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!