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Throwback Sundays…The Best Community of People I Know

February 5, 2012 in Throwback Sundays

They are people who I can laugh with, cry with, rest with, worship with, vent to, be silent with, dream with, pray with, work with, be challenged by, and serve with. It is a community that I believe with my whole heart is the reason God brought me to Nashville. It is a community that I get incredibly excited about when I think of how God has used them and will continue to use them for His Kingdom. (full post here)

My community has certainly changed faces in the year & a half I’ve been in Nashville. As life’s seasons change so do relationships. But, community is still strong. It’s one thing Nashville does well – the thing that I find people who move here never knew they were missing until they discover they have it 8 months later. I tweeted the other day that home is where everybody knows your name. And that’s exactly what Nashville is. Most days it feels like a never ending episode of Cheers & I simply love it.

I hope you have good community that you’re spending Sunday with! :)

 

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Ponder…the Core

February 2, 2012 in Ponder...

 

The more people’s stories I get to know the more I believe this to be true. And is it any surprise considering the most vital & life-giving relationship in our lives should be a Fatherly one…with THE Father?

 

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What Do You Do When You Don’t Want to See?

January 29, 2012 in Deep Thinking, Just Life

What do you do when you don’t want to see?

I honestly hadn’t thought about it. I hadn’t considered that there’d come a moment when I didn’t want to see. It’s one thing to be unaware…to not see because your eyes haven’t yet been opened to things. And that was a challenge I anticipated this year. But it’s another to have open eyes which you choose to close because you don’t want to see.

The introvert in me can become quite selfish in relationships. It reaches a breaking point at which it chooses to see no one but itself. It doesn’t want to see that there are other people who need connection even if it doesn’t. In those moments, I often choose not to see. I choose not to see because I don’t want to see. Seeing is particularly hard & messy in those moments. Seeing is exhausting in those moments. Seeing feels like taking one step forward only to take 4 giant leaps backwards.

This past week was one of me not wanting to see. Of more often than not choosing to close my opened eyes because seeing just felt too hard & I was tired of hard. Then I got a note from a dear friend. And I saw. I saw that I’d been refusing to see. Sometimes it takes being seen to make you realize you’ve been choosing not to see & I am grateful for friends who do just that for me – who remind me that I am seen even if I think I’m not…even if I try not to be.

Do you ever not want to see? What do you do in those moments?

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When January 16th Causes You To Reflect

January 16, 2012 in Deep Thinking, Just Life

It was January 16, 2006. It was a Monday – like today…January 16, 2012. It was the first day of classes for the 2nd semester of my Junior year of college. But I wasn’t in class. I was on a Midwest flight from Milwaukee home to Minneapolis for my grandfather’s funeral. 

As I walked through the airport that day I wasn’t sure I was going to make it all the way. I can remember praying in my head, “Lord, just don’t let me fall. If I fall I won’t be able to get back up.” 

I landed in Minneapolis late that afternoon & can vividly remember my dad saying “I guess there really is something wrong” as he had to help me climb up into his large pick up truck.

The previous week I had gone back & forth on phone calls with my doctors explaining to them that I had suddenly grown very weak. I could barely walk on a flat surface. Hills were extremely difficult. Stairs were nearly impossible. Even standing up from a chair was quite the tricky process. I convinced them I wasn’t paralyzed & they talked of CT scans, mammograms, & muscle biopsies to be sure there was nothing cancerous going on & to take a look at my muscle tissue.

Six years later I’m on a flight from my home in Nashville to Minneapolis. This time for a visit to my doctor at the Mayo Clinic. A visit where I have no doubt I’ll get a good report. Because while I still have some symptoms & still live with pain on a daily basis, six years later I’ve been to China & back. I’ve climbed the Great Wall. I have been able to go camping again. I walk on a regular basis, up & down hills…I even throw in a little jogging here & there. I climb two flights of stairs without any hesitation to get to my room these days. I don’t think twice about going out with friends.  All that to say, God has worked some incredible healing. 

And perhaps the best part is the heart healing He worked through the physical brokenness before He worked physical healing. God has no doubt used the journey of the last 6 years to shape me & mold me into the person I am today.

I watched a TED talk the other day about the difference between our experiencing-selfs & our remembering-selfs. An experience may be incredibly painful for our experiencing-self but because of a happy ending or worthwhile lesson our remembering-selfs don’t see it that way. And while my experiencing self in no way wishes to go back & relive the journey of the last 6 years, my remembering self reflects on them almost fondly & with deep gratitude. Because 6 years later I see that not only is there physical healing but the journey to physical healing was directly related to the journey to heart healing. 

Father, thank you for loving me enough to break me so that You could make me whole.

What brokenness has God used in your life to make you whole? 

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Throwback Sundays…Walking, Health, and the Things We Take for Granted

January 8, 2012 in Throwback Sundays

Thinking back to the early months of 2006 certainly puts life into perspective for me again. These days I often think “5 years ago or 3 years ago I couldn’t have done ___________.” And I hope those thoughts continue to cross my mind. Because the minute I stop thinking those things is probably the minute I’m starting to take a few too many things for granted. (full post here.)

It has now been 6 years. And as backwards as it may sound, I’m grateful for the daily physical struggle because it is a constance reminder of what a powerfully healing God we serve…a reminder that He is in control…and a reminder to savor the ordinary, everyday gifts in life.

 

 

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