Monday Blahg: Cha-cha-cha-changes!

I recently asked myself about the things I'd like to change about my life.

I'd like to make more money, work less hours, and have health insurance.

I'd like more time to devote to writing.  In fact, I'd also like to already be a published author, and I'd like to have at least a modest following...or a not so modest following....

I'd like to get married and adopt some kids.

The problem with all of these things I'd like to change is, well, I can't have them without change.

I have ups and downs, but right now, I'm genuinely happy with the life I have.  I go to an amazing church with amazing people who serve one another out of godly love for one another.  I have so many friends that love me so well.  I have four jobs that, yes, add stress and pay little, but are also tremendous blessings.  My coworkers are remarkable, encouraging people.  I love this little town I live in.  I love this life I have.

And I'm very afraid of change--especially when I love my life as much as I do.

I know I've got to eventually find some other means of employment than what I'm currently doing.  The four job thing divides my loyalty and eats away my time and gives me extra stress.  I'm barely making ends meet and I have no insurance benefits.  I always owe $$$ on my taxes because my having multiple jobs confuses the whole system.  But I don't want to quit any of the jobs I currently have.  My coworkers and bosses are extraordinary, caring people who appreciate me and the work that I do.  I know they value me, and it makes me feel guilty to even consider leaving them.  I know sometimes it's important to think about myself and my needs, but I just love the kids and families I work with, I just love my coworkers and bosses.  I don't want things to change, even though I know they're eventually going to change.

If I become a published author, it is quite possible (and probable) that my life won't change all that much.  Most authors don't make enough to live on without having a "real job" or a "real spouse with a real job."  But I know that part of me would really like to be a somewhat popular author--at least in certain circles.  I don't know if that will ever happen, but I'd like it to.  And if it does, then that might mean I won't have time for all of the jobs I currently work.  It will mean that I will have to free my schedule for other things--such as book signing tours?  Yes, please.  Except--I'm not sure how I'd adapt to such changes.  I'm not sure how I would handle the life of an author, even if I'm not at all famous or popular. 

And being single is something I've gotten pretty used to.  If this blog that I want to start up ever happens, I will be writing it from the perspective of a single woman in the church (and fyi, that doesn't make it a "single's blog").  I know God is using me as a single woman right now to speak to some specific problems I've noticed in attitudes (both of single people and married people) within the church.  God's given me a different perspective on things that has come about partly because I am a single woman in her thirties.  And apart from all of that, I've just had a really long time to get used to being single.  I don't know what being in a relationship would look like right now.  I don't know what being married would look like right now.  I don't know what going through the process of adoption would look like right now.  I don't know what being a parent would look like right now.  I know that if God wanted me to be in a relationship, a marriage, a family, then He would provide for that--but I can't pretend that I'm not a little afraid to make the necessary changes to my lifestyle, my way of thinking, etc. 

I love my life.  I love my life as it is.

What scares me is that I know there are going to be some big changes in my life in the next few months whether I like it or not.  I don't have any choice in that matter.  As for other matters, almost every other matter in my life, I do have choices.  I have so many open-ended choices of what I could be doing, where I could be living, where I could be working, and which friends/family I could be closer to (location-wise).  I don't like choices.  I'm more comfortable when someone is telling me what I should do.  Sometimes I really wish that God would just give me a nice ten year life plan to look at.

God does give direction, but He mostly just likes to watch me sweat and wait till the last minute to give me that direction.  It's not because He gets some kind of perverse delight out of that; it's because He loves me.  It's because He wants me to trust Him.  It's because He knows I'm the kind of person who likes to see the whole path before I take the first step.  He doesn't lead me like that.  He turns out the lights, takes my hand, and leads me through the darkness, one step at a time. 

In other words, I won't know what I'm supposed to do until it's time to do it.  And He'll provide for me when that time comes.

So I know change is coming.  And I believe it will be good change.  I don't necessarily like the fact that change is coming, but I'm at peace.  I'm at peace because I know the Lord is making my paths straight, even if I can't see those paths.

I don't need to see the whole path.  I just need to focus on the things I know to do, and be obedient.

Right now, I need to work on my writing and editing a lot more. 

Right now, I need to make sure I'm going to sleep early enough to get up in the morning and have good, meaningful time with God.

Right now, I need to stop whining about how it's too cold to go running and just go get on the elliptical instead.

Right now, I need to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with my God.

Right now, I need to love and serve others more than I focus on how others love and serve me.

Right now, I need to wait and trust.

This world is uncertain.  Things are always changing, whether I like it or not.  I'm always changing. 

The reason why I can trust God through all of it is because He is the One Thing that never changes.


Question: What are some things you'd like to change about your life?  Are you willing to have other things change in your life in order to have those changes take place?

Thoughts on 2011

As Christmas and New Years get closer, I am thinking a lot about this past year.  I enjoy reading all those Christmas letters that people send, which talk about the accomplishments and events in the lives of their families.  I don't have a family--at least not one that doesn't live over 500 miles away--and somehow it seems lame to just write a Christmas letter about myself.  I did that last year--via facebook, because I'm too lazy to actually send out letters on actual paper.  This year, I'm a little too busy for a Christmas letter, but I do feel the need to write a little about 2011.  Here seems like a good place.

There are two things that stand out in my mind as I think about 2011.  I started running in February.  Part of me still can't believe that I'm a runner now, and that I actually enjoy it, and part of me can't believe there was ever a time that I didn't identify myself as a runner.  And really, by running, I mean jogging/waddling, but after living 30 years as a "I'll stick to power-walking, thank you" person, I'll take what I can get.  It's interesting that a few months after I began running, a running/swimming/bicycling group was started by a man at my church.  I don't think it's at all coincidence; the Lord prepared me at just the right time for this, and I think it's hilarious that I'm actually part of a sports ministry.  I never would have thought that.  It's definitely something the Lord has done in my life.  I ran two 5Ks and a 10K in 2011, and I'm just itching to do a half marathon.  I think that's probably going to happen in 2012.  I kinda sorta really want a 13.1 sticker on the back of my car. 

The second thing that really stands out to me about 2011 is the overwhelming grace and generosity shown to me by both God and other people.  There were so many times that people gave me significant financial gifts to help me through somewhat major financial crises, to help me travel to visit my family, or just to help me in general.  Beyond that, I have had people help me out by looking at my car when it was being a jerkface, or doing things for me when I was too busy to get them done, or just treating me to coffee when I was stressed out.  I've been overwhelmed by the amount of generosity shown by others, and the grace of the Lord who loves me far more than I deserve.

I know the Lord has been working in my heart to actually ask for help when I need it.  I've had to ask for financial help, but I've also been stretched to ask for help in other areas.  I've had to ask people to look at my writing when it wasn't exactly comfortable for me to do so.  I've asked someone to help me start a website.  I'm in the process of asking for some help in recording some music.  These seem like little things, but I'm a pretty independent person who doesn't like to bother people.  But sometimes I need help, and if I'm going to get that help, I have to ask for it.  Sometimes that's nothing more than an act of obedient faith.  I'm working on that one--and fortunately God is patient!

I've become aware that while there is nothing wrong with asking for help when you need it, I do need to do some major work towards being able to fully support myself financially.  I can't keep expecting others to get me out of trouble when it comes--and it always seems to come.  I might have to look for new work, which will mean even more changes in a 2012 that is promising a lot of change.  And I don't like change.

But, if you've read this blog recently, then you know that this season is all about hope for me.  I'm feeling very hopeful about what God has in store for me.  I know I can't do things on my own, and I'm still learning to ask for the help that I need--both from God and from other people.  Even though I'm definitely a little anxious, perhaps even scared about the change that's definitely coming, I'm looking forward to 2012 and what's going to come. 

Sunday Update: Now

There's a hilly field that I pass by on my way to and from church.  When my preschool job (which is also at my church) starts again, I'll be passing this field several times a week, as I did this past school year.  This field is next to a white house, and all of it is enclosed by a brown fence.  A chestnut horse often peacefully grazes within my view as I drive past this field.  I guess I'll be a Kentucky girl no matter where I live, because I happen to very much like looking at chestnut horses in hilly fields next to white houses, enclosed by brown fences.  My parents taught school  in a county that was half an hour away from where we lived, and I went to elementary and middle school in the county where my parents taught instead of in the county where I lived.  As a result, I spent a great deal of my childhood staring out car windows at Kentucky fields and hills, white houses surrounded by brown fences, horses and cattle grazing on green grass.

It's amazing that I've even paid enough attention to the hilly field I pass several times a week to be able to tell you the color of the house, horse, and fence.  Such things should be commonplace to me, and often times they are.  There is a difference between Kentucky hills and North Carolina hills, just as there's a difference between Kentucky mountains and North Carolina mountains.  But I've spent so much of my life driving past scenic country farmland that I often take all the separate beauty for granted. 

But today, on my drive home from church, that field I pass all the time looked different.  Thousands and thousands of golden flowers (I think they were golden rods) were scattered across the green.  Great purplish bushes contrasted with the gold, causing me to mentally pause (if I had actually paused, the guy riding my bumper would have gladly rear-ended me).  I couldn't stay there, but I took a moment to commit that beautiful scene to memory, because the way nature keeps moving and changing, that field of flowers could be gone tomorrow.  And something tells me I was meant to see them before they passed away.

Next week, the girls I watch go back to school.  I've uploaded all of the pics I took with them this beautiful summer.  It has all gone by so quickly, and I'm glad for the memories I've made with them, as well as a bit regretful that I didn't try to make a few more.  This time of my life is almost over, and soon I'll just have the girls in the afternoons when they get out of school.  I'll be caring for a new classroom of children in my preschool (while saying another sort of goodbye to the ones I cared for last year, who will be across the hall in another classroom, getting loved on by new teachers who aren't me).  I'll be developing new relationships through work and church, choir and my running group, and God only knows what else.  I'll hopefully be writing/editing/querying again with renewed vigor.  And I'm reminded that I am a person who is often resistant to change.  But change happens.  Nothing can stop it.  It's the way life is. 

In the past year, God has done a lot in my life.  He brought me from a very long (5.5 years!!) season of winter into a season of springtime.  I've grown because He's changed me.  And since that winter was so long, I guess I expected the spring season to last a long time, too.  But the thing about spring is, it never seems to last.  There is a tremendous burst of life that all too quickly blossoms into summer, and summer just sort of relaxes into autumn.  And everything changes, once more. 

There's a line from Shadowlands (one of my favorite movies about the later life of C. S. Lewis) that fits my mood right now.  C. S. Lewis was sitting at a desk talking to a friend, and he said, "Give me blizzards and frozen pipes, but not this nothing time.  Not this waiting room of the world."  He was expressing his thoughts about the change--that transitional period between seasons and stages of life.  It was no longer winter, but spring had not yet come, and he felt restless.  And part of me has been restless, too.

The winter that I lived in for 5.5 years wasn't all bad, but a lot of the time I just felt like a frozen Narnia waiting for Aslan to come, bringing Christmas and spring in his wake.  Now that I've lived in a new and glorious Spiritual spring for a short year, I'm sensing that God's bringing me into another season.  Perhaps He's already brought me out of spring and into summer without my knowledge, because I sense that autumn is approaching--both in a literal sense (obviously; there is no stopping the calendar) and a Spiritual sense.  I sense a harvest coming.  I think the harvest is going to involve many things.  Since God has grown me so much in the spring, I expect the harvest is going to be plentiful. 

I am almost afraid to hope for it, but I have a strong sense that a lot of the things I've been waiting for for a VERY long time are going to come to fruition.  I don't know what that fruition will look like, but right now I am cautiously expectant, waiting (and trusting...always waiting and trusting) for what God's going to bring. 

Since I've sensed the end of summer coming upon me, in the past couple of weeks I've checked out tons of books from the library, hoping to read as much as I possibly can before I develop a scheduled routine that makes reading for fun nearly impossible.  I've taken a last-minute summer vacation in the only way I can financially afford to take one--by letting my mind enter into stories. 

One of the books I've read has just served to reemphasize the idea that things are going to change in my life for the better.  And maybe that means that I'm going to have to have a few final struggles before I can experience all the good things that harvest will bring.  Because harvesting is a lot of work.  It involves sweat and labor, long hours and effort.  It involves decisions and discipline, but there's joy in that, too.

And the time will come for that soon.  Very soon. 

Right now, the harvest still hasn't come.  I've still got some books from the library that want to be read.  I still have a couple weeks before the preschool job starts.  The calendar is moving.  The flowers are going through their life cycles.  Everything is changing.  But now, right now, is a gift from God.  There's nothing wrong with remembering; there's nothing wrong with looking expectantly towards the future.  These things are very good, but not if they interfere with the joy that's to be experienced in the now.  It might be one of those "nothing times" right now, but I don't feel restless anymore. 

Sometimes I have to pursue peace, and peace is really something worth pursuing.  That's something God has taught me a lot in this past Spring season.  But I've learned that sometimes peace has a way of sneaking up on you and taking you by surprise.  Right now, peace has surprised me.  I'm exceedingly thankful for this time.  The golden flowers on the hilly fields, the gently moving clouds in the blue late summer sky, the smells and sights and sounds of the world holding its breath...waiting for what the next season has in store. 

This is a good time to be alive.

Prayer and Writing

Refocused Blog, Take TWO!

So, a couple posts ago, I wrote that I was going to try to refocus this blog on what I originally intended for it. It took me, oh, ONE POST to forget that. My last blog was a series of what's going on in my writing and nothing more. While sometimes it's okay to write blogs like that (how else are people going to know what's going on in my writing life), I really want this blog to be something more. Yesterday's blog FAILED. Epically.

But then, the blog I wrote yesterday had lots of problems. I had this sudden surge of: OH MY GOSH! I JUST HAD THIS GREAT, THOUGH SOMEWHAT CRAZY, IDEA! LET ME GO BLOG ABOUT IT AND THEN GET TO WORK WRITING/EDITING LIKE A FAT KID AT A BUFFET! And then I wrote a blog and made a decision to go ahead and start working on several projects at once.

Problem: Did I ever once even think about stopping to pray about this decision? No. I didn't even mention God in the last blog (though I WAS thinking about mentioning God in the last blog, but I am not too sure that counts). I make these great claims about how God is breathing in me, giving me the ability and grace to write these stories. Then I jump off on a random course of action without even thinking of asking God if that's what He wants me to do.

Lately, I've been trying to include the Holy Spirit a lot more in my prayers. I've been asking God to let His Spirit guide me, help me, love through me, AND convict me. God is faithful. I've been convicted.

So this morning I DID pray, but even then, there were problems with my reasoning. I started praying, "Dear Lord, I'm going to start this project, so please inspire me and give me grace to write and write well." *insert buzzer sound here* No. Convicted again.

I was telling God what I planned to do, asking Him to come alongside me in the work that I'm doing. That's not the way it works.

The idea of prayer, I'm learning, is US coming alongside GOD in the work that HE is doing. Lots of people have said that prayer doesn't matter--even those who claim to believe in God. Why? Because God has already made up His mind about what He's going to do. I see where they're coming from because I don't believe God changes His mind either. He knows what's going to happen before it happens. But these people who don't believe in praying are cheating themselves out of something remarkable.

There's a movie I LOVE about the later life of C.S. Lewis called "Shadowlands." In this film, C. S. Lewis' character had an awesome line. "I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God; it changes me."

When we pray, we're not changing God's mind. We're asking Him to conform our minds and hearts to Him. I've learned this through a situation where some of my friends had a seriously ill child--the child almost died on more than one occasion. I prayed for them, for their child, knowing that the Lord might choose for this child to die. The knowledge that this child might die was not enough to make me want to stop praying. On the contrary, it made me pray all the harder. I knew that the only way my friends could make it through this difficult time in their lives was with God's grace. I knew that the best thing I could do for them was to keep praying that they would have strength to endure whatever happened, trusting God--all the while asking for healing for the child. Did my prayer heal the child? No. God did. But the amazing thing about the prayer was that I had this remarkable opportunity to walk through my friends' pain with them in a supernatural way. I had the opportunity to come alongside God in the work He was doing.

Prayer is amazing. It connects us with the poor widow down the street who is barely making ends meet. It connects us with the best friend who is suffering through rejection and heartache. It connects us with the missionaries and soldiers halfway across the world. Through God's gift of prayer, we're able to walk alongside those who are both far and near. It doesn't change God; it changes us. It unites us with others. It conforms our hearts and minds to God. When bad things happen, our prayer is a connection to the Lord that helps us see His will and trust His heart. When the good things happen, prayer enables us rejoice with one another and praise God for His blessing. It allows us to praise God simply because He is praiseworthy. Prayer amazes me.

And so...

My Prayer, TAKE TWO!: "Dear Lord, I have a project in mind, but I don't know if it's Your timing for me to start working on it. You know everything that's going on. So lead me to make the decision You would have me to make, and help me trust You through every step of this amazing journey. I'm going to go ahead and start writing because it's here in my hands to do, but if this isn't Your will and Your timing, then convict me of that. Let everything I write and everything I do be beneficial to others and glorifying to You."

I invite you all to come alongside me and alongside God in the work that He's doing through me and my writing. Thanks in advance for your prayers. I don't know what He's doing right now, but He's always doing something.