loved Archives - Page 2 of 3 - Gina Brenna Butz

The Lies of “Too Much” and “Not Enough”

Post author:Gina B
Post published:April 18, 2016
Post category:identity loved

The Lies of "Too Much" and "Not Enough"

There are two lies we can live by, flip sides of the same coin.

One lie tells us that we might be too much for other people. Too needy, too messy, too emotional, too demanding of the emotional space of others.

The lie tells us to live in fear of being “that person” – the one who asks more than others want to give. It says there’s a limit to how much people want of us.

The other side says maybe we’re not enough. We’re the shirt someone sees in the store that they like, but not quite enough to try it on, not quite enough to invest in it.

It says sure, they like us, but maybe they don’t really like us. Not enough to pursue us. The lie says we might not be fun enough, or interesting enough, or whatever enough of what it would take for them to come closer.

The lies keep us in a crazy battle to be less of this and more of that. They make us question ourselves, to hold back when we should be authentic, to hide parts of ourselves in order to be more acceptable, a constant, “Do you like me now? Do you like me now?” They demand we find a way to make ourselves perfectly lovable.

Both lies say the burden is on us to prove ourselves. We must earn a spot in peoples’ hearts.

They tell us there is no place to rest.

But the truth sets us free.

“As long as I keep running about asking: ‘Do you love me? Do you really love me?’ I give all power to the voices of the world and put myself in bondage because the world is filled with ‘ifs.'” (Henri Nouwen, Return of the Prodigal Son)

Yes, those lies are bondage. When they whisper to us, “prove yourself worthy,” we say back, “It’s already been done.”

The truth is, we aren’t meant to measure worth, we are simply called to live it. We are worth the space we take up in this world. We are worth pursuing.

If we weren’t, then the God of the universe would not have taken the time to put us here. He would not have come for us. He would not have died in our place. He’s declared us worthy.

Let’s live in the truth of our worth.

Feel Your Worth

Finding Your Own Voice

Post author:Gina B
Post published:April 4, 2016
Post category:identity loved parenting

Finding Your Own Voice Thank God for those mint green Converse shoes.

Do you know what they mean to me? The fact that you wanted them means you are learning to know your own mind. My girl, who so often fears choices because they might not be “right,” you knew that you wanted those.

And then you wanted to wear them with your dress. Your words were, “it’s just like those movies where the girls aren’t girly girls, so they wear shoes with dresses.”

Yeah, it is. Let’s pull out Pretty in Pink and Some Kind of Wonderful, although probably you’re thinking of something else since those are my movies, not yours. My heart skipped a little just seeing you own who you are.

All your life, this is what I have wanted for you – that you would know yourself and claim it. That you would see that how He has made you is so very, very good. That you would love how He made you a bundle of sweet, heartbreaking empathy and tough, play through the hurt grit. He made you to love puppies and hate pink. He made you sweet and sassy.

I know that in the age you are, you have so much pressure to be what others want you to be in order to fit in. It might just be a pair of Converse (that we scored on a sweet sale), but to me, it’s an answer to prayer, that you would learn to express who you are and know that it is good.

I am so glad that in the midst of all the voices, you are finding your own.

Hopes for My Daughter, On Turning 13

Promises to My Children

Our Inside Out Moment

Post author:Gina B
Post published:March 7, 2016
Post category:grief loved parenting

It started out rough, but it ended well, that day on the field. In fact, it called to mind a moment from Inside Out.

If you’ve seen the movie, you know there was a pivotal moment that formed one of the main character, Riley’s, core memories. It was the memory of her hockey team gathered around her cheering. What we learned later in the movie is that the moment happened because there were coming to cheer her up after a loss that crushed her. Here’s how it happened for us:

Our daughter’s soccer team played in the first of a series of three weekend tournaments a week ago. In order to progress to the next weekend, her team had to win their group of 4. I wrote the details of their weekend in my previous post. Suffice to say, they didn’t win.

My sweet girl met me after the game and promptly burst into tears. As I hugged her, she cried about how she had played poorly (not true) and how this meant they were out. I tried to remind her that everyone makes mistakes, it was a team effort, they played well, but she was, in a word, inconsolable.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed that both her coaches had stopped and turned back, as had her teammates. Soon, one of her coaches stepped in to take her from me. He pulled her in for a hug and talked quietly to her for the next few minutes, telling her, “It’s good that you are sad. It means you love it, it’s important to you. That makes you play hard.” When he was done, her team gathered around her for a huge group hug.

Meanwhile, one of the girls who plays goalie on her high school team happened to be watching the game because she’d played earlier. When I told her Megan was disappointed with how she’d played, she asked if it would be ok if she talked to her for a minute. After her team dispersed, Sarah stepped in and encouraged Megan as well.

Watching it all, I was so grateful for the loss.

Sure, it was painful to watch her be sad. We were all disappointed – they’re a good team and could have continued. But in the world of youth sports where there is often so much criticism and pressure on kids, to see our daughter loved so well by her coaches and teammates, was a rare gift.

Sometimes the best memories are formed when someone loves us well in a hard place. I’m so thankful our daughter has one of those because of this team.

Promises to My Children

Freedom – guest post at Mudroom

Post author:Gina B
Post published:November 25, 2015
Post category:faith identity loved

It was in that Bible study that I realized I was not free.

We were eight couples, all of us fresh into our time as expats in Singapore, struggling to find our footing in what we jokingly called “Fantasy Island.” That group was a lifeline in the midst of our turbulent transition to a new country, yet I often walked away from times with them feeling insecure and unsettled. Why?

Read the rest of the story at The Mudroom blog, where I’m guest posting this week.

Either/Or Thinking in a Both/And World

Post author:Gina B
Post published:September 4, 2015
Post category:culture grace loved

Either/Or Thinking in a Both/And World

Our daughter loved watching Once Upon a Time, a wonderful show about fairy tale characters stuck in our world. She often asked me, “Is he a good guy, or a bad guy?” She wanted to know, to be sure who to like or dislike.

I had watched further than her, so I knew – those characters surprise. They weren’t as clear-cut as we imagine. I had to keep telling her, (and I’m thankful that the characters evolved to prove my point) that people aren’t good or bad. Maybe the evil queen can love. Captain Hook can be sacrificial. Snow White can make poor choices.

Sometimes issues and people aren’t either/or.

But the thing is, we want them to be. Gravitating toward black and white thinking is easier because then we feel solid. We know where we stand. Drawing lines tells us who to include, who to ignore. We know where to put our energy into defending a stance. It feels safe. We think we’re winning.

It all feels sometimes like a giant game of tug of war. This side is right. No, this one is. Either you stand with me or you stand against me. There is no middle ground. Either my side is true, or yours is.

From a Christian standpoint, this feels right. Truth isn’t relative, is it?

The problem is that we draw the circle of absolutes much larger than God does.

We label people in a way He won’t. Jesus spent the most time with people our society would call “bad.” He called out the “good” people on their hidden sin. He doesn’t categorize us in black and white terms; he sees us for the glorious messes we are, the contradictions of our hearts. Jesus sees the both/and in us.

It’s challenging for us to hold those contradictions.

Easier to pretend some of them aren’t true. We write some people off because they are not worth our attention, time, compassion. They are either heroes or villains, either good or bad.

But to be both/and people means we need to open our hearts wider. We need to sit in peoples’ stories so we can know the white police officer who is just doing the best he can, and the black man who is tired of people assuming he just doesn’t respect authority.

We can ache for unborn babies at the same time that we are shocked by the ruthless killing of animals.

While we recognize that our systems are in need of reform, our hearts still break for the desperate who try to cross borders.

We can disagree with leaders and not vilify them. When we see people living “other” than us we know that we can still be “and.”

Let’s stop being either/or people in a both/and world. Drawing lines, taking sides-these keep us from moving toward one another with the gospel.

Let us be like Jesus, who sits with people in their contradictions, the mess, the ache of the world and its fallenness, and He loves. The good news is this – He cares about all of it. We can too.

Free to Be Me: Guest Post on Mudroom

Post author:Gina B
Post published:August 21, 2015
Post category:identity loved

I deeply desire to be an authentic person. I want to be someone others see as real, and who invites others to be their real selves too. Too often, though, my authenticity looks like what Don Miller describes in Scary Close, “I’m the kind of person who wants to present my most honest, authentic self to the world—so I hide backstage and rehearse honest and authentic lines until the curtain opens.”

This week, I have the great privilege of guest posting on Mudroom, “a place for the stories emerging in the midst of our mess.” The paragraph above is an excerpt from my post. Read it in full here!

The Soul Needs Gentleness

Post author:Gina B
Post published:February 19, 2015
Post category:grace loved

I have been accused, more than once in my life, of being “too hard on myself.” I will not deny this. However, speaking on behalf of all the people in the world who tend to be hard on themselves, it isn’t helpful. What we generally hear when people say that is, “You’re too hard on yourself. You shouldn’t be too hard on yourself. Stop doing that,” which we will add to the long list of activities we are already should-ing ourselves about.

I know, it’s messed up.

I can be hard on my soul. And while pushing myself might help me accomplish more, it’s not life-giving.

My soul needs gentleness.

This is what God has been whispering to me the last few weeks, “Be gentle with yourself” and I say, “that sound like a great idea, God. What does that look like?”

Being gentle with my soul looks like grace. It looks like taking a deep breath and enjoying the moment. It looks like letting go of the should’s and ought’s and could have’s. It looks like smiling at the mistakes and moving on. It looks like compassion for ourselves.

This week, for me, it’s looked like seeing the to do list still undone at the end of the day and saying, “It’s ok.” It’s looked like turning around and apologizing for a quick word and forgiving myself in the process. It’s looked like saying, “You’re enough.”

So what could you say that would be helpful to the “too hard” crowd? Maybe the question, “I wonder what it would look like for you to be gentle with yourself right now?” However you say it, do it gently. Our souls need it.

What does gentle look like for you?

The Soul Needs to Be Seen

Post author:Gina B
Post published:January 14, 2015
Post category:identity loved word of the year

The Soul Needs to Be Seen

One comment was all it took, “And underneath, I hear the emotion.”

My soul was seen.

It was an astute observation from a teammate, summarizing what I shared with our team about my experiences in 2014. He’s a tender-hearted guy, this one, and he always manages to look underneath the surface.

I teared up in response (I tear up at car commercials and national cheerleading competitions and – oh, you name it, I get verklempt). My emotions kept bubbling to the surface as we went around the room and others shared how they heard me too. Just when I thought maybe I had it together I leaked again.

Being seen like that is unnerving. I felt exposed. Undone. But the tears were happy ones. They were “you see me” tears.

It’s a powerful thing, for a soul to be seen.

Our souls are the truest parts of us. They long to be seen. We want people to know who we really are, but so often we hide behind masks and false selves that we feel are more acceptable to the world. We aren’t invited to share from the deeper, truer places in ourselves.

There’s no space. No time. But sometimes, the soul makes itself known. If we’re fortunate the person who witnesses it says, “I see who you are, and I welcome it.” And our souls are blessed.

I don’t feel that as often as I need. In the busyness of being a mama, it’s easy to miss those places where I could be seen by others. It takes intentionality of time and vulnerability – hard to find in carpool pass offs and hallway greetings and church meet and greets. This time with our team reminded me how important it is to seek out time with the dear people in our lives who see, hear, understand, know, and love us.

In Genesis 16, we find one is my favorite names for God. Sarai and Abram send Hagar away. God meets her there in her sadness and pain, and blesses her. “So she called the name of the Lord who spoke to her, “You are a God of seeing,” for she said, “Truly here I have seen him who looks after me.” Therefore the well was called Beer-lahai-roi (which means “well of the Living One who sees me”). He is El Roi, the God who sees our souls.

It does our souls good to be seen – by God and by others. In the absence of the times when we can be with others who see our souls, we remember there is always One who does. Be refreshed at the well of the Living One who sees us.

Who sees your soul?

Talking to Myself

Post author:Gina B
Post published:October 1, 2013
Post category:31 Days of Victory identity loved truth

Ok, here goes. I can tell already that this is going to be a good challenge for me, if for no other reason than that it makes me think about it all day. This detracts from me thinking about other, less important things, like where I could find some chocolate or whether or not my hair is behaving.

I also have the feeling though that the things I will be led to call victories will require a higher degree of transparency than I might typically want to display on a regular basis. Yikes!

Take today, for example. This morning, my husband and I were asked to share for a few minutes at the day of prayer about faith. I’d been thinking about what to say for a few days and felt confident of what I should say. In the few minutes before we were going to speak, though, I started getting nervous.

So I asked myself why I would be anxious, and the answer is: this was one of the first times I was speaking to these people. I wanted them to like me. No, if I’m honest it’s more than that – I wanted them to think well of me and be impacted by what I said. I wanted them to be impressed, to find me valuable.

When I realize things like that, I can get discouraged. I don’t like that I care so much about what others think, about the image I portray. But I’m learning to take those desires at face value and say, “I get why you feel that way, but Gina, it doesn’t matter what people think. What matters is that you say what God has put on your heart. He has already established your value. This changes nothing.”

So I had that little internal pep talk with myself, right there in the second row, took a deep breath, and relaxed. And right there, that’s what I’m calling victory.

What can you call victory today?

Loving Me Through Her

Post author:Gina B
Post published:September 25, 2013
Post category:loved

One of the things that brings me the greatest joy is to hear my children talking to my sister. When they talk with her, they sweetly ask questions and patiently listen to her stories. They treat her with compassion. They make her feel loved. It’s like a balm to my soul.

Why? Because my sister is mentally impaired. Growing up with an older sister who is impaired, I had an acute radar for how other people responded to her. I vetted every friend who came over, watching to see if they would treat her normally. I eyed strangers in public, ready to give them the stink eye if they so much as smirked at her. You don’t want to be on the receiving end of my stink eye.

While my parents have encouraged her as much as possible to live an independent life, she will always needs others’ help and support. She is a perpetual child in an adult body; trusting, simple, open. She needs others to stand with her, to listen to her, to guide her, to do for her what she cannot do for herself.

As adults, I’m not as worried about her as I was as a child, but I still find myself wanting to shelter her. Last October, we needed to vote early, so I picked her up on Halloween. She came out of her house wearing a pink princess costume with a silver crown. I paused for a minute and then thought, “Ok, let’s go with it.” Of course we got stares and questioning looks at the voting booths. Part of me felt the need to justify why a 42 year old woman was wearing a princess costume, but another part of me wanted everyone to just act like it was the most normal thing in the world. Actually, I wanted more than that. I wanted people to feel the way I felt about her – that they would think that it was awesome that she was wearing exactly what made her happy on a holiday.

I wanted them to see her as the gift she is; a precious, God-given gift. My sister loves purely and wholeheartedly. She delights in little things. She loves to be part of everything. She trusts. She accepts. She gives me opportunities to grow in being compassionate, patient, gentle, loving, protective of the weak, accepting of the different.

And that’s why it’s such a blessing when others step in and love her alongside me. It says, “I see that she is precious too. I will stand with you in loving her.” It says we are not alone, that others will be the protectors, the helpers, the givers. They will recognize the value in her.

So if you know someone who is impaired in some way, know that taking the time to love them isn’t just a gift to them. It’s a gift to those who love them as well. Thank you.