It's the night before my birthday--a night where I am reminded of the blessings and challenges of the year and a night where I go to bed in eager anticipation of the surprises that lay ahead, not just for tomorrow but for another year!
In some ways, I barely remember my last birthday because a lot has happened since then. This has been the year of lasts as the reality of my grandma's impending death hung in the air. It is the year that taught me the value of a moment, the importance of saying what needs to be said, and of not being afraid to love, forgive, hug, cry, and creatively survive.
It is the year where I was on a quest to pursue my "Word of the Year" of 'restore' and gained so much in return. I've experienced the hardship of peeling away the thickest and innermost onion layers that rested on the core of who I am. This was years in the making but past time to go there if I wanted to move forward. In the process, I experienced the torturing agony of still carrying things God never intended for me to carry. Yet, I experienced the freedom that comes with releasing a childhood of hurt through choosing to forgive, choosing to love, and choosing to refute all the lies that I've held on to all these years with God's truth.
This has been a year of discovery through seeing the truth as it really is whether it was totally falling flat on my face ("pride cometh before a fall" is embarrassingly true), or having trusted friends bluntly point out blind spots (ouch!), or having verses that I've read many times suddenly jump out as if it were the first time I ever read them!
This has been a year of curiosity and exploration, of answering all the "what if's" that I've had especially regarding music...what if I had grown up pursuing music? What if I had taken flute lessons? What if I had pursued singing? What if I had followed through with music instead of let fear, insecurity, and man's opinion when I was a teen and young adult keep me from being a real musician?
This year, I found myself learning new things, being stretched musically, and actually taking voice lessons. The latter has been a hoot, but it's also where I have seen so much inner restoration take place.
God has used the whole process of making music to unearth what was below the surface so that He could show me just how much He wanted to restore it so that my music comes from a place of redemption and wholeness that points to Him. I'm not totally there with all of that yet, but am getting there!
While my husband thinks I'm having some kind of midlife crisis by taking voice lessons (not flute or piano or something that didn't come out of left field like voice did), God has actually used my voice teacher to show me His heart and who He is through the way she accepts, corrects, instructs, and guides without any intention other than helping me to see how we are naturally created to praise God and sing out to Him. When I walk into voice lessons, it is one of two places in this world where I truly find no shaming, no critiquing, no competition, no comparison, no hesitation, and no perfection, only a simple desire from my teacher to show me what is needed to draw out the best and help me discover what I didn't know about God and myself through the challenge and beauty of music.
I have no clue how or why but music is what God has chosen this year to teach me the most about Him. Along with much prayer and Starbucks, music has been a way to help me cope with the stresses that come from a 24/7 life of constant vigilance over our allergy child, first-time business ownership, homeschooling (where the assignments are no longer 2+2=4 and are requiring me to actually study before presenting lessons), personal disappointments as we are another year without a baby in our arms, and dealing with the loss of two grandparents in a 14-month time span plus a very close friend. Music is something that infuses relaxation and creativity into my day. And music fuels the achiever in me as there is great satisfaction in defeating crazy timing and trouble spots, reaching notes I've never been able to reach before, and experimenting with new techniques that actually produce results (like singing and playing the flute at the exact same time--accidentally discovered it one afternoon I had a sore throat and then later learned it was a real thing). I might not be able to solve life's problems, but I am determined enough to master a challenging piece of music! It's a great way to channel my thoughts and energy into something productive and enjoyable instead of letting life and life's worries and frustrations fester until I break down or explode.
As I see my 40s quickly approaching, it makes me want to savor these last two years in my 30s. I want to be daring enough to keep trying new things (aka those things that others view as a midlife crisis) for everything is still being woven together in the details to help me fulfill the unique purposes that God has for my life (even though it may have nothing to do with the current "new thing").
"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord,
This is difficult to write because it's easy to think that the green-eyed monster of envy is something for trivial, surface-only people without realizing the full impact of it in our lives.
The moment when we wonder "why her and not me?" or the moment when we express that "it's not fair" or the moment when we find ourselves thinking unkind things about others in their successes that leave us wondering where in the world those thoughts came from are the very moments that open the door for the green-eyed monster to enter.
If left unchecked, questions begin to plague our mind as we see where we didn't get what we felt entitled to. That eventually leads to feelings of disdain for others, verbal or texted grumblings, contrariness, and bitterness. And if we remain there, we've essentially rendered ourselves ineffective for the Kingdom and end up becoming disruptive to the body of Christ (intended or not).
James 3:16-17 points out, "For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy."
We are daily confronted to choose who we are going to be. Are we going to choose to be our natural selves and react and think how we want, or are we going to choose to submit ourselves to God and live as He desires?
The latter means letting sooooo much go...it means choosing to let go of the trivial stuff, seeing past temporary distortions and feelings of the moment, and sacrificing our judgments and opinions in order to view people and situations through God's eyes. It means trusting in God's timing and in His plan and trusting that He will fulfill His promises and move us or promote us in His time. And it means understanding who we are in Christ and that we are already complete in Him with our own unique set of abilities, talents, and personality. We don't need achievements, accolades, or acceleration through the ranks to prove ourselves to Him, for He has already paved the way for us through His extreme love.
When we make the choice to let the green-eyed monster go, we can redirect that energy to things that truly matter. We won't be distracted by our emotions nor semi-distraught when things seem unfair or when others take what we want. We will be willing to yield ourselves to God which allows us to prefer others over ourselves. And we free ourselves up to wait on God so He can do with us what He wants in His time.
When God is the one that places us and/or advances us to where He wants us to be, it brings Him the glory and has an impact that far surpasses anything that we ever tried to bring about in our own strength and abilities. So farewell, green-eyed monster!
*Five Minute Friday (#FMFparty) gives writers a word prompt. We are encouraged to write whatever comes to mind about that word in just five minutes. No editing, no perfection, only writing from the heart. To find out more, visit http://katemotaung.com/five-minute-friday/. This week's word is "GREEN".
Linking up with Leigh Kramer and "What I'm Into" this month. It's a fun way to keep track of things that jumped out at me over the past few months.
Read & Reading
Read:
1. I Am a Church Member by Thom S. Rainer
This is a power-packed, read-in-one-sitting kind of book that puts church members into their place as it reiterates our role and purpose as church members. It's easy to let preferences and entitlement sneak into our perspective and hinder what all God intends for the church to be for us and others as we both attend and serve the church. I Am a Church Member covers these six areas:
I Will Be a Unifying Church Member
I Will Not Let the Church Be About My Preferences and Desires
I Will Pray for My Church Leaders
I Will Lead My Family to Be Healthy Church Members
I Will Be a Functioning Member
I Will Treasure Church Membership as a Gift
Favorite Quotes:
"I am a church member. I will not let my church be about my preferences and desires. That is self-serving. I am in this church to serve others and to serve Christ. My Savior went to a cross for me. I can deal with any inconveniences and matters that are just not my preference or style."
2. Spiritual Mothering by Susan Hunt
This book just got added to my growing list of "must read" books for women's ministry--books I wish I had 15 years ago when I entered ministry that offer specific wisdom from the trenches and from God's Word. What lessons and heart aches would've been spared if I had known some of these things. But at the same time, those lessons were opportunities for learning, pruning, and growth.
Spiritual mothering is a concept that touches me deeply for God has blessed me with many spiritual mothers to stand in the gap throughout my life. It literally has taken a village (or a church) of women to raise me all throughout my life (even still today). God has used older women so powerfully to teach me many things about God, life, marriage, ministry, and myself as I experienced firsthand the tremendous blessings and slicing heartaches of good and bad spiritual mothers. The thing that made the biggest difference with all of my spiritual moms is that they have consistently pointed me back to God through their conduct, example, and prayers. That is priceless!
As I read this book, Susan Hunt captured the essence of a spiritual mothering relationship which is simply "When a woman possessing faith and spiritual maturity enters into a nurturing relationship with a younger woman in order to encourage and equip her to live for God's glory." It's saying, "It's not enough for me to want to live for God's glory and for you to want to live for God's glory. I must want to help you live for God's glory. I must honestly want God's glory for your life."
And the God-factor is what sticks with a woman far beyond a season of investment into another woman's life. My favorite part of the book is how Hunt went beyond the usual illustrations from Ruth and Naomi's relationship and dissected Mary and Elizabeth's relationship as well as other women in the Bible bringing these relationships into a new light. This is, by far, one of the least fluffy books I've ever read on mentoring because it doesn't give the step-by-step "how to" approach as much as it outlines the "why" that is firmly routed in Scripture. Spiritual mothering has to begin with your relationship with God and your heart condition before it extends into a relationship with another woman.
In many ways, this book is a mentoring session in itself as the author shares her mothering heart and instructs and challenges us from the Word in a gentle yet straight forward, encouraging way. She removes the curriculum and program of mentoring and focuses it all back on God as the source and reason for it all in every area of our life (marriage, church, self-discipline, etc.). She concludes the book with this: "Involvement means taking risks, getting tired, and sometimes getting hurt. But I challenge you, my sister, to write your story into the fabric of another woman's life. This is not a call to a life of ease. It is a call to a life of involvement in serving the King by nurturing his daughters."
Favorite Quotes from Spiritual Mothering
(There are waaaay too many to choose from...)
"It's interesting that of all the ways Paul could have told the women to combat the decadence of their culture, he told them to invest their energies in training the younger women to live Christianly in their society. ... Paul was smart enough to know that women need women to train them how to apply God's Word to areas of our lives that are uniquely feminine. ... This is not a ministry of minutia; it is a vital part of church life that must not be pushed to the back-burner." (Titus 2)
"Until a woman has submitted her speech to the Lord, she surely cannot influence a younger women to build right relationships. Critical words destroy relationships. Younger women need to be taught how to affirm and encourage, how to love and accept, how to influence but not demand."
"Older Christian women must communicate a vision of the beauty of a marriage that endures. ... Only a passion for God's glory can overpower our self-interest. ... When a woman realizes the power of her loving acceptance of her husband and makes an all-out commitment to be his completor and not his competitor, he reaches heights he could never obtain without her."
"A woman who struggles with poor self-image is so enslaved that she cannot be a servant/nurturer. The only adequate antidote for the self-image problem is a Biblical knowledge of ourselves. ... Dorcas had experienced the encouragement that comes in knowing she had been accepted by Christ; this motivated her to accept others. Dorcas had a unifying effect in her church; God is glorified when believers are unified. And unity is impossible apart from acceptance."
"Failure to accept another reveals pride in my own heart: "I know what you should be, what you should do, and how you should do it--my way is right and best." It also reveals a lack of trust: "God is not changing you fast enough, so I must help Him."
3. Forward by Ronnie W. Floyd
This is a very simple leadership book reminding us that you need to keep moving forward as you lead others.
Favorite quotes from Forward:
"If Satan cannot get you to do the wrong thing, he will get you to do the right thing in the wrong way."
"Forward leaders are futuristic thinkers. They are not so impressed with their past that they become paralyzed. They are not so intoxicated with their present that they always celebrate and party. They always look ahead, preparing for what could be."
"If we have to tell people we are in charge, we probably are not in charge."
"It is the presence of God that sets each of us apart from other leaders."
"If we do not pray at all, we are depending on ourselves."
4. Move On by Vicki Courtney
It took me awhile to get into this book and to find the meat in it, but it ended up being a solid reminder of God's grace and mercy and the power of the cross.
Favorite Quotes from Move On:
"Healing comes when we learn to ignore the accuser's shameful reminders of our past sins. In doing so, shame loses the power of control in our lives."
"Far too many women are living in the past, defined by their sin, rather than being defined by God's grace in the present. ... Putting the past behind us is the result of not forgetting our past sins, but rather remembering their place on the cross. We can't move forward until we decide to forget the past. ... Rather, as we move forward, we do so with a vision of our sins nailed to the cross in our rearview mirror."
"Legalists feel safer in a world where progress can be evaluated and measured. A world where there are distinct markers (even if they are self-imposed) to gauge their spirituality."
"We must emphasize grace before we talk about commitment, because once grace becomes a believer's identity, commitment will follow." (in response to the Great Commission)
"Charles Spurgeon once said, "I have found, in my own spiritual life, that the more rules I lay down for myself, the more sins I commit." (See Colossians 2:20-23.)
5. The Best Yes by Lysa Terkeurst
This book is perfect for the woman who constantly finds herself drained and stuck doing a bunch of good things while continually sacrificing the things that she knows God wants her to do but doesn't have time to do. I've put off reading this book for awhile because I knew it would mean change. That's not a bad thing, but there is an odd sense of security that comes from busyness...it's predictable and safe and there is never a dull moment. Yet God has been making it clear in many ways that my security is coming from the wrong place. He has something for my life but I keep crowding it (and Him) out through busyness.
It was desperation to find a different way that drew me back to this book. It's one of those books that took several weeks to read because there was so much in it for my Type A, overachiever, I-know-I-can-be-Super Woman (but I'm about to collapse from the sheer busyness of everything) personality to digest. It was a tool that God wanted to use to lay out guidelines to help me weed out what is of Him and what's not of Him (even though it's for Him). Some of my yeses can't be undone right now and there are commitments to finish seeing through, but I can at least move forward from here by saying yes and no in the right way--God's way.
There were two things that stuck out above all else that I've been trying to implement as I discern whether to give a yes or no (oh, how I'm tired of giving yeses only to get into it and realize it should've been a no).
The first is, "Do I have the resources to handle this request along with my current responsibilities? Could this fit: physically? financially? spiritually? emotionally?"
Most of the time, I know when and where I'm overloaded, but this is the first time in my life where I've found my emotional resources all tied up and depleted. It's been a new experience to be in the midst of something and discover that there no emotional capacity left to deal with situations or people and my head literally feels like it's about to explode because of the sheer brain power or emotional investment that's been expended. And that's not healthy at all. It's actually kind of scary to be in that moment when you know if someone says/does the wrong thing, that's it, you're walking away because you have nothing left even though that's not your personality to do so. It's really forced me to evaluate, ask hard questions, and let go of things in order to reclaim capacity.
Second, there's got to be a way to get this list tattooed somewhere so it'll be the first thing I see whenever I consider whether or not to do something. Honestly, if I took the time to answer these questions, I wouldn't be doing half of what I'm doing today (scary thought!). Here are Lysa's suggestions for determining if the expectations that come from agreeing to a yes are realistic or not:
"It feels thrilling to say yes to this now. But how will this yes feel two weeks, two months, and six months from now?
Do any of the expectations that come from this yes feel forced or frantic?
Could any part of this yes be tied to people pleasing and allowing that desire to skew my judgment of what's realistic and unrealistic?
Which wise (older, grounded in God's Word, more experienced, and more mature) people in my life think this is a good idea?
Are there any facts I try to avoid or hide when discussing this with my wise advisors."
6. Praying in Color--Drawing a New Path to God by Sybil MacBeth
Sometimes we can become too legalistic with our prayers. We forget that God has given us freedom from formulas (aside from the Lord's Prayer) and that that He has given us freedom of expression and designed us in His creativity. When you carry that freedom into your prayer life, prayer comes alive. Praying in color is simply taking your prayers and instead of speaking them or journaling them, you're doodling them in such a way to focus your thoughts and actively engage in prayer. It's taking prayer requests or scripture and artfully meditating on it and praying over it where each line, each color, each design means something as you pray over the request or Scripture. It's great for the person who has a wandering mind when it comes to prayer. It's combining words with pictures and color to make a lasting impression in your mind that may pop up later and remind you to pray. I was introduced to Praying in Color in 2012 and it's something that I'll pull out every now and then to remind me that prayer is an expression of our faith that isn't bound by words. It revitalizes my prayer life and reminds me that prayer can be more than black and white words. God wants our prayer lives to be vibrant and full of life, so it makes sense to pray with crayons, markers, and paper. It took a lot of work for my conservative Baptist mind to wrap around the idea of praying in a visual way, but it's become special over the years to see what God has done with the doodled prayers and how He honors and answers those just as much as He answers the spoken word. This book is great for reminding us that prayer is about relationship and that God has given us all different ways to connect with Him creatively.
Music
Uncluttered by Gwen Smith
"So I'm cleaning out some closets, tearing down some walls. Things I've never needed that have been there way too long. Give myself completely with nothing in between, like the kind of love He has for me 'cause I want my love for Him to be always be uncluttered."
Grace Wins by Matthew West
There's a war between guilt and grace / And they're fighting for a sacred space / But I'm living proof / Grace wins every time
Reading Winter Morgan's Minecraft novels to my child. Two chapters each night are never enough (even for this mama). Morgan's has a way of bringing together my child's love for Minecraft and his vivid imagination through her stories. Plus, he keeps learning new game tricks through the characters' adventures.
Celebrating our 12th anniversary!! Twelve years later and I can still say that there is nothing more special than waking up and falling asleep next to your best friend. This year has added some new challenges as we enter into business together and experience life transitions, but these moments of celebration remind us of who we fell in love with and the beauty of our marriage when we are unified and seeking Christ together instead of merely co-existing and surviving the day to day without direction and purpose.
Field tripping with my family! We recently attended the Homeschool Day at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. We are looking forward to cooler weather so we can get out more and do field trips. Late fall and winter are to us what summer is to everyone else. We take a lot of time off school for hands-on learning, traveling, and vacationing while the environmental allergens aren't as bad and then we buckle down with school during spring and summer. It's a little backward, but it works for us plus vacation and field trip destinations aren't insanely busy in the off-season so we get most of the places to ourselves.
