A Beautiful Mosaic

So, there are these boxes.  Our homes are filled with them, our workplaces, our churches, our Facebook pages, our hashtags, and most deeply, our relationships.  The boxes are what we build around the people in our lives.  We want them to stay inside; we need them to stay within the box's limits.  Letting people out of the confines we put them in is risky, dangerous, and mostly outright terrifying.  Because more than anything, we are all looking for some control and to know what the heck is going on in this world and where there is safety and where it makes sense.  And eliminate the mess.  So, the boxes.  They let us stack people neatly, cleanly, efficiently...and it allows us to keep people exactly where we want them.  It helps us feel that we are, after all, exactly who we want to be. In a room of boxed up people, the risks involved in relationships shrink dramatically because the unknown can't be explored within a box.  We won't be wro...

My Anything is this transient, fluid thing that has worn many different faces over the years as I have tried (and so many times failed) to align my life with the Lord in some kind of radical obedience to His much higher Way.  My first real encounter with Anything and living life as that prayer was more than 15 years ago when I was a freshman in high school. After close to 8 school changes due to moving, I was finally at a school I would be able to return to the next year and hopefully graduate from. But the Lord blaringly and very clearly showed me that He had a different plan and it would be best for me to follow suit. So from private to public school it was and another transition for me that opened the door to so much good.  Years later, during my college graduation season, my undergraduate "plans" of attending seminary/graduate school to become a therapist or social worker were hijacked by Anything. Despite the acceptance letters, extensive graduate school visitations, and...

We're all crashing into each other with all this mess and isn't this what life is?     Isn't the only way to keep injury to a minimum to focus on what is within our control which really only is our own mess? I've grown up believing it's really important to control as much as possible what others think of or see in me. To contribute my greatest energy here, on the outside. Even today, I want to portray so badly the person in my heart I want to be, and I spend a lot of time evaluating my performance in this area.  But at the end of the day, if I don't face my own inner reality, then I'm only setting myself up for a crash and that crash will affect everyone around me.   So taking moments is important and really, a much better use of my valuable energy. Moments. When we slow down and reflect. And are honest with ourself and our mirror, and when we are brave, with our friends. Those safe places who are reservoirs for our soul. These moments keep us moving forward...

It's been about a month now that I've been, as part of my job, imparting to others a programmatic set of principles based primarily in Attachment Theory.  In other words, I've spent a month talking about attachment: ....attachment styles, secure attachment, insecure attachment, organized attachment, disorganized attachment, my attachment, your attachment, avoidant attachment, ambivalet attachment, dismissive attachment, entangled attachment, unresolved attachment...  You get the picture...I've been surrounded by attachment, whose dissection is not the purpose of this post (thankfully).  I believe the greatest byproduct of all my exhortation on the topic is the personal challenge I have found within it all.  I am so thankful I am not in a position that requires me to ask of anyone (whether child or a staff member) something I am not willing or able to do myself.  And we've been taking a good, hard, long look at ourselves and our lives and our attachments an...

Friends , sometimes being a working mom is hard. Not because being a SAHM is any easier. But because my kitchen floor is nasty. And my laundry is growing, literally. And we just took a spaghetti bath and then a real bath. And the weekend ends in a few hours. And even if I started now I wouldn't finish Monday's to-do list at work. And it's all looming. And Pinterest has moms whose floors shimmer after dinner and dishes shine after they dine. And somehow, I feel like I am doing many things but none of them well. And I'm exhausted. After my Sabbath. And a date night. Still so very tired. I'm unsure if I'll have the energy for Monday.  Because I'm still recovering from not fastening my seatbelt tight enough for last Monday.  And I am sure you all feel it, too, this overwhelm of the heart and soul every time the ebb and flow of the to-do and to-be climaxes at "cannot physically make this all happen at once." And so, can we pray? For each other? For rest...

She was standing in between the end table and I. On the end table was the baby monitor. On her other side was me with arms wide open. I had already told her firmly not to touch the baby monitor. I had even redirected her attention and tried to help her focus elsewhere, on me. So there I was kneeling beside her, saying her name, holding my arms open ready for an embrace...and she stood frozen rotating her gaze between the baby monitor and me every few seconds. She was Eve and there was a tree and there were apples and I never seen clearer evidence of the unseen tempter that exists to all human beings no matter their innocence or age. And then it hit me. Exactly how God feels...every single day with every single last one of us. Because He...He is the loving, safe parent who stands beckoning us with open arms yearning for this connection He's freely offering while drawing wise boundaries for us to live by. And we are little children standing there acting like there is a decision to be...

I've been thinking a lot about parenting styles lately and whether it is inherited, absorbed or learned through our own childhood and life experiences, developed from our own personality and intellect, or most likely, a combination of all of these. It doesn't help I've also been reading, training, and pretty much living and breathing the topic at work lately due to an exciting new venture we are undergoing there to match our homes' parenting strategies with our youth's needs.  Because Michael and I have known for a long time we are called to someday ( in God's timing ) grow our family by adoption from the foster care system, we know our natural born children's lives and any future children's lives will be different than ours were growing up and this will require a great amount of intentionality, flexibility, and transformation in the world of our parenting.  A lot of learning and assimilating the great heritages we were both given with the all of the pla...

Our church is kicking off 2015 with a journey through Proverbs, the book of Wisdom and therefore a never-ending challenge, and I've been chewing on a new one each day so far this year. Some themes are already coming to the surface in what God is speaking to my heart. I would like to put some words to it, so I will remember ... realize ...respond ... reconcile ... represent.  2015 Themes : Humility   Proverbs 1:7: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.  Proverbs 3:34: The Lord mocks the mockers but is gracious to the humble. Proverbs 3:7: Dont be impressed with your own wisdom. Instead, fear the Lord and turn away from evil. Kindness & Giving Proverbs 3:27: Do not withhold good from this who deserve it when it's in your power to help them.  Proverbs 3:9: Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the best part of everything you produce.  Discipline & Insight Proverbs 3:11-12: My child, don't reject the Lord...