There's busy and then there's busy

I'm not quite sure where to even start this. My friend nudged me the other day as I hadn't been here lately. As the director of Children, Youth and Family ministries at my church- this is prime time- busiest time of the year. I have so many things packed in to the first couple weeks of fall programming that I have been drowning in work and trying to do it with three kids at home who are making each other (and me!) crazy as they are more than ready to go back to school. I've been burning the midnight oil and candle on both ends every day for a couple weeks and truth be told, I am exhausted. As guilty as I have felt in not coming and sharing all my grace moments, there has also had to be grace in that. Because at the end of the day I have learned I can not do it all. I can not do every last thing I wanted or hoped or set out to do that day. I am one person and there are only so many hours in the day.

As a perfectionist, that makes me crazy. It's hard for me to view my not coming here each day as I hoped or planned as anything but a ginormous colossal failure, and yet I can't hold that belief. I can't hold it because I know that this has been anything but a failure. While I haven't been good about coming here in recent days, every day my mind has gone to grace and it's held it. It's helped to shape my thinking and perspectives and the ways I've cared for myself. It hasn't been perfect. I have struggled immensely. And yet the project for me wasn't about simply writing about my grace. That was just a bonus. For me it was actually being mindful of it and doing it and that, my friends, I am happy to report has not been a failure.

As an all or nothing person, I sometimes struggle when I can't do things all the way or give 110%. I struggle when I have to give a "C" or "B" effort vs an "A" and if something can't be done right, I often just assume not do it at all. And yet that is exactly why I need to be doing this. Why I need grace. Because for me as a single mom of three, I can't do it all. I can't give 110% all the time. I can't possibly do "A" work always. I just can't. And so I do the best I can. Am learning to do the best I can. And so I am back here. Because while it hasn't been perfect, it's been grace and that's what I've needed.

Since I am here, I wanted to share a couple bigger grace moments for me as of late. I've had days that I have struggled so much and yet been so grateful for my awareness of the struggle and for it then allowing me to seek God and to ask him to help me and to show me His grace instead. He has shown me and helped me to find grace for me when I otherwise was having a hard time doing that.

A big example of this for me was this past weekend. While out walking my friend's dog on a secluded part of a trail, I had a gentleman expose himself to me and proceed to follow and pursue me. I was trying so hard not to engage in conversation or anything with him and to simply get away that I tried at all costs to avoid eye contact or any interaction. Because of that, when it came time to give a description to the police- I realized I couldn't tell them with any level of certainty one thing he was wearing. Not one. Not color. Length of sleeves or pants. Nothing. And I wasn't and still am not sure if my mind in the fear and trauma blocked those details out, or if I was trying too hard not to look, but regardless, my details and description of him was lacking. When I shared with my mom what happened she asked about if I gave a description to the police. I told her I felt bad that I couldn't recall what he was wearing and she instantly got down on me and scolded me. I felt awful. And for the first couple days felt I'd be fully responsible if he never got caught or did the same to someone else because I hadn't given a good enough description of him.

Finding grace for myself in this has been incredibly hard. So hard. And yet, I think I finally have. I think I have finally given my grace to accept that what happened was scary and traumatic. That him not being found or repeating the offense to someone else would not be about me and my lack of being able to recall details about him, but rather his own mental state and sickness. That my instinct to get away was more important than further risking my safety to soak in a big long look at him in the chance he'd still be around when the police showed up.

The event I experienced was traumatic enough and I realized I didn't need to make it worse by holding those things over my head. Grace for me has meant being more gentle with myself and allowing myself an opportunity to heal from a traumatic event, vs be more traumatized by it.

For me, grace has also come with allowing myself to experience feelings towards situations in a non-judgemental way. I've had a string of crummy news and events come my way these last days and they have stirred up these horribly strong feelings inside of me. Feelings I haven't liked or felt good about. Feelings I just assume not have. Feelings, that I feel just aren't a reflection of who I am or want to be. And yet as I have looked at each individual event, I have come to see the ways my feelings were justified. Ways that they were valid and reasonable. At the same time, I have been able to recognize how they have been helpful or hurtful for me and to seek God's help in changing those that aren't productive or helpful to me.

Somehow this has helped free me from my feelings and to make more peace in them. I have come to see my humanity and vulnerability in them and I don't like it, and yet I feel like I am embracing it. I feel like I am not fighting them quite so hard and that is a gift to me.

Finally, grace has finally confronted me with what I expected to be confronted with long ago and seems like it's finally found me in a different way. In all the busy, in all that has been going on, in all the crummy-  I haven't done so great at keeping or making myself a priority. Of loving on myself or pampering myself. Of keeping my own well full. And when I started this, I thought those were the things I'd go to and try to focus on and make grace happen in first. And yet that's not been the case. But now, finally now, I have come to find a different kind of knowing how part of grace is loving and caring for what you've been given. And I've not done great with that these last days. And so grace is deciding to get myself flowers at the farmers market. Grace is making plans to go to the State Fair this weekend vs spend another whole weekend working and running myself further in to the ground. Grace is taking the time to find a body wash that smelt good and would be soothing to use vs just quick choosing what was cheapest. And these haven't been big things- but they've been things. And in them I have come to see how far I have to go in the self grace department. How far I have to go in the being intentional to care for this self and body I have been given. How far I have to go to take care of me better so I can better serve and take care of others.

Life has been horribly busy and full lately. I am grateful that grace has continued to flow through this time and to be persistent despite me. And yet isn't that what grace is all about? It is given inspite of us. In spite of all we do and are or don't do or aren't. It is the truest and most generous act of love. I am so grateful for the ways I have been experiencing that love. Praise be to God for those. It hasn't been perfect but it's been persistent and that's all I can ask for. It has helped me see my weakness, and more greatly helped me see God's strength. If nothing else comes out of this, I am ever so grateful to have that. Though I can tell there is far more coming out of this little experiment than even I ever thought or hoped. For that- to be continued..

Hindsight

There is this new ap (or newer, by ap standards I suppose!) called Timehop. It pulls together for you all of your old FB or other social media posts, pictures, etc from this same day a year ago, three years ago and five and six years ago. Mostly it's fun to look at and see old pics of the kids or remember things that happened. However, I've found that as much fun as it brings in those regards, it's also proven to be fairly disheartening to me in another.

I have noticed a remarkable trend in my posts from specifically five years ago. As I have read them I have found them to be very dark, and pessimistic and lacking any kid of hope or positivity. I remember struggling then, but I didn't remember it being like that. As I read them I wonder what people thought who read or saw them each day. What they thought of me. My life. My attitude towards it all.

Frankly, I don't like those posts and I don't like the person writing them. I don't like to see that was what my perspectives were like or how I viewed the world. The glass always seems rather half empty than full and there are only cloudy, dark glasses verses any kind of rose colored ones.

As I read these posts and wonder about this person who wrote them, while it would be easy to get really down on myself and feel ashamed or many negative things, the thing is as I read them- they make me sad. They make me sad that life was the way it was and more than that, that I couldn't find any light in it. I am so void of any kind of light in me and it just makes me, well..., sad.

In that sadness though, also comes gratitude. I went through a very transformative experience in terms of my faith and spiritual life almost three years ago now and it changed my perspectives and frankly so very much about me. As I read those posts that are so full of pain and void of hope, I feel a deep sense of gratitude for the gift that God gave me of his love and grace and that it persevered and broke through those walls that were around my heart at that time. I can't help but feel a gratitude that even though there are still long days and rough days, that they aren't like what those days were like because in them now there is a light and a hope and a sense of future- even in the darkness. Because the light always shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot over come it.

Sometimes it takes something like this Timehop ap to show us how far we have come. To give us that hindsight we need to put our current situation or reality in to perspective.

Today I am grateful for this gift and for the grace that it gives.

No shortage of Grace

I have been feeling bad as I haven't been here the past few days. When I started this blog, the intention was to come each and every day for 100 days to write. It seems though like even in that there has been a great need for grace.

The thing is, there has been no shortage in grace these past few days. In fact, there has been an abundance of it. So much so, in fact, that at times more than my exhaustion at the end of the day or lack of time, what kept me from posting was that I simply didn't have the words. I simply didn't feel like they could do what I had experienced justice, and I struggled to know how to share them in a way that seemed to give them the value that they deserved. As much as it would have been easy to simply stop writing this in having not met my goal with perfection and having missed days, I decided I didn't want to do that- because even though I didn't come here to share the grace these last days- the truth is there was a fullness and depth in the graces I experienced during that time that seems it would be a great disservice to me and any of you who have been reading it to simply stop sharing them. And so I am back here and ready to share again.

Tonight I snuck out to my front step to get a few minutes break from my uber crabby and clingy kids with a glass of wine and desire to do nothing but sit and be and escape. As I did so, I found myself pondering my last days and how full they have been. It is an extremely busy time as a Youth and Family Ministry leader getting all the things ready for the fall and fall programming. As I have had that to do, I had also taken on additional things like planning a brunch for our new Worship and Music Director, said I'd cover preaching a couple Sundays, signed up to volunteer at our church's homeless shelter we support, etc. All those things, while good, in addition to all of the normal life things I've had, have made for some very busy and full days and left little to no pockets for me to just have time well, with me! Alone! And not doing a zil things! And yet even in that, as I've looked back on these days and took in the weariness I'm feeling, I did so with gratitude. With an inner sense of God's presence in and through them, of his work in my life and of his peace.

I got some news the end of this past week that was difficult for me to receive. I had hoped for different words and a different outcome to a situation that was very important and carried a lot of weight, and that outcome did not come. Instead I was met with the very one I dreaded and feared the most. Yet, just as quickly as the news I ended up with came, so did God's wisdom, perspective and grace. And in that I reacted very differently than I thought or anticipated I would. I was ok when I didn't know if I would be ok. And the same has been true through all this busy-ness and all of the new things that have come up as of late. Just as I have been met with so much to do, with things that haven't gone well or as planned, with challenges and little pockets of down time or time for me- I've been equally met- or perhaps even more met, with God's presence, his love and mostly his grace. And that has brought in so many of these situations a peace that truly surpasses all understanding, and also a sense of pride in myself for the growth to be able to accept and hold those perspectives and to accept those gifts that God has given me.

I haven't been good about being here in recent days, but I've been good about being open to the gifts that God is offering me, and in offering myself some of those same gifts in return. As much as I want to get down on myself for not doing this as I planned or hoped, I think even that is an example of how things have gone for me as of late and yet- and yet- in it- is still grace. Is still the ability to come back after days away and to say that God is here and He is good and I am still here and seeking and experiencing his grace and my own towards me each day in ways beyond what I even expected.

This blog wasn't about simply writing. It was about experiencing and doing things differently. Doing life differently. Previously, I'd of likely buckled under the lack of perfection of keeping this every day and thrown in the towel. Quit. Considered it a failure. I'm not doing that. Today I am here because grace has been here. Is here. Will continue to be. And that's the beautiful thing about it. No matter how far we fall or fall short. No matter how undeserved or unearned. It is still here and freely given in love each and every day if only we choose to accept it. And frankly even if we don't! It's our loss.

Today- today I chose the gain. Because grace is worth it and new life and perspective are worth it.

Thanks be to God for that.

Zits and grace

As summer break nears it's end, I guess you could say it is starting to take it's toll on me just a little. As an introverted single mom of three kids, while I enjoy spending time with them and venturing throughout the summer, come this time of August I am almost always ready for them to go back to school. Especially weeks like this one when the weather is crummy and we have been all cooped up inside. Everyone is tired and crabby and a lil bit stir crazy. We've braved the rainy skies and gone on a couple of walks, but they just haven't been enough to bring us all back down to earth a little.

As an introvert, my personal energy renewal requires time apart from people and alone. While I generally enjoy being around people and work in a very heavy people contact profession, in order to recharge my batteries and feel like I have something to offer, I require time to myself. Time to lay on the couch, zone out to a lil Little House on the Prairie or something, and to just be. And to be at it- alone.

It is difficult to get those moments, however, as a single parent and this week has been especially so. To add to this, I feel like somehow my kids know subconsciously that they are headed back to school and more time away from mom and so they all seem to be flocking to me right now. All seem to be wanting to be attached to me or doing anything with me that I might be doing. Even a walk to get some peace and quiet and fresh air today that was intended to be just me and my headphones, ended up with me and three kids- one of which wasn't even my own!

Now the thing is, normally I would feel a lil crazy and be a little extra crabby but I'd just absorb it and do what I needed to do to get by. This week though it seems to be demanding attention and to be listened to. The stress I am feeling in not getting my introverted me time has seemed to bubble over from just the emotional sense to now physical stress as well and it seems I am now wearing signs all over my face that scream "I am stressed and exhausted and my kids need to go back to school!"

For the first time in ages I have completely started to break out - like, meaning acne. I look like I should be 14 and investing in some serious deep pore cleansers or SOMETHING. And then there is my eye. Somehow I managed to burst a blood vessel in it (I suspect my almost 3 year old had something to do with that when he was doing acrobats on the couch next to me and his foot made contact quite close to said eye). It looks absolutely horrible- all blood shot and blood collecting on the one side. And then came the twitching. For three days my lower eye lid twitched off and on. Just as soon as I'd get it to calm down, something would set it off and it would start again.

So here I am yesterday unshowered, no make up, eye twitching, zit faced, wanting nothing more than five minutes to myself and I walk in to the bank. I had a question for the banker and so I popped in to her office. She said something along the lines of "Amy! It's been awhile but you look good!" Had I not been as exhausted as I was, I probably would have launched off on some counter words to her. I probably would have asked her if she was looking at me or pointed out the big ole zit and blood shot eye I have going on and been like "Excuse me? Is THIS what you call looking good?" And then there was also that lil voice of grace that creeped up and so what did I do instead but slid down in to the chair across from her at her desk and said a simple "thanks."

Today as I stood in the bathroom staring back in to this weary, stressed looking reflection of mine and feeling incredibly drained and just in need of recharge time, instead of shaking my head in disgust or beating myself up, I chose to exercise some grace. Instead I chose to go get my tennis shoes, grab my phone and ear buds and to get myself out the door where there was no mirrors, the lighting was better, the air was fresh and I had no walls feeling as if they were about to cave in on me. I wasn't able to escape with out 2 of the three kids and then their friend deciding they needed to come, too, but still I got myself out, got myself in to a place and space that I momentarily forgot about the reflection I saw looking back at me, and I walked in grace.

I've been reflecting on this whole grace thing for about a week now and it's nothing like I expected it to be like. And yet each day I find that my capacity for grace towards myself is growing and that it is even becoming welcome. I am realizing it feels considerably better than some of the other regular tactics in these kinds of moments I've had, and I like them far less than I once did. I am sure I will have my days that my head will spin again with messages and comments of self deprecation or self loathing as I notice like 10 more grey hairs popping or a couple more zits forming, but for today- at least in those moments- grace won and in the last week- is winning. And because of Christ and what He came and did, will ultimately win out. Has already won out, really. And I can't tell you friends how grateful I am for that.

Grace I am finding isn't found in a pretty, zit free face or in feeling well rested and recharged. Grace is found when you are neither of those things and are able to find peace and be ok anyways.

Still, I wish grace came in the form of an amped up zit cream.

On that note, the house is quiet, the little cherubs are sleeping and for me that means recharge time. So until tomorrow... peace.

Stepping Away

Today was one of those days. Many things went wrong. Big things. I didn't sleep well. The kids were bickering all day. It was cloudy and gloomy out. It was just a day. And I was feeling it getting to me. I could feel myself getting grumpy and agitated. I was snapping at the kids and less than patient. I was not a good version of me. I was feeling like the walls were closing in and a bit claustrophobic. Trapped. I needed out. And that was what I did. I got my headphones. Grabbed my phone and the neighbor to watch the kids, laced up my shoes and decided I just needed to go out for a walk. To clear my head. To get some air. To just... move.

Needless to say, my little guy who has been a bit of a magnet to me as of late was pretty bent on not allowing me to go one my own. As much as I desperately needed to be on my own, I grabbed his stroller and off we went. I listened to music. He jabbered and pointed to things here and there that grabbed his attention.

It was a walk. It wasn't super long. It wasn't to anywhere super fabulous or pretty or exciting. And yet for me today, it was grace. It was forgiving myself for the less than great version of me I had been. It was choosing to remove myself from what was and to try to "reset" my day. Without judgment. Without being frustrated or down on myself. By simply going and being and letting my breath and God do what God does. I walked and talked to him. Sought him. I listened to music that always seems to reach me and calm me. I allowed myself to step away and listened to the inner part of me that was telling me she needed to step away.

Grace, as I said before, doesn't always roar. And yet sometimes in side we are roaring and grace is just the thing we need to calm the roar to a purr. I'm not certain I returned from my walk quite in a purr, but I wasn't roaring so much any more and for that I was very grateful.

I'm no pastor. (Yet.)

Since I was young, I've wanted to be a pastor. I've felt a tug on my heart, a deep sense of call that was something so much a part of me; something I couldn't deny or ignore. With my grandpa being a pastor and being raised very closely to him, I had the most wonderful role model and example of what a pastor is and looks like and I have always had a deep connection to him; I think that's because our hearts are the same and hold something that I don't think most people know.

Unfortunately I was raised in a denomination that didn't allow women to be pastors and so I spent a good part of my life exploring other vocations, but continuing to feel with each that they weren't "it". That they weren't what God was calling me to. That there was something different for me.

I found the courage to leave the church denomination I grew up in a few years ago and joined one very similar, and yet different in the sense it allows women to be pastors. And as I went through a period of deep spiritual growth and transformation, that call that had been on my heart for so long began getting louder and louder. Soon, I couldn't ignore it any longer. I ultimately applied to seminary in to a pastoral program and was accepted. Unfortunately, due to life changes and circumstances, I've been prevented from being able to begin but just this last week I had a meeting in which opened the doors back up for me. I wasn't expecting it. I wasn't quite prepared for how well the meeting went and didn't quite know what to do with it, but I left with a deep sense of peace. With a resolution that if it is God's will, it will be done.

In the mean time, I am the Director of Children, Youth and Family Ministries at my church and every now again I get to moonlight in the pulpit and fill in for our pastor when he is gone. I regularly assist worship and always love doing that, but there is something very different about taking on that leadership-pastory role when it's on me to lead the service.

This weekend is one of those weeks when I've been entrusted with the responsibility of leading our service and preaching while our pastor is out of town. As usual, I was excited and grateful and humbled to have the opportunity, but unlike other times, when I received the text for this Sunday I was to preach on, I felt a bit lost. I felt a bit in over my head. Ill equipped. I felt many things, most of which weren't screaming "I've got this."

But the thing is, I haven't had to "have" this. The pastoral call is anything but about me or of me. It is God's call and God's work. With that, even though I am not yet a pastor, when I am entrusted with stepping in to that role, I do so with God's presence and direction.

This week I have struggled with getting my sermon "just right". Even today, the day before I am to preach it, I have spent far too long with it trying to work and rework it to be a certain way. I missed posting last night as I was up until 2 am working on it. And as I have struggled, my instinct was to question what I was doing and whether or not I should be doing it. But instead of doing that, I have chosen grace. I have chosen to resolve to hand it over to God (which is what I should have done from day one!) and to let it just be his. As I have wanted to continue to go over it tonight and to call and read it to my mom or grandpa to get feedback or opinions, I resisted the temptation and allowed myself the grace of letting it be what it is and of trusting in God to be God and to use those words in some way, being at work in and through them.

And so today, grace was about letting God being God. It was about letting God's word be His word. It was instead of dwelling on my words, using my gifts to bring things to the service that weren't originally planned and yet that are going to make it something really beautiful. Because of that I can now feel excited for tomorrow and for this service. My heart is full having been able to share sacred moments with a couple beautiful women as we prepared for it today.

I may not be a pastor... yet. But one day. And in the mean time, I continue to seek to embrace the gift of God's grace that I may be able to better share it's gift with others.

But by the grace of God

Several years ago I ran across the most wonderful little book. It has since become one that I've shared with many of my confirmation students, countless kids on mission trips or youth functions, family and even friends. I originally stumbled across it and picked it up for a good friend, but ended up getting myself a copy as well. Needless to say my copy is showing it's use, with the pages starting to break free from the binding, and the cover getting a little beaten.

This book, Max Lucado's "God think's You're Wonderful", has become a staple for me because of the simplistic and yet beautiful way that it reminds me, reminds all of us really, about who God created us to be and our value in and to Him. Whenever I find myself forgetting or needing a gentle reminder that my Father is here with me, loving me, caring for me- I open up this book and read through it's pages.

Today for me grace meant coming back to this book and to it's messages of worth, love and purpose. It was a day that I desperately needed to loosen my grasp on the worth others and even myself were placing on me and to open my hands and heart to the worth that Christ gives me.

I had a very important meeting today. You see, since the time I was little I have felt a tug and call on my heart to become a pastor. Finally a couple years ago I listened to this call and both applied to seminary - where I was ultimately accepted- but also began the process of candidacy to be able to be ordained one day in the Lutheran Church. Yet life happened and the process has been paused as I've taken time to adjust to new aspects of life and to heal. Well, today was a meeting to discuss re-entering in to that process and it was one I was very anxious about. In my anxiety, thoughts of unkind words of others, negative events of the past, past judgments that have been made about me, etc flooded my mind and I started to question and doubt what I was even doing going to that meeting. What I was even doing considering this process and ultimately call.

Normally speaking, I probably would have sat with those ponderings and doubts for some time and psyched myself out or talked myself out of going. Today though, was different. Today it seems God had different plans for me and instead His grace flooded in. He calmed my anxious heart and helped me to hear the truths. He helped me to find grace for me and to seek out not only this book I mentioned but another that also is so good at reminding me not only who I am but WHOSE I am.

Even after the meeting went well and I left feeling excited and hopeful for what is next, it didn't take long though, for me to revert back to the thoughts I was having before I had gone. To the ones that were telling me a whole lot about me, without really being about me at all. And once  again with God's help, I was able to work to reject the lies and to dwell in the truth. It wasn't perfect. I did fall in to some of the old traps and I felt horrible about that. And yet again grace, to pick myself up, brush myself off and to remind myself that I am His.

Last night I went to bed too exhausted to share about the day. I hesitate to share loads about the day because for me, there was so much grace in simply saying "I need to just get some rest". As simple and short of an entry as that was, there was greatness to it, too.

Today as I think about that and the graces that did find me yesterday - as well as today- and as I think about my meeting, what I am most certain of is a theme that emerged in it of resurrection. A couple years ago I went through a death. It was a death to my old self. A death to some really difficult and painful past things that had nothing but closed me off to God's love and in to accepting who I was. Since then life has begun to open up and to be full of all this wonderful newness and new life, but not until after a period of grief and living in what had died. Not until after I took time to honor and dwell for a while in the loss of what I had known and to find the brevity and strength to move forward into the unknown and new.

Today I celebrate that resurrection I was given and that by God's grace I had and ultimately found that brevity and the courage to embark on the new journey God had set before me. I also celebrate, though, just having started this and coming here and something as simple as giving myself the grace to just take care of me and say I needed to go to sleep last night, because it wasn't all that long ago that something like that is something I couldn't have done.

Grace exists because perfection does not. At least not in us here. That is difficult for me because I so often wish I were or could be. I hate being broken, flawed and human. And yet I am who I am by God's grace and perfect love for me and it's because of that these days of grace thus far, small as some of the gestures have be, mean so much. Signify so much- in terms of me, my struggle, where I've been and where I am going.

"But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of hem- yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me." 1 Cor. 15:10.

"But by the grace of God I am what I am..." What beautiful words. They are my truth and my grace today.