting God’s promises.

The other book is titled A Million Little Ways by Emily Freeman. The book group is through the in Courage book club, Bloom. Emily’s book is also good and hard as she gracefully shows me the now and not yet of living this life as the poeima of God (read the book! It’s so worth it!)

In holding out what I am learning from each book I recognize that I am a giver.  Part of how God shows Himself to the world through me is through encouragement offered to others.  In a.million.little.ways.  It may be greeting the clerk by name at the store when I check out(they wear name tags for a reason). It may be an email, or text, or tweet, or blog post. It may be a handwritten note sent through the mail. Lots of ways to give encouragement.

So I am going to challenge myself to give to others through encouragement for the next 30 days.

You can receive the daily encouragements in your inbox if you sign up on the right and subscribe to my blog.

Will you open the door and come along with me?

Black Friday Focus

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Today’s entry from My Utmost for His Highest quotes a portion of Malachi “Take heed to your spirit that you do not deal treacherously”. Chambers goes on to say “Our state of mind is powerful in its effects. It can be the enemy that penetrates right into our soul and distracts our mind from God. There are certain attitudes we should never dare indulge. If we do, we will find they have distracted us from faith in God. Until we get back into a quiet mood before Him, our faith is of no value, and our confidence in the flesh and in human ingenuity is what rules our lives.”

On this Madison Avenue marketing day, as we look for great deals on things we ‘need’, what will you do to demonstrate you are a person of faith?

Let someone with less in their arms go ahead of you in line?

Give money to the Salvation Army bell ringers?

Slow down and smile at the store employees dealing with people who are way too intense and frantically grabbing at items to get the most and the best?

Pause while you are in line to thank the One who gave you the ability to breathe, stand, carry, think, earn money, etc.?

Any or all would probably be a way to battle the ‘attitudes we should never dare indulge’.

As I’m getting ready to pile into the car for a shopping extravaganza these are great reminders for me, so I’m sharing them with you. Let me know how your day went; I’ll be praying.

Is Change Happening?

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Do you wonder if change is happening?

You might be battling discouragement today.

Maybe when the new school year began you started (or tried to start) to make changes in your routine: getting up earlier, eating right, being on time places, not losing your temper, writing that thank you card, memorizing scripture, or even just reading the Bible; any one of these changes might be on your to do list.

You started your plan and it was going great!

But life happened today and the to do list didn’t get done.  Or maybe it’s the third day in a row that “life happened” and the to do list is buried under the mail.

The question is: do you give up?  Just quit because change is too hard and you don’t see it happening?

Or do you make a different choice?  The choice to persevere?

Steady Progress
Three years ago to honor my dad’s memory I wanted to make our backyard into a relaxing retreat area by installing a water feature.  Here’s what it looked like brand new:

The plants were little and it looked rather stark.  It wasn’t lush and verdant like I had imagined, partly because the cost to plant mature plants was way out of the question and partly because I am committed to the process of growth and I wanted to watch the yard change over time.

Little by little, when I wasn’t paying attention, change happened.  Now, this summer the fountain area looks like this:

My point is, don’t give up!  Little by little, when you push back against the tide of demands and make another choice to continue on your new routine, starting again, you will see change when you least expect to!

Sometimes when we’re the most discouraged, we do want to throw in the trowel, in gardener speak, and just quit.

I have one word for you: DON”T!

Keep going!  Start again!  Get support from friends or, contact a Coach!  Click over here to learn more about working with a Life Coach.

Change can happen.  Change takes time.  Give yourself grace and get support.

Weeding in the Garden

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What is growing in the garden of your life that you’re not paying attention to?  We get busy with the day to day routines: cooking, cleaning, laundry, shuttling kids, changing diapers, cleaning messes, working outside the home, caring for aging parents, the list goes on.

Tending to the garden of our hearts takes time, energy and focus, all tools you may feel you don’t have in your garden tote.  In different seasons the weeds grow more rampantly than others.  When I have allowed the weeds to go, the work to remove them is overwhelming.  When I have been too busy to be consistent in tending the garden, it shows.

What to do to get back a tended, well watered garden (think life)?

1. Start weeding.

What’s there that isn’t helpful?  What’s getting in the way, crowding out the good things you want to see in the garden of your life?  Get rid of whatever that is for you.

2. Ask for help.

Weeding takes a practiced eye; knowing what is a weed and what is a good plant can be confusing if you’re not used to the practice of tending the garden.  You might need a mentor, a seasoned gardener, to help you recognize what doesn’t belong.

3. Adjust your priorities

Everything cannot have #1 priority.  Really hard for an over-achiever to hear, I know!  Learning to know the difference between what things are ‘have tos’ and what things are ‘want tos’ also takes practice.  In different seasons your time must be spent in particular ways and in other seasons you’ll find there is more discretionary time.  But the fact remains, a little regular attention to the garden is the better practice than only one day a week or once a month!

Start.

Who knows, once you get in there you may discover the Master Gardener has planted something in your life that you weren’t aware of!

Grace to Learn

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What is it about learning that takes so long for some and goes so quickly for others? I’ve studied learning theories for years; the variables are endless. In the final analysis, it boils down to one common statement: learning is unique to each individual. Parents know this as they watch their children learn to feed themselves, walk and talk. No one goes through learning in exactly the same way. Wise parents give their children room to try, practice and make mistakes, knowing that the missteps are tools in learning what does work.
Interestingly some of us lose sight of this truth, developing unrealistic expectations of ourselves that we apply to all aspects of our lives. I’ve been spending the past year learning about mindset and it’s affect on our actions. I have also been at work changing mine (mindset) in several areas; one of which is how fast (or slowly) I learn something and what I tell myself in the process.  This actually relates in a big way to why I have been silent in the blogosphere for this past year. Without diving into too much detail, I have spent a great deal of time attempting to learn how to develop my own website using lots of tools and support services available. Notice I said “attempting”. In this process I learned several things: html code is full of details; I have an unrealistic mindset of how quickly I can learn and apply new knowledge; I don’t give myself much grace.
I don’t know if you struggle with an unrealistic mindset/expectation, but I’ll tell you what, it’s a burden! How I think affects how I act. No one “sees” my thoughts but they do see my actions and re-actions. I am hard on myself when I can’t do something quickly and correctly. I have said many unkind things to myself that I WOULD NEVER say to another human being. This internal dialogue leaks out in ways I had not seen until I started to learn about Mindset. Anybody else like that? Where does a negative mindset come from? I have recognized that knowing how I formed a negative, unrealistic mindset is not as valuable as knowing how to change my mindset. I’ve also learned I can’t change my mindset without encouragement and accountability.

Knowing where I am (in this case a negative, unrealistic mindset) and where I want to be (speaking grace to myself when I can’t do something quickly/correctly) has been a big part of my learning along the Way this year.  People close to me know that when I have learned something I think is worth sharing I am ready to burst with excitement to share!  I’ve decided to use my blogging as a venue to share what I’ve been learning, ever hopeful that it will be a benefit to others.  As you see me writing more, I’d love to hear from you.  Or if you are the quiet, vicarious learner just subscribe to my RSS feed.  Either way, I’d appreciate knowing if what I have learned is making a difference for others.

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