Addiction happens slowly.
Well, maybe not-so-slowly. We're addicted to instant, quick, immediate. Fast food, drive thru, high speed, all the information we ever want always at our fingertips.
So when my phone decided to check out of my agenda, I was caught off guard...and didn't expect it.
I wouldn't call myself addicted to technology. Sure, my phone kills time while standing in Walmart's mile-long line, but I'm not always on it. I live my normal life and don't let technology hinder me.
What I didn't realize was that it was hindering me.
In today's society, it makes it nearly impossible to unplug.
My phone blacked out and all of the sudden I realized I had no idea what the time was or what the date was. I couldn't look up a word from language class, I couldn't check my email, I couldn't answer a text. No one could get ahold of me, and I couldn't get ahold of them unless I borrowed someone else's phone. I couldn't check my lists or take a picture. I couldn't use a coupon or locate the nearest grocery store in a different city.
It was frustrating.
But it was freeing.
The guy at the store told me there was nothing he could do but give me a new phone. All my data, all my notes, all my contacts...just gone like that.
Yes, mom, you were right again- always store things on paper. No contacts because I don't have a paper address book. No passwords because my phone remembers. No notes because they're all in one neat little app that doesn't clutter up my desk.
Technology isn't always better.
Gratefully- oh thank you Lord!- I had backed my phone up about a month ago, so I was able to recover everything except for what I had this past month. No hassle with contacts or trying to remember what important notes I had logged. But it made me think-
I need to unplug more.
I don't need to answer every text. I don't have to instantly reply to emails. I'm sorry, friends, if I don't comment on every picture you share. It's not you, truly it's not- but I'm learning that if I'm driven to be intentional with a Kingdom-vision life, nothing can be wasted. Words, time, energy. It all needs to have purpose, a focus, an aim.
Life can be spent trying to be in the loop on everyone else's life, but really you're just missing the loop of your own.
Now, I don't have the wifi automatically set to connect on my phone. I don't need to know my emails the instant they come in. I deleted apps that really just clutter and don't benefit. I'm trying to be intentional with not having my phone constantly on me or within reach.
I want to unplug, so I can truly plug in to my life. I want to use my real camera and take lots of paper notes. I want to send pretty mail to others' mailboxes and dream up beautiful ideas sans Pinterest. I want to meet for coffee instead of just a quick text.
No, in this day you can't be technology-free, but it can be used less if you're intentional. I'm not throwing everything out the window. I still use technology, and often- but I cannot become addicted.
Which means- note to self- I really should go by myself a wrist watch and a calendar.
Monday, March 9, 2015
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Fear and Fatih
2014 was an amazing year.
It was my year of redemption, to stand on the mountaintops and to see that the past two years of pain were not for nothing. That ever step I took- even in the dark- was on one sure path to the destination He had intended for me.
It was my year of E'chad, my year to be one with God- to be so focused on doing all for His glory and for Him alone that I wasn't concerned on pleasing the crowds and dancing for the approval of others. I won't pretend it was easy- but it was so, so worth it.
It was restoration. To see Him open His hand with good things as I sought who He is, as I pursued a deeper relationship far more intimate than it had ever been before. It was beautiful, and I didn't want it to end.
2015 came, and I determined I would continue on my one-word journey with Emuna- faith- knowing that everything that comes into my life is for a purpose and a reason. It's a year of hope, believing that He has good things in store and that He works all things for my good. Trusting that everything He allows is to shape my character and to grow me into the woman He wants me to be.
I was ready for another year of great things- but in order to get great things, it takes great work, too. Only real risk tests the reality of a belief.
Faith...it seems so simple. Believing like a child. No fear, no anxiety...serenity. Not knowing all the details, and that being okay.
I didn't realize that to say yes to the Year of Emuna was also to say yes to the Year of No Fear.
And that's terrifying.
It's terrifying to jump out of the boat. Terrifying to do the hard things. To do the uncomfortable, the uncommon, the overlooked. Terrifying to take the initiative, to put your heart out there and stake it all on what God has called you to do.
It's terrifying to take that leap of faith.
Faith isn't defined by comfort or complacency. It's defined by forgoing all logic and statistics, by taking both feet off of solid ground and knowing God is going to meet you there.
Fear and faith cannot coexist.
I can't trust God and not act upon it. If I say I want increased faith, I have to know that the ground I stand on is going to shift from underneath my feet. I have to know that when the walls crack and the rain pours and the storm swells, that it is well because He's got it all in His Hands. Faith means I can't sit idle. I have to be out there, getting my hands dirty and my brow sweaty, doing hard things in completely faith that He is going to take my tiny measure and make it into something more.
I can't fear failure. I can only trust His faithfulness.
From E'chad to Emuna, I stand at the edge of the cliff and my knees shake. My heart races.
But this is living fully alive.
Throw fear to the wind- because faith demands the leap.
You may feel like you're falling, but this is how He will teach you to fly.
It was my year of redemption, to stand on the mountaintops and to see that the past two years of pain were not for nothing. That ever step I took- even in the dark- was on one sure path to the destination He had intended for me.
It was my year of E'chad, my year to be one with God- to be so focused on doing all for His glory and for Him alone that I wasn't concerned on pleasing the crowds and dancing for the approval of others. I won't pretend it was easy- but it was so, so worth it.
It was restoration. To see Him open His hand with good things as I sought who He is, as I pursued a deeper relationship far more intimate than it had ever been before. It was beautiful, and I didn't want it to end.
2015 came, and I determined I would continue on my one-word journey with Emuna- faith- knowing that everything that comes into my life is for a purpose and a reason. It's a year of hope, believing that He has good things in store and that He works all things for my good. Trusting that everything He allows is to shape my character and to grow me into the woman He wants me to be.
I was ready for another year of great things- but in order to get great things, it takes great work, too. Only real risk tests the reality of a belief.
Faith...it seems so simple. Believing like a child. No fear, no anxiety...serenity. Not knowing all the details, and that being okay.
I didn't realize that to say yes to the Year of Emuna was also to say yes to the Year of No Fear.
And that's terrifying.
It's terrifying to jump out of the boat. Terrifying to do the hard things. To do the uncomfortable, the uncommon, the overlooked. Terrifying to take the initiative, to put your heart out there and stake it all on what God has called you to do.
It's terrifying to take that leap of faith.
Faith isn't defined by comfort or complacency. It's defined by forgoing all logic and statistics, by taking both feet off of solid ground and knowing God is going to meet you there.
Fear and faith cannot coexist.
I can't trust God and not act upon it. If I say I want increased faith, I have to know that the ground I stand on is going to shift from underneath my feet. I have to know that when the walls crack and the rain pours and the storm swells, that it is well because He's got it all in His Hands. Faith means I can't sit idle. I have to be out there, getting my hands dirty and my brow sweaty, doing hard things in completely faith that He is going to take my tiny measure and make it into something more.
I can't fear failure. I can only trust His faithfulness.
From E'chad to Emuna, I stand at the edge of the cliff and my knees shake. My heart races.
But this is living fully alive.
Throw fear to the wind- because faith demands the leap.
You may feel like you're falling, but this is how He will teach you to fly.
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
The Girl with Blonde Hair
I had never been so broken before.
My heart thundered, then stopped, then thundered a million more rolls again.
I couldn't leave. I couldn't.
This place where my heart was planted deep in the rocky terrain, where I bled and I cried, where I laughed and my heart was opened to joy again. To letting people into my brokenness. To being raw and vulnerable without fear.
Where my hand was opened again to receive His good gifts.
Where I physically saw Him answer prayer in ways I could have never imagined.
Where I fell in love with Him all over again.
Where He romanced my heart, danced with me through the storms and showed me just a glimpse of the breathtaking vistas He has in store.
I'm not a very emotional person. I could probably count on one hand how many times I've cried in public my entire life. Next to the time when we found out my brother's cancer had returned, I had never sobbed so hard in my life. Wracking sobs that shook my soul.
I felt like I was being emptied. I felt my heart leave my chest, heard mom calling my name, pulling my hands to get onto the van, but my eyes couldn't leave this place. They roamed and scanned wildly and tried to lock in every detail through blurry vision, eyelids blinking to clear.
Now thousands of miles away, months later, it's still a moment I relive a hundred times a day. The burning ache where my heart used to be, my soul yearning to be reunited again.
Some people don't get it. They try, but they just can't. They haven't seen what I've seen, felt what I've felt. They haven't had the dirt run through their fingers and the vision seep into their veins until it wraps and engulfs their very core.
And yet, others do.
I may relive that moment a hundred times a day, but there's more than just feeling my heart being torn, falling onto the sand. I see more than just blurry images through the tears.
I see a girl with blonde hair.
She followed me all that day. Hugged me. Wiped tears from her own eyes as she saw mine. She stood by me for hours as we waited for the bus. She whispered words of hope into my ear, then was brave enough to stand there in silence to give room for both our thoughts. She was real- beautifully real- giving of her soul not because it was the "right thing" to do, but because she simple did it without any pretenses or reservations. I may have been seven years her senior, yet she so faithfully ministered to my needs without even a clue. She didn't make it her "ministry". She didn't do it for praise. She just did it- because that's what love does.
And after 3 weeks of pouring into everyone around me, her action wrapped around me like a warm blanket that assured me I wouldn't be alone in this.
She didn't say it would be okay. She didn't say I'd get over it. She didn't tell me to stop crying, that the tears wouldn't stop the inevitable. She didn't say that I had a purpose elsewhere and that's why I had to leave.
She reminded me that He still loves me.
She reassured me over and over that this was not the end- that He would bring me back. This was not a once in a lifetime experience- it was the beginning of a lifetime of purpose I had never known before.
That this look was not the last.
There were others who had come by my side that day. They spoke as well, gave hugs and even prayed. But somehow, the girl with blonde hair vividly stands out from the rest.
She silently lived with me through that moment. Didn't speak the profound, just told me what my heart needed to hear. She cried, but she didn't leave. She stood with me as the minutes dragged tortuously onward as I waited for the van. She ran with me. She saw the unglamorous and jagged and didn't shy away.
I want to be like the girl with blonde hair.
Want to live with people in the moment, in the broken, and be fully there to pour into their souls. Not because I have to, not because it's right- but because I'm right there with them. Not to be the hero- but to be the whisper in their ear that He still loves you. I don't want to shy away from the ugly, from the painful, but to embrace it with the arms of Christ.
It's not a duty, not a job to fix the world, never a place of glamor. It's a position of deepest humility, knowing you can't make it better, knowing your words are nothing.
It's standing there, even in the awkward and uncomfortable, to let Him live through you.
Even in silence and not saying a word. Through just being near. To say "You're not alone, because I'm choosing to walk this hard path with you"
And in that memory, I choose to live like that a hundred times a day.
My heart thundered, then stopped, then thundered a million more rolls again.
I couldn't leave. I couldn't.
This place where my heart was planted deep in the rocky terrain, where I bled and I cried, where I laughed and my heart was opened to joy again. To letting people into my brokenness. To being raw and vulnerable without fear.
Where my hand was opened again to receive His good gifts.
Where I physically saw Him answer prayer in ways I could have never imagined.
Where I fell in love with Him all over again.
Where He romanced my heart, danced with me through the storms and showed me just a glimpse of the breathtaking vistas He has in store.
I'm not a very emotional person. I could probably count on one hand how many times I've cried in public my entire life. Next to the time when we found out my brother's cancer had returned, I had never sobbed so hard in my life. Wracking sobs that shook my soul.
I felt like I was being emptied. I felt my heart leave my chest, heard mom calling my name, pulling my hands to get onto the van, but my eyes couldn't leave this place. They roamed and scanned wildly and tried to lock in every detail through blurry vision, eyelids blinking to clear.
Now thousands of miles away, months later, it's still a moment I relive a hundred times a day. The burning ache where my heart used to be, my soul yearning to be reunited again.
Some people don't get it. They try, but they just can't. They haven't seen what I've seen, felt what I've felt. They haven't had the dirt run through their fingers and the vision seep into their veins until it wraps and engulfs their very core.
And yet, others do.
I may relive that moment a hundred times a day, but there's more than just feeling my heart being torn, falling onto the sand. I see more than just blurry images through the tears.
I see a girl with blonde hair.
She followed me all that day. Hugged me. Wiped tears from her own eyes as she saw mine. She stood by me for hours as we waited for the bus. She whispered words of hope into my ear, then was brave enough to stand there in silence to give room for both our thoughts. She was real- beautifully real- giving of her soul not because it was the "right thing" to do, but because she simple did it without any pretenses or reservations. I may have been seven years her senior, yet she so faithfully ministered to my needs without even a clue. She didn't make it her "ministry". She didn't do it for praise. She just did it- because that's what love does.
And after 3 weeks of pouring into everyone around me, her action wrapped around me like a warm blanket that assured me I wouldn't be alone in this.
She didn't say it would be okay. She didn't say I'd get over it. She didn't tell me to stop crying, that the tears wouldn't stop the inevitable. She didn't say that I had a purpose elsewhere and that's why I had to leave.
She reminded me that He still loves me.
She reassured me over and over that this was not the end- that He would bring me back. This was not a once in a lifetime experience- it was the beginning of a lifetime of purpose I had never known before.
That this look was not the last.
There were others who had come by my side that day. They spoke as well, gave hugs and even prayed. But somehow, the girl with blonde hair vividly stands out from the rest.
She silently lived with me through that moment. Didn't speak the profound, just told me what my heart needed to hear. She cried, but she didn't leave. She stood with me as the minutes dragged tortuously onward as I waited for the van. She ran with me. She saw the unglamorous and jagged and didn't shy away.
I want to be like the girl with blonde hair.
Want to live with people in the moment, in the broken, and be fully there to pour into their souls. Not because I have to, not because it's right- but because I'm right there with them. Not to be the hero- but to be the whisper in their ear that He still loves you. I don't want to shy away from the ugly, from the painful, but to embrace it with the arms of Christ.
It's not a duty, not a job to fix the world, never a place of glamor. It's a position of deepest humility, knowing you can't make it better, knowing your words are nothing.
It's standing there, even in the awkward and uncomfortable, to let Him live through you.
Even in silence and not saying a word. Through just being near. To say "You're not alone, because I'm choosing to walk this hard path with you"
And in that memory, I choose to live like that a hundred times a day.
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
Craniotomy // Letting Go
I feel so far removed.
Since coming back to the States from my time overseas, I've been someone I have never been before.
I'm turning into an introvert.
I can't seem to get back to where my heart is connected to that around me. I know why- it's still on the mountain where I left it, where I felt it rip apart from my soul and stay in the soil when I had to leave. I couldn't tell you exactly where- I couldn't see through cascading tears, wondering when I'll ever be HOME again.
Without my heart, I feel numb.
So when my brother has craniotomy surgery today, I'm sitting here waiting for news, calmly drinking coffee and watching craniotomy surgery videos, and I know this should not be normal. Why aren't I so involved, so wrapped up in the emotion and the fear and God only knows what the outcome will be? We thought he'd never make it through last year's surgery, when the clamped his lung shut for good and sewed patches on his heart. I vividly remember the fear then. I can still feel the utter exhaustion, mentally and physically, and my hands still shake whenever I recall the utter helplessness of the unknown. Everything about that day was a last- last kiss, last "I love you", last walk as a family. We prepared, we prepped, we knew the stakes. We were ready.
Today, I don't feel it. I haven't prepped, haven't gone through the risks. This isn't just a lung here. It's the drilling of the skull, the opening of a brain that pulses and one wrong move changes everything forever. Somehow, I can't even think beyond this surgery to imagine the possible outcomes.
Somehow, I have closure.
I've done all I can. I've reached out, I've prayed, I've cried. I've been there- always been there- for my brother. I can do no more.
We send one last email to each other across the miles, both of us awake in the night because still, you can't sleep on a night like that. We say "I love you" one more time. I tell how much I respect him, look up to him. As always, I treasure his words as only a younger sister can.
But there is peace.
I don't know how this surgery will go. I wish I could be more in touch, feel it in the depths of my soul.
Yet there's freedom in the letting go.
Since coming back to the States from my time overseas, I've been someone I have never been before.
I'm turning into an introvert.
I can't seem to get back to where my heart is connected to that around me. I know why- it's still on the mountain where I left it, where I felt it rip apart from my soul and stay in the soil when I had to leave. I couldn't tell you exactly where- I couldn't see through cascading tears, wondering when I'll ever be HOME again.
Without my heart, I feel numb.
So when my brother has craniotomy surgery today, I'm sitting here waiting for news, calmly drinking coffee and watching craniotomy surgery videos, and I know this should not be normal. Why aren't I so involved, so wrapped up in the emotion and the fear and God only knows what the outcome will be? We thought he'd never make it through last year's surgery, when the clamped his lung shut for good and sewed patches on his heart. I vividly remember the fear then. I can still feel the utter exhaustion, mentally and physically, and my hands still shake whenever I recall the utter helplessness of the unknown. Everything about that day was a last- last kiss, last "I love you", last walk as a family. We prepared, we prepped, we knew the stakes. We were ready.
Today, I don't feel it. I haven't prepped, haven't gone through the risks. This isn't just a lung here. It's the drilling of the skull, the opening of a brain that pulses and one wrong move changes everything forever. Somehow, I can't even think beyond this surgery to imagine the possible outcomes.
Somehow, I have closure.
I've done all I can. I've reached out, I've prayed, I've cried. I've been there- always been there- for my brother. I can do no more.
We send one last email to each other across the miles, both of us awake in the night because still, you can't sleep on a night like that. We say "I love you" one more time. I tell how much I respect him, look up to him. As always, I treasure his words as only a younger sister can.
But there is peace.
I don't know how this surgery will go. I wish I could be more in touch, feel it in the depths of my soul.
Yet there's freedom in the letting go.
Monday, October 20, 2014
Enough // Fill the Soul
The tea brews dark in the clear pot, the sound of the kettle still bubbling as the leaves sink deep. Steam curls upwards as I pour the golden liquid into an artsy hand-painted mug- the mug that is my favorite, with all its perfect imperfections and uneven beauty. I wrap my hands around ceramic and breathe long and slow. It smells of havdalah in a cup, sweet and spicy. Havdalah, the closing out of Shabbat, when we begin to count the days until it rolls joyfully around again.
I sip slow and deliberate. I soak and absorbe the Word in front of me. I ponder hope. I sing softly holy melodies and try to embrace the few minutes I have before the schedule and grind being anew. Another day dawning, another race to run. Children to love on, souls to feed, people to serve.
Some days, I wish I could speed the 24 hour periods between then and when I get to rest in His presence. To be undistracted. Still. Quiet. Listening. Ready.
So instead I pour a cup a tea, steal away where it's just me and a whole lot of Yeshua.
I can't do it on empty.
I don't know what each day holds, but I know that I am not enough.
I am not strong enough, brave enough, grace-filled enough, courageous enough, joyful enough.
Yet He is.
He fills my soul with the goodness of His presence and that, that is enough. Enough for 4:30am mornings, enough for fussy toddlers, enough for 21 meals cooked in the kitchen, enough for listening to another's life story, enough for my long to-do list, enough to love and forgive even when I just feel too tired to.
My mug lies empty on the quilt, and time runs its last few grains of sand from the never-ending drip of an hourglass. But my soul- my soul is still and I know that this week He's going to give me all I need.
All. It is enough.
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Dear Me // Letter to Myself
Dear Me,
One day you'll read this and laugh, because you'll see all those dramas and embarrassments that made you want to sink into the floor as what they really are- such small, little things in comparison to what truly matters. Whether you smile with spinach in your teeth or walk with a twisted skirt, it really is not going to make-or-break your dreams. You may feel like they do- may feel like you've ruined your only shot at this- but I promise you, nothing will make-or-break the dreams God has placed within your soul.
Don't sweat the small stuff. Even in a world that screams perfection, you were never made to meet that standard. Seeking after it will only leave you dry, empty, and drained of all the talents God wants to reveal through you. Give yourself grace and room to breathe. Give yourself time to take in the beauty, and time to heal from the wounds inflicted by others... and by yourself. Give yourself the freedom to be you- whimsical, lioness, freckle-faced and red-headed you- regardless of what other people say.
You'll look back on the biggest heartbreaks and see them as the greatest launching pads towards God's purpose for your life. Like the summer you had heat stroke and your military aspirations drained away with the IV in your arm, the year you traveled South and experienced culture shock but somehow your heart got tied there too, the winter where you went from joy to heartbreak in 6.3 weeks and your soul grew cold like the thick ice on the windowpane, the year you went to Israel and your world turned upside down and was shaken out.
Like the embarrassment, this pain will fade, too- so don't let it stop you from living life with gusto and whimsy, with joy and dancing and taking big risks. The only regret you will have in later years is from not spreading your wings to fly because you clipped them with fear. Don't spend life avoiding the "thud" of falling, because I promise you every "thud" is worth the 30 seconds of glorious flight living fully alive in the calling God has placed on your life.
Through it all, you were made to worship with abandon, with every fiber of your being. Every meal you bake, every piece of art you make, is all a glorious song of worship to the King. Don't let others dictate what genre that song is supposed to be, what lyrics are to be spoken, or how fluent your Hebrew should be. God just wants you to show up- in the midst of all your passionate soul, in the midst of your imperfections, in the way that only you can worship Him.
So dear Me, live with reckless abandon, with joy unspeakable, treasuring the raw blessings, wrestling in prayer, and counting the cost. Do life big, and in years to come you will be able to see this glorious unfolding.
I guarantee, it'll leave you speechless.
Sincerely,
Me
One day you'll read this and laugh, because you'll see all those dramas and embarrassments that made you want to sink into the floor as what they really are- such small, little things in comparison to what truly matters. Whether you smile with spinach in your teeth or walk with a twisted skirt, it really is not going to make-or-break your dreams. You may feel like they do- may feel like you've ruined your only shot at this- but I promise you, nothing will make-or-break the dreams God has placed within your soul.
Don't sweat the small stuff. Even in a world that screams perfection, you were never made to meet that standard. Seeking after it will only leave you dry, empty, and drained of all the talents God wants to reveal through you. Give yourself grace and room to breathe. Give yourself time to take in the beauty, and time to heal from the wounds inflicted by others... and by yourself. Give yourself the freedom to be you- whimsical, lioness, freckle-faced and red-headed you- regardless of what other people say.
You'll look back on the biggest heartbreaks and see them as the greatest launching pads towards God's purpose for your life. Like the summer you had heat stroke and your military aspirations drained away with the IV in your arm, the year you traveled South and experienced culture shock but somehow your heart got tied there too, the winter where you went from joy to heartbreak in 6.3 weeks and your soul grew cold like the thick ice on the windowpane, the year you went to Israel and your world turned upside down and was shaken out.
Like the embarrassment, this pain will fade, too- so don't let it stop you from living life with gusto and whimsy, with joy and dancing and taking big risks. The only regret you will have in later years is from not spreading your wings to fly because you clipped them with fear. Don't spend life avoiding the "thud" of falling, because I promise you every "thud" is worth the 30 seconds of glorious flight living fully alive in the calling God has placed on your life.
Through it all, you were made to worship with abandon, with every fiber of your being. Every meal you bake, every piece of art you make, is all a glorious song of worship to the King. Don't let others dictate what genre that song is supposed to be, what lyrics are to be spoken, or how fluent your Hebrew should be. God just wants you to show up- in the midst of all your passionate soul, in the midst of your imperfections, in the way that only you can worship Him.
So dear Me, live with reckless abandon, with joy unspeakable, treasuring the raw blessings, wrestling in prayer, and counting the cost. Do life big, and in years to come you will be able to see this glorious unfolding.
I guarantee, it'll leave you speechless.
Sincerely,
Me
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Made for the Mountain
We weren't made to wallow in the valleys, to camp out on the flat grasslands, to sit in the shade of complacency.
We were made to climb higher, dig deeper, stretch further.
That seems all well and good- but what about feeling like we're in the trenches of life? Like the mountain peak vista is so far away- so unobtainable?
Can we get even a taste of that pure adrenaline glory-water that comes from standing on high places, in the midst of our mediocre mundane?
You and I, we're made for the mountain- but what if we've got our eyes on Mount Everest instead of the mountains we need to scale today?
The momma with her mountains of dishes, laundry, and children toppling on top of each other. The girl with her mountains of schoolwork, job complications, doubts and fears. The son with his mountains of bills, temptations, and workload.
We pass over these mountains and look to the Mount Everests of amazing accomplishments instead- forgetting that we were made for these mountains too.
Made to scale the mundane with grace. To overcome these obstacles with peace. Made to tackle each climb with gusto knowing that He is with us every step of the way- that these mountains are holy ground because He's with us.
Mountain climbers are made victorious in the overcoming.
So take heart, friend- He's already overcome the world.
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