The Writer In Me

"If you find yourself asking yourself, and your friends, "Am I really a writer? Am I really an artist?" Chances are you are. The counterfeit innovator is wildly self-confident. The real one is scared to death." - Steven Pressfield, 'The War Of Art'


      I found inspiration in this quote this morning. It speaks to the writer in me that, apparently, is perfectly normal. I like to write, I want to write...but I don't really like to write and rarely want to. Sometimes I think I want to, but not enough to actually start, much less finish something.

It is scary! I'm not entirely sure why. I think writing is a lot like baring your soul. Which is scary. Writing is also asking someone to approve of your thoughts; your ideas - of you. That's scary. Sometimes I think I'm not changed or affected by what people think... but obviously the writer in me is. The writer in me is learning.

      The truth is, the writer in me is tired. It seems that there is nothing new to write about! But surely there is. Life is ever changing, ever expanding... I have no excuses. I must simply: begin.

Dreaded Revelations

       God's really on a roll this week, speaking to me in the grimiest situations! Last night I spend hours dreading my husband's hair. Yes - my new husband now has dreadlocks. The dreading process is unbelievably long and messy. You tease the hair, then apply wax and twist, twist, twist. Wax gets everywhere. EVERYWHERE. The wax binds the dread to make it stay together.

       It takes so much time to rub that wax way down deep into every dread. As I found out last night, it takes A LOT of wax to tame hair that's teased way beyond frizz. After you've gotten all your dreads twisted and waxed together as they can be, you blow dry them. This is a very important step! The heat melts the wax deep down into the dread and that is what will concrete the dread into place. It's all about the heat.

       This morning during Women's Bible Study I was thinking of how sometimes it's like God just melts over you. He completely surrounds you and soaks every part of you. He covers you up and holds you together like wax does a dread. But that melting, that concreting holding-together process, only happens under heat. When the heat gets turned on in your life, and your scalp is on fire and you don't think you can take it anymore...God melts around you, concreting and securing His faithfulness to you - in you. He holds us together, like wax. And that security in Him becomes more and more real and tangible only after God sees you through times of intense heat. Like I said, this is a VERY important step in the process. Without the times of trial where we allow God to pull us through and mold us and shape us and show us His goodness, we will never truly know what is it to be held together by God.


       He is the only thing that can hold us together - and He does it best when the heat is on.



   

Great Espresso and a Great God

     We've all heard and know that "God works in mysterious ways." That's such a nice way to put it. It's more like "God works in the weirdest, most unconventional, inconvenient, often ridiculous, sometimes irritating, simple, precious, ordinary ways." Well, that's how He works with me anyways. And that's how He spoke to me today.

     On slow days here at The Shop, I try to do something productive. I TRY. Today was lots of cleaning. I decided to tear apart my darling espresso machine and do some deep cleaning. When I took it apart I was appalled by what I found... so gross!! I thought, "Didn't I just clean this thing??" I thought back... Right, I cleaned it before the wedding. THAT WAS MONTHS AGO. *Ugh* Disgusted, I went to work. And it wasn't too far into the nauseating job that the Holy Spirit got chatty. I was reminded of what I've been told and what I have read about my beautiful machine many times before. 

"Your machine will perform as well as you want it to."

Meaning of course, the care of the machine is everything. The amount of work I put into cleaning it, in prepping it, in maintaining its efficiency, is the amount of great espresso I will get out of it. A novel idea right? 

    I know, it's not exactly profound, but it was how the Holy Spirit reminded me of some things today: 

 The amount of time and energy and investment I put into my relationship with God is what I will get out of it. I can be as used by God as I want to be. I can be as filled with the Holy Spirit as I want to be. Is it sometimes dirty and nauseating and inconvenient to maintain the upkeep on the relationship? Yes. Are the results worth it? Always.

     So my machine looks beautiful and brand new, and so does my perspective on my relationship with God. It was in the grime of that machine that God reminded me of my responsibility to Him; to our relationship. I'm not sure what I'd do if He didn't speak in the midst of that kind of stuff... because my life is mostly weird, simple, grimy, and ordinary. Here's to great espresso and a great God.

Satin In A Coffin

"You were laying on the carpet 
like you're satin in a coffin. 
You said, "Do you believe what you're sayin'?" 
Yeah right now, but not that often. 

Are you dead or are you sleepin'? 
Are you dead or are you sleepin'? 
Are you dead or are you sleepin'?"

-- Modest Mouse

These are the lyrics that the boys keep singing around me this evening. And it hit me as a call from God to His Bride. "Do you believe what you're saying?" "Are you dead or are you sleeping?" 

In response to a writing prompt by http://www.subject4change.com/ I wrote that we are on the verge of something new. God still says: 

"See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland." - Isaiah 43:19

And I can feel in it my bones! The restless I feel is only the restlessness that gets under my skin when God is calling me to something new. And I feel like He's asking "Are you dead or are you sleeping?" Because I must be one of those things because I'm not awake and alive in Him how I should be!!! I don't want to be dead or asleep! And I've made a decision to wake up and smell the coffee. To get over myself and get on with what He has! 

So Church, Friends, Family, are you dead or are you sleeping?

Humility-Security-Synergy

      For a year now I have been apprenticing under my Senior Pastor, Burt Campbell (check out his blog here: http://pastorburt.lifewithchrist.org/index.html). For the last 2 years I've felt a pull towards pastoral ministry in some aspect and last summer God asked me to take a proactive step towards learning and developing more of the skills that ministry requires. That step looked like the apprenticeship and allowing Burt to be mentor and teacher in my life. We are now drawing that time to a close and looking back over the year, I can't get my head around how much information we've absorbed, how many lessons I've learned - personally and ministerially - and how much growth God's worked in me since last summer. Having said that, I've much more growing to embrace!

      The bulk of my time with Pastor Burt has been spent studying and discussing the book The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People, which has so challenged my world. Author, Steven Covey, lays out 7 habits/principles that, if embraced and implemented, empower us to become effective in every aspect of our lives. The 6th Habit is Synergy. This Habit is my favorite so far. Very challenging but so exciting! I've come to realize that I've got some work to do in order to say I'm good at Synergizing with with the people around me. Here's a couple of the things I need to have to make this work:

1. Humility. Lets face it, we all love to be right. We love to have the answer; the solution to the problem no one else can figure out. It's empowering and energizing! However, when we become so convinced that we can see every possible option and solution, and no one else has a valid idea, we kill the potential for Synergy and thus, brilliant, new capabilities. This is something I'm working on. I know I don't have all the answers, and there are minds that are so different and more creative than mine... I want their input. 

2. Security. Synergy requires a level of vulnerability; space for someone else to disagree with your idea, or even to say your point of view is wrong. If we can learn to operate on a level of security that is not threatened by other people's opinions, we would be surprised at the doors that would swing open! 

It also takes security on the part of the person challenging an idea or thought. Security looks like courage to express one's own thoughts or feelings, without having to ask for validity. We each have a say and different is ok. 

      So Synergy is one of my many goals. It's what I've been mulling over as of recent. The reason in writing about it came mostly from some confirmation by Subject-4-Change in the post: Where Do Ideas Come From? The Author writes, 

      "But is competition truly helpful in building community over the long haul? And if the goal of art (religion, education, science and even political diplomacy) is to benefit mankind and bring people together, what would happen if competition, attribution, and ownership were taken out of the process?"

A grand thought indeed. What would our world look like if we learned to Synergize? What could your life look like if you allowed Synergy some room to work? I like to think that unimaginable things would be accomplished. 

Dreams Really Do Come True.

It's been ages since I've blogged! (That's how I start off every post, right?)

My life has EXPLODED.

Lets see. In the last 5 months, here's what's changed:

1. I own a coffeehouse in New Concord.

2. I moved into a gorgeous house in New Concord.

3. My Best Friend lives with me.

4. I found out I have a nodule on my vocal chord and have been put on vocal rest for a month.

There's more, but those are some big ones.

The coffeehouse is fabulous. A dream come true. And I can say the same about the house I'm renting. God has been too good! Business is going great, and I love what God is teaching me through it. He's also established relationships that are blowing my mind! Every time I turn around I realize that the coffeehouse wasn't only my dream come true, but another part of His plan. He astounds me.

Though the last couple months have brought on a good bit of stress, I'm taking it day by day and learning to manage my life. My craziness doesn't change God's goodness. It's a time of tremendous growing. Spiritually, emotionally, mentally...A season to remember, for sure. The best season yet, actually. (:

The fact that I can't sing how I'd like to is driving me crazy! I go back to my specialist in 3 weeks to check in and see what the next step is. Praying for God's will to be done. I miss doing what I love, but God is faithful still!

Anyways, there's a very brief update for you. Or maybe more for me.

Still loving God and everything He's doing. After everything He's given me, after all the dreams He's brought to life, He's still surprising me at every turn. Our God is truly brilliant!

Restarting

Once again, blogging has slipped my mind. Given, my life has been crazy and blogging isn't at the top of my priority list. However, here I am, 2:39am on the morning of December 7th, 2010. Couldn't sleep, so I thought I'd give this a go.

I'm home! I arrived a week ago today and has it been a whirlwind of a first week back! It consisted of late nights, Youth Group, a concert, all night laser tag, shopping, church, and cleaning and reorganizing my room. I haven't had trouble sleeping all week. Maybe I'm up tonight because I didn't do much today, and the incessant activity is what forced my body to sleep earlier this week. Anyways, it's great to be home. Still hard to believe I'm actually here, but I've loved catching up with friends and my family. Life is good.

Something I wasn't anticipating, it's been(and still is) an interesting emotional transition. My first night home I was a bit taken aback and unsettled at being here again. And I've had moments like that all week. Last night I think I had some tiny version of an anxiety attack. Really strange... I wasn't even thinking about being here and my life or anything! All of the sudden I got really restless and anxious, heart started beating fast, and had slight trouble breathing like normal. So I cleaned the kitchen, basically tore my room apart and started cleaning and sorting through everything. Really strange. Today's been good. I got a little melancholy a few hours ago, and that was a bit out of the blue as well. I suppose I'm still in that transition period. I'm really happy to be here though. I really am.

My highlights of my first week back would be all the time I've spent with my Youth Group and being at church again. And seeing family and friends. I guess the whole week has been one big highlight. :) I love what God is up to in this place. And I'm stoked to be right in the middle of it all. There's still people to see, more cleaning/sorting to be done, and holiday festivities to get on with. This is only the beginning! I'm really excited.

I have high expectations for this year, and I know it will be spectacular. God never fails me! Christmas will be wonderful, and all the little benefits of being home have made my life so much easier and full of joy. Who knows what's next, but this season is brilliant already!