Tag: Writing

What Scares Me about being Vulnerable

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Have you ever woken your kids up by turning on the light in their room?

It’s kinda funny isn’t it?!

They immediately make a face and pull the covers over their head moaning, “MOM, turn the light offfff!!”

That’s what I thought of yesterday at church when the Pastor spoke on accountability. He said being in an accountable relationship means being honest, vulnerable, available and teachable.

It caused me to reflect. The times I’ve been most vulnerable and honest are also the times I have been most wounded by those I called my friends. As I look back at those times, that “rejection” has caused me to temper how vulnerable and honest I am.

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When it Feels Like No One is Listening

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Over the sound of running water and clanking dishes in the kitchen, I could hear my children discussing something as they cleaned up dinner. Their tone told me something was being debated.

My husband and I paused the conversation we were having in the other room to listen in and decide whether we needed to intervene or let them work it out.

We didn’t know the specifics of what they were arguing about but the tone told us most of the story. Our youngest had started to explain something, but he didn’t tell the details exactly right. So his sister helped him be a little more accurate. But that still didn’t suffice for the oldest brother, who then edited the story again to his specifications.  Well, that in turn left Zach, who started the whole thing, feeling frustrated and deflated. It was like he needed to defend himself, his story and his right to tell his story his way.

All this from a tone.

Through my son and this situation, I recognized a fear I can struggle with.

It’s the fear of not being heard. Or of being heard but misunderstood.

To read the rest of this post, click HERE. 

 

When God Asks for Everything

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Well it’s time for me to eat some humble pie here on this website. So much has transpired in my mind since the last time I posted here. Let me catch you up a bit…

During the Christmas break and after Papa passed, I struggled again with this calling of homeschooling. I’ll save you the long boring details. Let’s just say that in the end the Lord showed me that this calling to homeschool is like a marriage. Sometimes we’re on the same page and sometimes we’re not. Sometimes we get along and sometimes we fight. But He’s called me to be committed to this relationship no matter what.

With that said, when I try to squirm out of this calling and imagine how wonderful it would be to NOT homeschool, I’m being unfaithful to this marriage. It’s like flirting with another man. GULP! That truth really broke me. God’s word is so sharp and so personal that it hurts when He convicts you.

It reminds me of my sweet, bouncy daughter. Her favorite thing right now is to kick her own butt with her heels as she walks. So literally, every other step she’s alternating her heels into her backside. I can handle the commotion for awhile, but by evening time when we’re in the kitchen together and she’s bouncing around I have to say, “Darling, STOP! Please just keep your feet on the ground!”

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Will You Trust Me?

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Jogging down the back roads behind my house with hay bales dotting the horizon, I felt the Lord ask me to write my story. Actually, I had already written it in the pages of my journal, but He was saying it’s time to compile it – all of it.

The words of this story frequently came like labor pains at midnight, hard and fast and impossible to sleep through.

Get up! The Lord would nudge me. Write it down!

I would fight against the prompting for two hours usually, and then finally accept the fact that words being birthed don’t care what time it is.

As I ran that summer morning, I couldn’t out run the voice of the Lord telling me that this story would one day be a published book.

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Warning! Underground Cable Wire

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Last year held such change for our family. As we closed chapters and creaked open new ones, one thing that has remained for me, is this calling to write.

Now, I’ve always written, but I preferred the words to remain safe, tucked inside my nightstand drawer. Four years ago I was not even thinking about releasing them on the World Wide Web to be read publically. So this act of obedience has been hard at times. I have this fear of being misunderstood. The thought that someone could read in-between the lines of what I write and misunderstand my message, scares me every time I hit publish.

It’s been three years since I wrote my first blog post and towards the latter part of last year I began to feel this rumble inside me of something more percolating. Blogging became more than just a way to process and straighten the jumbled up slinky life often throws at me. That is always why I write, but I felt it growing from a hobby into a calling, a ministry to encourage and help others also struggling to sort out this of life.

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