growth Archives - Page 2 of 2

Hopes for My Daughter On Turning 13

Post author:Gina B
Post published:April 15, 2015
Post category:growth hope parenting

Hopes for My Daughter On Turning 13

Ok, you finally made it. 13. I have to confess, it’s felt like you’re a teenager for awhile now. You have your emotional ups and downs, and you’re mature beyond your years. That’s my polite way of saying sometimes, girl, you’re a handful. But, I am quick to remind myself that you are far from the terror I was at 13. I wish that on no one.

But whatever handful you are, it’s what you are supposed to be. This is a tough time, and I’m going to tell you that it’s going to get rockier before it gets better. Being a teenager is turbulent. I remember.

I hope it goes well for you. I hope so much. I hope that you navigate these years with confidence, not in yourself, but in who God has made you to be. You are beautifully and wonderfully made. I know you doubt that sometimes, when you look at the widow’s peak you wish I hadn’t given you, or your drive for perfection that frustrates you. But trust me – it’s ALL good. I hope you never let someone else’s words or looks cause you to doubt that truth.

I hope, as you grow and mature, you never lose your childlikeness. It’s different than being childish. Childlike means you stay open, humble, willing to learn, ok with the fact that you’re not there yet, willing to let others help you in your weak places. Jesus
said the kingdom belongs to those people.

I hope, as you grow, that you are gentle with yourself. You’re going to make mistakes. You won’t know what you’re doing. You will have ups and downs and disappointments and regrets, but it’s all part of the process. This is how we learn, so I hope you can smile at the fumbles and say, “Now I know!” and move on with compassion and grace.

I hope you value yourself in relationships. I hope you continue to choose to spend time with people who build you up, who love you as you are, and with whom you can stand your ground. I hope you always believe that you are worth pursuing. I hope you never think you have to change to make yourself likable or attractive to anyone.

I hope you know how normal all this is. I know some days you’ll feel like you could conquer the world, and other days you’ll be shaking in your boots. Sometimes you’ll think I’m the smartest, best mom ever, and other days you’ll think I’m a idiot. Your
emotions will run wild at times and cause you to think and do things that surprise you. I hope you take it all in stride. (I hope I do too!)

I hope you keep following your dreams. They are good dreams. I hope they become clearer and more tangible, but at the same time, I hope they never take the place of God in your heart. I hope you can hold them open to Him and trust that He will do with them what is best for you.

I hope you cling to Jesus. If there is anything I hope for you, it is this. I hope that as you grow, you see more and more how desperately you need Him, and how He is more than sufficient for everything you need. I hope you love Him with everything you have. I hope you taste and see that He is so very good. I hope this relationship guides you and brings you joy.

I hope in Him for you, kiddo. He has great plans for you. Welcome to 13.

Why We Should Fall More Often

Post author:Gina B
Post published:March 24, 2015
Post category:courage faith grace growth

When It's Good to Fall — photo by Gina Butz

“I don’t want to fall.”
“I did it without falling!”
“I can’t end the day on a fall!”

These are the kinds of phrases that frequently came out of our kids’ mouths last week as we braved the ski hills of Vermont. To them, the goal is not to fall. In fact, a fall in their minds negates anything that came before it. Falling is ruinous.

I confess, that’s often my main objective too. At the very least, I don’t want to fall when small children are deftly skiing past me. Or watching me from the chair lift. So I happily stay on the hills that boast “Slow. Ski Learning Area” signs. No shame.

But when our focus is on not falling, something happens to us mentally. Fear increases. Enjoyment decreases. We take fewer risks. Stick to the smaller hills. We miss out.

Our falls begin to define how we view the day, rather than being blips in an otherwise fun time. They tell us we have failed, rather than informing a better way to ski.

I wish this problem stuck to the ski hills. Too often we take this stance in life. A fear of falling gives us tunnel vision. We don’t want people to look, laugh, judge. We want to do it well every time. Looking at the risk causes us to pull back. We forget that we’re still learning to do life, and that with bigger challenges comes bigger potential for mistakes, failure, and stumbling. Most of all, we forget that falling is actually a good sign.

Falling means we’re trying. It means we’re going out of our comfort zones. We’re braving the harder paths, forging new places where we’re not sure. Falling is a natural part of learning to do anything – walking, running, biking, skiing, parenting, loving, writing, friendship, life. Falling is good because it is proof that we are living openly.

So where do we need to risk falling today?

“Dear, dear Corinthians, I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way. I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!” 2 Corinthians 6:11, The Message

Seeing the Growth

Post author:Gina B
Post published:February 3, 2015
Post category:growth word of the year

Have you been wondering how my mint plant is doing? I’m sure you have. I’m sure that question occupies much your time.

Well, it does come to my mind often. If you’re new here, you might be thinking, “Are these the rantings of a crazy woman?” No, they are the follow up to this post about keeping our souls well, which were inspired by this plant coming back to life:

Since this time, I have been diligent about keeping this plant (and my soul) well. I have an app that reminds me every few days to make sure this baby is watered and thriving.

This morning, this is what it looks like:

Actually, it’s looked like this for awhile. I’m happy these two stems have grown so much. Their leaves are bigger than they ever were during the Time of Negligence it endured through the summer and fall. I confess, though, when I looked at the earlier photo, I thought, “Wait, where did the rest of the green go? And why only two stems? Why isn’t the pot full?” I want more. I want it faster. Grow faster, plant! Be more impressive!

I feel a lot like my plant these days – I feel like saying, “God, I can do more than this. I could be more significant, more influential.” And He says, “This is enough. Do this much well.” Ok, I say. I will do this well.

But can I tell you? This is coming:

Do you see it? That little green bud in the midst of those dead sticks? There’s more life to be had from this plant. This gives me hope, makes me want to be faithful, makes me want to keep being diligent about doing what it takes to keep this plant (and my soul) well.

“I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” Psalm 27:13

Starve the Ego, Feed the Soul

Keeping Our Souls Well

Post author:Gina B
Post published:December 11, 2014
Post category:growth

“It’s alive!” This thought, like the ravings of a mad scientist, leapt to mind when I saw this yesterday:

Keeping Our Souls Well

It doesn’t look like much, but trust me – I had inadvertently done my best to kill this mint plant all through the summer and fall. Completely unintentional, I assure you, it’s just that I am not a good keeper of plants. The fact that it isn’t dead is nothing short of miraculous.

I bought this plant last summer at a farmer’s market in Minnesota. I dragged it with us to Colorado, then back to Orlando, where I put it on our front patio. In the Florida heat, it struggled to survive. I often forgot to water it. When I did, I might have drowned it a little. It wilted, and parts of it even died, but I didn’t take time to prune it. It seemed to want to survive, though its leaves were never as large as they initially were. It grew a little crazy, but not strong.

I finally wised up and looked online to see what mint plants actually need to survive. Turns out they need morning sun and other environmental factors I wasn’t providing. In fact, I could have been writing a book on how to kill a mint plant in 10 easy steps. I was not treating it well.

So I moved it to our lanai, where it drinks in morning sun and where I see it often enough to remember to water (but not drown) it. I had to cut it back to its roots essentially and hope for the best.

And now, weeks later, it is sprouting.

It’s no coincidence that I was reading Soul Keeping by John Ortberg when I saw my plant. God felt I needed a visual.

This mint plant is my soul. I can so easily be careless about the environment I put it in. I feed it what it doesn’t need and neglect to give it what it does. I forget about it. I think maybe it will just grow and flourish on its own. My soul wants desperately to thrive.

I’ve been thinking a lot, as I read this book, about what I must do to keep my soul well. I want to be a good keeper of my soul. There is pruning that needs to happen, a change of environment perhaps. Certainly greater diligence to its health and care, putting it in a place where I am aware of it more often. I made a list of what feeds my soul and what does not. I hope to shape my life more and more to fit that environment, so my soul can be fully alive.

How is your soul today?

Redeemed . . . or . . . DIYing Again

Post author:Gina B
Post published:September 20, 2014
Post category:faith growth

DIY Bench

For weeks, Erik and I have intended to continue our DIY activity by making a bench out of the reclaimed dock wood we have. We kept having this conversation:

Gina: We should make the bench.
Erik: Do you have a plan for it?
Gina: Yes!
Erik: Where?
Gina: In my head.
Erik: Could you write it down?
Gina: (blink. blink.)

It finally dawned on Erik that when he said, “plan” what he meant was “detailed schematics of how this bench will be structurally sound” and what I meant was, “vague idea of cool looking bench, probably held together by nails and magic.”

So he made his own plan. And it was good, as you can see from the picture.

I love doing this. I love taking something others have discarded as worthless and making something new from it. Not something perfect – there will always be flaws, but that’s part of the beauty of it. That’s what makes it one of a kind. It can still be something useful, something good, something that gives life.

I love it because it is a picture of redemption. We all have places, moments, chapters, in our lives, that we could count as wasted. Worthless. Ruined.

God isn’t close to finished with them. In fact, that’s where He starts. He takes our broken places and our discarded moments and our lost chapters and he makes something new. These are the places from which we have the greatest potential to give life to others.

What a great gift – anything can be redeemed. Old dock wood. Us. It’s all good.

Why I Need a Dog

Post author:Gina B
Post published:February 26, 2014
Post category:growth personal

Sometimes I imagine a conversation between the Father and Jesus that went like this:

Father: I think we should give Gina a dog.
Jesus: I don’t think she would like that. I think she would find it disruptive.
Father: Exactly.
Jesus: Oh, this is going to be fun.

Oh yes, she’s been disruptive. She’s required countless hours of training, walking, feeding. She has woken me at 4 am many times to throw up whatever it was she indiscriminately ate on the street the day before. Always 4 am.

We have shelled out crazy dollars to fly her around the world and attempt to diagnose various mysterious illnesses she seems to have. We have lived out the cliche of “everyone in the family wants a dog, but mom ends up taking care of her.”

And at the end of the day, I need it.

I need a dog to remind me that I am not as important as I think I am, and neither are the tasks from which she takes me.

I need a dog to slow me down, make me take walks around the neighborhood, go outside early in the morning and breathe.

I need a dog to show me how to love people well – to always greet them at the door like they’re the best thing that’s happened today, to stay close to them wherever they go, to depend on them for what you need.

I need a dog who burps in my face, and sticks her tongue out at me, and runs around like a Tasmanian devil, to make me laugh when I least expect it.

Disruptive? Yes. Fun? Absolutely. Just what I need? Yep.

Dogs, Deer, and What Drives My Heart

Post author:Gina B
Post published:November 15, 2013
Post category:growth personal

Living where we do, we see a lot of deer. I mean a lot. Like to the point where it’s almost blasé to see them. They’re more common than squirrels.

Enter Scout. It’s always been our dream that our dog could run freely in the yard without an unsightly fence to keep her in. We installed an invisible fence and trained her to stay within the boundaries.

The problem is, she’s a smart pup. She knows when she’s not wearing that big ugly collar. Typically she’s still content to stay in the yard, but when she sees deer, all bets are off. She’ll come back later muddy, tired, and happy.

Enter the “deervangelist,” one of our neighbors. He loves the deer seemingly more than anything. One of his three lots is devoted to their comfort and feeding. When we first arrived in the neighborhood, he came over and gave us an earful about how we need to do our part to protect the deer. He even showed us a photo album of them. In some pictures they were eating food out of his mouth. Can I get a collective “ew”?

So my stage is set. Last week, Scout bolted and found her way to the deervangelist’s empty lot where the deer had retreated for safety. Within a few minutes, I got another visit from my neighbor telling me that I need to do a better job of keeping my dog in our yard, as well as another offer to see the pictures. I declined.

The next day, she was off again. This time, while I waited for another visit, it was my neighbor to the north (the one I have only ever heard yelling) who called for me to get my #$%& dog out of his yard. Thankfully she came back on her own.

And that was when my heart sank a little into shame. Why? It took me awhile to understand it myself, but it all goes back to what drives me. If you read my last post about houses, you know that I like success. I like performing well. The dog/deer combination made it challenging for me to do that. In fact, they were (in my mind) making me look like a failure. I had been called out twice in two days as someone incompetent in restraining her pet.

The upside of this is the fact that God helped me see it. Oftentimes we sink into shame and we don’t recognize it or acknowledge it. In my experience, when that happens, it can make me more likely to interpret the rest of my day through the same lens. Instead, I was able to do a little self-talk about the whole situation that helped me let it go. I’m thankful that I’ve been growing in seeing what drives my heart and how to respond with grace.

A dog and some deer. You never know what God will use.