33...and beyond

I have been actively avoiding writing this. I've been avoiding a lot of things. This morning, I avoided the scale again. I am less than a month away from turning 34. I know that this "journey" has been to start me on the pathway of something far greater. Nothing has been what I expected or set out thinking I would accomplish. The warfare has been strong and real. The word failure plays in the back of my mind on repeat. In my heart, I KNOW that this has been anything but a failure. I know that it is a classic example of how our ways are not His ways and our thoughts are not His thoughts. But rolling on to the next phase seems scary and unknown. I envisioned myself rolling across the finish line victorious and strong, but at this point I feel like the victory is alluding me. Although, when I take an honest assessment of things there is victory there. There is victory in all the realizations that have happened over the last 12 months. Realizations that a lot ...

As I have mentioned, getting back on the horse in this journey has not been easy. The idea of pressing on and moving forward has seemed challenging. I am not that far from the “end’ of this thirty third year. I cannot help but have mixed emotions about that. I KNOW what God has done and that this year is only a start of a journey and not a journey to a destination but it is easy for me to think of all the many ways I have failed in light of my early victories. The miles I ran, the plans I had, the success I felt I was achieving. But as I think about moving forward I cannot help but think of Philippians 3, “Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead…” Sometimes I think "forgetting what is behind" gets pigeon holed into defining moments of failue. Sometimes that is the case but I think that it can also speak to our successes. It's easy to become like the quarterback who had their glory days in high school becuase they were the prom king a...

A week ago, in a blaze of exhaustion and tears, I wrote about weariness. I wrote about failure. I wrote about striving.  I admit it, I am a striver from way back. But I tend to strive to a point of breaking and then slip into that dreaded "survival mode" that tends to look a LOT like shutting down. I somehow can manage to keep all the balls in the air and all the plates spinning but in my own heart there is an emptiness and a brokenness. So, for the last week, I have tried to find rest and stillness. Tried is a key statement here because it is not easy for me but somewhere in this all I managed to release the guilt I felt over all my failures in this journey. Failure to run, to eat healthy, to write. Failure to CRUSH all my goals and see the changes I expected to see. Failure to meet my own expectations. My ability to release the guilt came from that truth of that last statement. Everything that was making me feel like such a failure was based on expect...

I'm a mess. It's been coming on all summer. It's not something that I could make better through sheer grit, determination or will power. I keep trying to fix it and I keep finding myself drowning. Leasing up to Joni and friends, the load had been heavy. Since then...it is like I am waiting for a breath or a calm in the storm, but there is not even a glimmer of it on the horizon. It is not that ridiculously tragedy has befallen me. In my world that is relative. But the big things, my family, my close friends, the things I hold the dearest are all safe and sound. At Joni and friends a very strong woman in the Lord shared a vision the Lord had given her for me. It was me, riding on the back of a fire engine. I wasn't the one putting out the fires, I was simply along for the ride. Yesterday some friends who sensed that I was at the end of myself asked me how I was. I told one of them, I feel like I am standing in front of a burning house, there is no fire engine...

Clearly I have struggling at life lately. Since Joni and Friends, I have not stopped. I returned home and went straight to work. I worked long days and went straight to Milwaukee with my cousin Laura for her bone marrow donation surgery. When I got home from that, at 11:30 pm on Sunday night, I got up and went straight to work by 8 am Monday morning. After working all week, that weekend, it became evident Laura wasn't healing properly and the next week every free moment was spent trying to help her through her pain, helping her to the bathroom at night while she sobbed and the even sleeping in a chair at the hospital while the doctors tried to help her and figure out what the issue was. Then music and drama camp happened and I spent the week with 35 kiddos who challenged me at every end. From camp, I went straight to work at the mission each day until midnight.  Suffice it to say, I am exhausted, and my goals and obedience have been nonexistent. My life has just piled ...

I'm here. I'm writing. I'm showing up today because I am DESPERATELY trying to regain this discipline.  Today wasn't perfect.  I didn't check all the boxes I wanted, but I know that I was where I needed to be.  Tonight where I need to be is on a couch, trying to listen for my phone or a familiar voice calling my name. It may happen periodically all night long. I may need to assist getting water, meds, getting up to the bathroom, all kinds of other useful things for someone who finds themselves a bit of an invalid.  My cousin, Laura, donated her bone marrow to a total and has had a difficult time since. Something is wrong in her hip and she is struggling to walk.  So that's where I need to be today.  Did I eat perfectly? Nope. Did I accomplish everything else I hoped to accomplish? Nope. But I am ok with that. This is greater. This is better. This is good. This is the kind of person I want to be.  I want to be th...

Well, I’ll be real…I have been sucking. I have been struggling so hard to get back on track with all my goals. It is ALWAYS something. I too busy. I’m too tired. Life is too much right now. I know its warfare. Particularly on the writing front. A while back, I wrote about how I “knew” what this was all about. I wrote about a clarity that I had gained about where I was heading and what the some of the “end game” of all of this is. I was reminded this weekend about that. I had the chance to speak in a church. When I teach about Christ, when I write, when I share my heart with others in this way…it feels like home. I know that this is the direction I am supposed to be moving and I know this journey is about the discipline I need to have to get there. Since that moment of clarity…It has been a fight. Its been a wild and intense struggle to accomplish what I am supposed to accomplish each day. So today, I am starting over. I am going back to my check...