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Lessons Learned: Living Childishly
♥ 11 MIN READ- I don’t often allow myself to need others. Wanting you is fine but the dependency that comes with need is not a requirement I want to meet. This tendency exposes my greatest conundrum. It seems that I can be more comfortable with other facets of my relationship with God- friend, savior, lover, even servant is sometimes easier to deal with than child. Childness requires a vulnerable dependency. While adulthood is marked by self-sufficiency, need is a natural reaction of a child. If the only way to enter the kingdom of heaven is as a child, then I can no longer repel it when it becomes inconvenient. Being…
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An Influencer’s Guide to Influencing Responsibly
♥ 12 MIN READ- In some ways, I have been a follower my whole life. Growing up, like most little sisters, I wanted to do everything my older sisters did. Luckily they didn’t set too bad of an example (j/k they were great). As some people get older they realize how easily persuaded they can be and resign themselves to follow the leader, while others recognize their own power of persuasion. Influence. For some, this is the brass ring to capture, the siren promising to make your deepest desire come true. Others reject the notion that anyone would ever listen to them. Whether you fall in either of these extremes or…
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Tempo Temptations: Healing Your Relationship With Time
♥ 8 MIN READ- Were you ever asked a question, and you knew answering it required you to change? It’s like the blissfully ignorant life you were living before is gone, and now you know better, so you have to do better or risk the consequences. When I did the vision test in my last blog the question, “To what did I devote my unhurried attention?” slapped me in the face. I knew the outcome wouldn’t be pretty the moment the question was asked. No matter how I spun it, the answer wasn’t God. If I’m honest, everything else was on the list but Him- food (I like to eat),…
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Vision Test 2020: Second Look Revelations
♥ 6 MIN READ- Who did I become this year? Is it who God wants me to be? Is it who I want to be? How did I get here, and what will I do about it next year? At the end of every year these are the questions I’m essentially trying to answer, but to answer them correctly other questions need to be answered first. Every year is a continuation of the last built by how you processed the past year and your decisions about what you’ll do about what you discovered. Whether consciously or not we each look at our lives and decide what the culmination of…
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The Process: Hoping to Believe
♥ 5 MIN READ- My older sister was a daredevil child. She masterminded all of our childhood adventures because something in her mind believed the laws of physics didn’t apply to her. Pain and failure weren’t formidable consequences and as long as we could keep the plan a secret from our mother, no other limitations mattered. Success was sure. Some say we lose our childhood belief as we grow, but honestly, I never had it. I was a look before you leap type of kid. I never thought I could do it. I just always believed in her. This year has seemed more unpredictable than most-filled with plot twists, silver…
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Avoiding Purpose Burnout
♥ 12 MIN READ- Honestly, right now I’m tired. My to-do list is full, and all of it is important: work, church, family, serving, school, blog, purpose. I need a break, but I don’t see one in sight. Burnout is on the horizon. My weeks are full, and my weekends are fuller. I rest, but it’s not enough. I need a timeout. There’s a difference between being tired and exhausted. Right now I am tired, but there are times I’ve been exhausted on a soul level. So often those of us who grind, “work it out”, and “make it happen” end up feeling burnt out, even when we’re fulfilling our…
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The Level of Surrender
♥ 9 MIN READ- What does your next level require? This is the question burning in my brain right now. On one hand, it terrifies me. There have been so many times in the past that I thought I knew what was required, but an unexpected cost always came that I didn’t account for. Still another part of me is always concerned that the result won’t be worth it. That I will look back and regret my sacrifice. These concerns about the unknown cause me to hesitate, and I have to be reminded that as I’m counting the imagined costs, I have to balance the scales. God’s track record outweighs…
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Learning Lessons: Being a Woman of Business & Ministry
♥ 9 MIN READ- How do you define business? What is categorized as ministry? Do they ever intersect? These are the two major areas in my life that seem to require the most of me. Neither area ever seems to be satisfied because there is always more to do. And honestly, for a long time, they seemed to compete. Business promotions always seemed to increase my busyness and threaten ministry obligations and it seemed that I was always hightailing it out of work to make it to something for church. So years ago when God told me that I was a Woman of Business & Ministry I had trouble wrapping my…
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The Becoming Gap
♥ 10 MIN READ- I wish I could speak with caterpillars and ask them how they feel about becoming. Do they fear it? Is it uncertain or do they automatically know what they will become? Do they wish they could be something else or do they doubt becoming a butterfly is even a possibility? Are they aware of what lies within them or is it just a beautiful surprise? I wonder is it for them how it is for me. From the outside looking in we often assume that becoming is natural for others and by comparison, we feel alone in the foreignness of our own process. Becoming has shades of…
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The Evolution of a Voice
♥ 6 MIN READ- My newsfeed and almost every conversation has revolved around the protests, race, and police brutality. So many people are speaking right now in words and action. We each want our voice to matter. We each want our message to be understood. To impact. To resonate. We all want the end result, but I wonder how many people truly prepared their voice for this moment. What I See Clearly I believe a voice is a tool crafted to achieve a specific purpose. Words, tone, rhythm, timing- they are all components to create a voice that resonates. We all want our voices to be used in powerful…
