our dreams ARE impossible ...

it’s been a while since i’ve blogged. that’s not to say i haven’t been writing (although that’s unfortunately become the case since i started this). it just hasn’t been the kind of stuff you post for the whole world (or all two of you) to see. but the other night i realized how that is just another way that i give satan a foothold in my life. if he can keep me in my own head, focused on my own issues, then he has rendered me silent and therefore ineffective for the kingdom.

well, as my reading yesterday reminded me ...
“has the Lord redeemed you? then speak out!” (psalm 107:2)

about a month ago, i attended a retreat that wrapped up talking about the Father heart of God. it’s something that has hit home in the past, but that i have never fully explored, and was a message on which i wish they had spent more time. however, it is the thing that God has continued to bring up the most in my life since then, so apparently He really wants me to get how much He loves me.

a few weeks later, i heard a full message on the topic, and God really spoke two things to me that night, which i can’t help but “speak out.”

first, on the list of ways that God wants us to “just be His kid” was EAT (being plugged in to sound spiritual teaching) or ‘failure to thrive‘ will result. also on the list was CUDDLE (resting in the arms of our Father). what struck me is that ‘failure to thrive’ is not only related to lack of proper nutrition but also - if not more so - to lack of affection, as with children in orphanages who have every basic need met but are rarely, if ever, held. you can be eating all the proper spiritual food, but still fail to thrive if you are not experiencing connection/resting in your Father’s love for you (because those two things are inextricably linked). seeing as our relationship with God tends to be a reflection of our earthly relationships, and specifically the relationship we had with our earthly father, then lack of (or inability to internalize, as is the case with me) resting in our father’s arms reasonably translates into an inability to rest in our heavenly Father’s arms/failure to thrive in our relationship with Him, and therefore an inability to rest/failure to thrive in every other relationship.


next, they showed a video of the dad who carries his grown son, who is disabled, in ironman races. if you don’t know what i’m talking about, and even if you do, you should probably watch this:



i’ve seen this before, but it hit me with fresh power that night. they set it up by explaining how the son was unable to communicate until they developed a computer device that allows him to write. one of the first things the dad - a runner - asked his son was “what is your greatest desire?” the son replied, “to run with you.” after watching the video, God reminded me that He, like the father, has made a way for us to communicate with Him, and then asks what our greatest desires are. it’s so easy to forget that He wants to hear from us, and then, we hesitate to tell Him what we really want because we are afraid of being told ‘no’ or because all we can see is the seeming impossibility of the situation. but that did not stop the son - because he was fully confident of his father’s love for him - and neither should it stop us. we’re right; it IS impossible. but that’s why He’s God. we’re actually supposed to not be perfect because that’s what allows Him to pick us up in our utter brokenness and disability so He can help us fulfill the greatest desires of our heart without any real effort on our part.

and that is truly what i feel like God is teaching me right now. to be brutally honest, because of personality combined with experience, i just don’t feel like i know how to function ‘normally’ in a lot of ways. it’s hard not to get mad at God but instead remember that He has made me who i am, and given me the experiences that He has for a reason, and while i might be ‘broken’ that is actually right where He wants me, because that is where He can carry me ... if i let Him.

well, that’s a little bit all over the place and doesn’t exactly have a cohesive take-home message. often, i allow that to keep me from writing, as well ... no more! i’m truly learning that “it doesn’t all fit neatly into a box that [i] wish was sitting on [my] shelf." ;) that doesn’t let God be God, and it doesn’t let others see Him in my life. i have been redeemed, and it’s time to speak out!

healing in the holding on ...

the past few weeks have certainly not lacked swings. God has continued to majorly challenge me in the areas of vulnerability and overcoming my past. and i've even seen some of the swings produce some pretty sweet revelations. but i unfortunately got sick right in the middle, putting a hold on my brain's ability to process all that God was doing in my life. i'm finally starting to sort through, and what i got was not a blog but a poem of sorts. it's been nearly 3 years since i've written one of these ... and i can't tell you how incredibly nervous i am to share it. i will likely be accused of ambiguity, but it is raw and unfiltered ... and perhaps you can relate.

I looked into her eyes
And found myself reflected there
The similarity so striking
I couldn’t turn away
Then too fast it was too late
And now I can’t help but
Hesitate

I’ve a hard time remembering that
My own worst fears
Are not confirmed
By a history not my own
Her past is not my present
Destiny not dictated by recounted
Memory

I am not the her that was then
You are not where you began
Very different hearts entwined
Life and lessons learned
But no less on the line
Struggling to stay in the now
To leave my heart open and out of the
How

If I believe that God
Put you in my life
Then although I don’t want to need you
I don’t think I have a choice
Teetering on vulnerability
Hurting is the safety of my promised
Healing

Letting you in
Means letting myself love you
I fight to let go
But find that means holding on
And that holding on
Means letting go of all that I know
For truly loving you
Means letting you love
Me

i'm getting married!!!

before i get to that, after yesterday's post regarding my commitment to let down my guard, my reading today included this - paul's plea to the corinthians - "... our hearts are open to you. there is no lack of love on our part, but you have withheld your love from us. i am asking you to respond as if you were my own children. open your hearts to us!" (2 cor. 6:11b -13).

'swing' duly noted (read piñata entry if you don't know what that means).

but the main reason behind two posts in two days came from yesterday's reading:

listen to me, o royal daughter;
take to heart what i say.
forget your people and your family far away.
for your royal Husband delights in your beauty;
honor Him, for He is your Lord!
(psalm 45:10-11)

my royalty is something that has been spoken over me a lot recently, so these verses immediately jumped out at me. if you've been around me much, you've probably heard me say that there is very little of my childhood that i remember. however, after doing a bit of relational history review with God, it occurred to me that pretty much every memory that did come to mind was negative. i guess that explains the laundry list of lies that i've been carrying around for so long.

my prayer is that God will help me to forget my past and the negative influences of the people in it, and truly come to understand my royal identity (see blog title - i'm "God's people", remember!), the delight of my Husband, and the beauty that He sees in me. as long as i am negatively influenced by my past, i am not honoring my Husband or allowing Him to be my Lord, and cannot embrace who He says that i am. in fact, i can't even get married until i believe that i am, indeed, a royal daughter.

i don't know about you, but if i'm being asked to choose between my past and my Husband, i'm getting married!!!

come on, you didn't REALLY believe me, did you? ;)

dig, run, surrender, win

my head is swirling with lack of sleep, recollections and expectancy. over the weekend, i was reading some old journal entries as i unpacked boxes, and found myself increasingly frustrated that i am again dealing with one of the same issues that i was over 10 years ago. like isaac in genesis 26 from sunday’s sermon, i feel like i’ve been ‘digging’ the same ‘wells’ over and over my entire life, only for them to be contested, and then letting them get filled in again by the enemy. then, this morning, i pulled out an old journal to plan my marathon training schedule, and couldn’t help but read the other entries. on one hand, it was again a bit frustrating to feel that i’m not any further along, but today a little bit of encouragement found its way in as i was reminded of just how far i HAVE come. it also reinforced a revelation i had on sunday - the reason i find myself dealing with the same issue time and again is not because i’m backsliding but because the issue was never really dealt with all the other times that it reared its ugly head.

and so, here i find myself again, but not without hope, and struck by the timing of it all. the entries i read over the weekend included notes from my first trip to nashville - the trip that made me believe i was supposed to move here, and this morning’s entries fell right before i made the trip to nashville just over 4 years ago that finally convinced me to move, on the weekend of new river’s grand opening in the movie theater no less. this morning’s entries talked about the last time i really surrendered myself to the process of healing (and also shame, but that’s another post), and right as i began training for my last marathon. unfortunately things didn’t exactly go as planned. unfulfilled promises and a great deal of rejection paved my way to nashville, and then an injury kept me from running my marathon. however, because i didn’t get to run the marathon, i was able to go on the church women’s retreat at garner creek - a retreat that began a new chapter of healing and relational openness (yes, i actually used to be LESS open ;)

and here i am today ... celebrating new river’s 10th anniversary, finally ready to surrender myself again, training for another marathon, and getting ready for another retreat at garner creek. last time, the race was not run, the training not completed. this time, just getting TO the training process has not been without pain, and i am under no illusions that the next 3 1/2 months will be easy. but i stand now believing that i will be able to say, both literally and figuratively, that “i have fought the good fight, i have finished the race, i have kept the faith” (2 tim 4:7). and while i will likely want to run another once the pain of 26.2 miles has faded, i also believe that this will be the last time i have to ‘dig this well’, that the water i find at the bottom will be flowing, and that i will finally be able to rest in the rehoboth (gen. 26:19&22) that God has prepared for me.

yesterday’s rerun of ‘gilmore girls’ put it perfectly ... “you don’t have room to complain about this relationship if you’re not willing to let your guard down at least once and be ‘normal’.” i’m done complaining. this girl’s guard is coming down.

runaway bride ...

i’ve been feeling a lot like julia roberts in ‘runaway bride’ lately -


she has spent so much time trying to be what everyone else wants her to be that she loses touch with who she is and what she likes ... how do you like YOUR eggs? ;) in a lot of ways, i’m unsure of who i am or what i like a lot of the time. a couple of weeks ago, i was pondering this while sitting at the computer and reading for book club (the queen of multi-tasking), when a friend popped up on chat and asked what my favorite color was. i laughed out loud at the timing. i hate questions like that because i never feel like i have an answer, or just one answer, anyway. while discussing this, i continued to read while waiting for her responses ... reading what i should have started at least a week earlier but had waited until just three days before book club ... and came across this passage: “in response to your surrender, God will do for you what you cannot achieve by any effort of your own: He will renew your mind. He will change the way you think. this includes your goals, your values, your attitudes, and your priorities.” i laughed again. God is not a God of coincidences.

as noted in my first entry, surrender is a word that has been on my heart for a while now. so, not only was God reiterating my need for surrender, but also reminding me that in surrendering myself, i would actually come to discover myself. hmmm ... sounds familiar (Matt. 10:39). my initial thought was to write REdiscover. however, as reemphasized by the passage above, i feel like God has been saying that He wants to give me a new self, redefining and replacing who i’ve thought myself to be for so long, with a whole new version of who He says i am. that is, however, the most disconcerting part of all. i’m somewhere between Him taking away (or me fully surrendering) all i’ve known to be true about myself and my life, and realizing ... or maybe it’s just embracing ... what God says is true about me. what’s left feels like a complete loss of identity. this can be seen as scary. i’m going to choose liberating. as the crowning ‘swing’ of this entry, i decided to look up how many times the word identity appears in the Bible. The NIV produced no results, but the last of six results in the NLT was 1 Peter 2:10, the verse that God gave me over two years ago: “once you had no identity as a people; now you are God’s people.” in all my striving and seeking, my answer is as simple as that.

God, do whatever it takes for me to find my rest in this promise.

God's pinata ...

God speaks to me through repetition. whenever something happens more than once within a brief window of time, it tends to get my attention. thanks to the witty darren tyler, i call these God-incidences. lately, however, He seems to be bombarding me from every angle with so much repetition that i’m beginning to feel like a piñata. every God-incidence is a ‘swing‘ bringing me one step closer to a greater lesson that God is trying to teach me. i’m thankful to not be the blindfolded one, aimlessly swinging my way through life (even though it may feel that way at times). i’m also thankful to know that God is not blindfolded, but swinging with careful calculation to bring about the desired result at just the right moment (even though it’s hard to believe that at times). it’s SO much fun - hilarious, even - but can also be a bit disconcerting and confusing to get smacked around like this. i have to remember that piñatas were made to be broken, laid bare, their contents shared. as painful as it can be when the piñata finally splits, the tears that spill, while messy, are oh so sweet ... the resulting lesson, oh so worth it.

i’ve been around long enough to know that if i don’t take careful note of these ‘swings’, then their ‘impacts‘ do not have as much power, only prolonging the process. and so, to speed up the ‘spillage’ of this particular lesson, i wanted to document as many of my recent ‘swings‘ as possible, praying that they might serve as a ‘swing‘ in someone else’s life as well. truly, we are all God’s piñatas, packed with sweet potential just waiting to spill out :)

postcards ...

i hate postcards. i mean, i appreciate them and the sentiment that they convey of being thought about and missed. but i hate sending them. or, more accurately, i hate writing them. so, i’ll apologize right now to everyone i have never sent and/or never will send a postcard to. please know that you are, indeed, thought about and missed. the thing is, i have a writer’s heart (and am also a woman). translation - i like details. a lot of them. i just find it overwhelming to condense everything about my current adventure - every experience, every thought, every feeling - into a measly 5 x 3.5 box of white. or as the genie in aladdin would put it, “PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWERS! itty-bitty living space!” oh, and don’t forget to leave room for that stupid postal sticker at the bottom. and if there's a description of the location, just forget it!

i know, i know, the point is not to tell everything. hit the highlights. love you. miss you. buh-bye. but that is not my nature ... whether in matters of travel or in matters of the heart. of course, this is what gets me into trouble. i can’t tell it all, and so i end up not telling anything at all.

that is where i find myself today. my heart is so incredibly full. God has been doing so many incredible things in my life. but i’m finding it impossible to try and convey every experience, every thought, every feeling. heck, i hardly know half the thoughts and feelings myself. so, until i can wrap my head around some of the things that God has been revealing, a postcard it is.

* after a bit of a hiatus from the world of childcare, i am now the nanny for two beautiful 5 1/2 month old baby boys 3 days a week. why did i ever leave?
* i coordinate the curriculum and volunteers for the precious preschoolers at my church. there is a reason we’re commanded to have the faith of a child.
* after 4yrs in nashville (can NOT believe i’ve been here that long), and 3yrs living in an apartment with a great roomie, i just moved into an amazing house with two dear friends and amazing women of God. such a testament to God’s goodness on so many levels.
* i am a writer. i am working on acting like one. God is beginning to open doors in areas that i had closed off, and blessing the steps i take. this is incredibly scary, but also so very exciting.
* fear and excitement sums up pretty much everything right now. the key is focusing on the latter and not the former.
* i love you all. i miss those of you i don’t get to see. buh-bye!

i shall run the way of your commandments ...

running offers itself up to so many spiritual and life applications. it’s no accident that the Christian life is compared to running a race multiple times throughout the Bible. i also find it is one of the best ways to clear my head, recenter, and hear from God. last thursday morning, i found myself in an increasingly unhealthy frame of mind, so headed out on a long run in the hopes of gaining some perspective before i was done.

i was staying down in spring hill, so planned on running the 9-mile route a friend used. she mapped it out for me, and while i was not familiar with all the roads to which she referred, i had a general feel for the area, and trusted her not to lead me astray. i tucked the hand-drawn map in my pocket, wrote down the step-by-step directions on my palm and headed out around 12pm.

now, i hadn’t had the greatest breakfast, and definitely had not had as much water as i should have at that point in the day, especially before going out on a long, hot run. it was about 80 degrees and sunny, but for whatever reason, i thought i would be fine without taking any water or fuel with me. the first 3 miles were BRUTAL, with several hills that had me thinking ‘are you serious?!’ as they came into view. but I was in a good stride with my ipod and feeling pretty good, all things considered.



but somewhere between miles 3 and 6, things made a turn for the worse. i was exhausted and my body started breaking down. i approached the base of yet another hill with despair, and was SO thankful to discover that my next turnoff came just before. my friend told me that the last long stretch was nice and flat, and it was for a while, but then a hill came into view and i thought this couldn’t possibly be right. the whole way i had been so impressed by how accurate her directions had been. but when i came up on a subdivision before the hill, i thought that maybe she had gotten the street name wrong, or at least that it would connect with my subdivision of destination because it had the same kind of sign. i was wrong. i’m not sure how far i went before stopping to ask for directions, but learning that i could not get there from here, made my way back to the main road. so, not only did i add extra distance, but i still had to face the dreadful hill ... which was actually not as bad as it had looked from afar. the right subdivision was just a little ways beyond that, and after a few more turns, the run i thought would never end finally did. it took me much longer, however, to recover - the heat, fatigue, and dehydration lingering for days.

what’s the point of all this, you ask. well, God is so faithful to meet those who seek after Him, and after my little detour, He started speaking to me about how my situation also applies to life. trials in the Christian walk (or run) are not so much an if as a when. the good news is, God has equipped us with everything we need to get through them - we may be hot, tired and sweaty, but we will be stronger for having endured. He has provided Jesus, our bread (john 6:51) and water (john 4:13-14) to give us nourishment and energy. the trick, of course, is that we are actually eating and drinking enough, both beforehand to prepare us, and during to sustain us. the trials will be much longer and more difficult if we do not rely on our source of strength. He has provided us with the Word as a roadmap for our journey (psalm 119:105). we may not be familiar with the ways that He asks us to take, but with His promises tucked in our back pocket, and His instructions written on our hands, we can trust Him not to lead us astray. when He has a 100% track record of faithfulness, it’s amazing that we would ever question the plans He has laid out for us. and yet, when faced with another hill, how quick we are to think that we know better and start looking for a shortcut. “you were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth?” (gal. 5:7). in the end, we’ve only made our journey longer and we still have to go over the hill we were trying to avoid in the first place. thankfully, sometimes when we see those hills in the distance, we are actually not meant to go over them, which is why we’ve been commanded not to worry about anything but our present circumstances (matt. 6:34). when that’s not the case, it seems that the hills are never quite as bad as they look. maybe it’s the act of digging in and taking it step-by-step, or maybe it’s just perspective, but often we find that our destination - our rest - is just on the other side of the thing we fought so hard to avoid.

so, lesson learned. whether physically or spiritually, the torturous journey and recovery are simply not worth heading out unprepared and not sticking to the route that has been laid out for me.

“i shall run the way of Your commandments. for you will enlarge my heart.”
psalm 119:32

an $85 whale ...

last monday, i prayed for patience. i just started a month-long dogsitting stint that requires me to take the twins i nanny out at least once every day for the three days that i have them. that wouldn’t be so bad, except that my little charges have been more than a little challenging lately - both not sleeping well + one not eating well = fussy babies, not to mention putting them on different schedules. and then, i walked in monday to find we had added cereal to the mix! and so, i found myself praying for patience, and saying as much on my facebook status. i immediately had two people warn against praying for patience because that is an open invitation for God to put you to the test. i, however, knew how horrible the next month could be if i didn’t go ahead and pray for patience up front. if that brought on some extra tests, then at least i would have the patience to get me through them. good thing, too.

monday, the boys were crazy yet again, including an entire bowl of cereal getting thrown clear across the room ... seriously?! but i came into tuesday claiming that God’s mercies are new every day. i had a great track workout, and got a free pastry from starbucks, but then hit every stinkin’ red light on the way to work, which made me late ... nothing frustrates me more than stupid traffic and stupid drivers. however, the boys were perfect! even a call saying my memaw had to be rushed to the hospital didn’t bring me down. sure, i was worried, but i didn’t feel the need to freak out. i did manage to slice my finger open while making dinner, but was happy to get to bed at a decent time. unfortunately, i was wakened by the pouring rain ... tree houses with lots of windows are cool until you start dumping water on them in the middle of the night. then, the dog decided i needed to get up at 4am like i had the morning before to let her out ... but then didn’t want to go out because of the rain. honey, if you get me up at 4am, you better believe you’re gonna pee. she did, but then was restless, so between that and the rain, i didn’t get much of the remaining two hours of sleep i had hoped to. and then my nose, which bleeds when it’s dry, apparently didn’t get the memo that it rained half the night and started bleeding, always making the process of getting ready a bit more challenging.

still, despite all of that, wednesday with the boys began as a repeat of tuesday ... until i hit a crazy curb on my way to walk the dog and blew out my front tire ... ugh! still, as annoying as that was, i took it in stride and started contemplating that little fruit for which i had prayed. one could argue that while my week with the boys was going much more smoothly, God was putting me to the test in other ways. maybe so, but i couldn’t help but notice how God had answered my prayer for patience. even in the face of multiple annoyances, i had not lost my cool. my conclusion was that i would rather have adversity if it also means having the fruit of the spirit, than have a life without trouble if it is also without fruit. it is for this reason that i CAN “consider it pure joy ... whenever [i] face trials of many kinds, because [i] know that the testing of [my] faith develops perseverance. perseverance must finish its work so that [i] may be mature and complete, not lacking anything” (james 3:2-4). it is for this reason that i do not hesitate to pray for patience.

the cool end (or next chapter) to the story came two days after i started writing this - the day i first actually posted to this blog. i had to take my car back to the shop to get the front end aligned because they had not had time to do it on wednesday when they replaced the wheel. it was definitely NOT something i had time for in my increasingly busy weekend, but i didn’t want to risk making a possible problem any worse. but, having to sit there and wait gave me time to finish my first entry that i had been putting off for so long. and God also freed up my evening, allowing me to finish up everything else i needed to. i won’t go so far as to say that God caused me to hit my tire on wednesday just so i would finish my first blog, but He has been known to bring storms and big hungry fish when His children don’t feel like listening. as crazy as it sounds, the feeling that comes from stepping into God’s will made that stupid batch of annoyances and $85 setback totally worth it!

and so it begins ...

about two years ago i awoke with 1 Peter 2:10 emblazoned across the blackboard of my mind’s eye. i looked it up and read the verse found at the top of this page. but until i started this blog, i could not figure out God’s purpose in giving it to me, even often wondering why it was not the more familiar v. 9. as i thought about it, however, i realized that my life is a compilation of ‘but now’ moments - when God takes things from before to after, making His presence known in ways both big and small, humorous and holy. these are moments that i typically feel the compulsion to document and/or share, but for one reason or another, it simply does not happen, their power lost, their impact forgotten.

my life is not my story but God’s, and i believe that He is asking me to tell it. to whom much is given, much is required, and i have certainly not been delivering on my end of the deal. not that my position with God rests in the balance of whether or not i write. i just know that i will not fully experience His power in my life until i have fully surrendered myself to what He is asking of me ... and with all that He has done for me, how can i not help but share?

fear is funny like that ...

i have journaled for years. even posted a blog or note or whatever from time to time. an actual blog, however, i’m finding to be an entirely different animal. my overactive internal editor is on high alert. who am i to write a blog? will anyone actually care to read what i write? is what i want to write really that important? i say this not to be self-effacing. i’m just realizing how much fear i’ve been carrying around in relation to writing. sure, i can edit all day long, or whip up a bio without much thought, but when it comes to putting my own thoughts out there for a greater audience, it seems the well simply runs dry. this is not merely writer’s block, but a fortified wall that has been built over the years, and one that i was surprised to find still exists.

however, God continues to make the call to write undeniable ...

this past sunday at church (a week after i actually began this entry), we were challenged to write down whatever it was that keeps us from experiencing God’s power in our lives and place it on the cross. the word that immediately came to mind was simply surrender ... certainly not your ‘typical’ response, but after a bit of a debate with God, i tore off a scrap of paper so as to avoid having to tear a page out of my journal. then, the person next to me asked for a sheet of paper, as well. reluctantly, i handed him my scrap and turned to the last open page in my journal - one of those that has quotes printed throughout - and on it found “i write for the same reason i breathe - because if i didn’t, i would die (isaac asimov).” sigh ...

whether or not anyone ever reads what i write is not the issue. it is simply too much a part of who i am - a person of God who has received His mercy. i pray that the way He chooses to reveal Himself to me will be an encouragement to you, as well, and that you will be inspired to be more aware, and take note of, your own ‘but now’ moments.