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Read more about the article Living with a Slow Drain

Living with a Slow Drain

  In so many of my conversations with others, I heard phrases like, "I don't understand why I'm so tired," or "I'm not usually this impatient," or "Why does this seem so much harder?" I have a simple answer: we're not living at full. By that, I mean that there is a slow and constant drain that keeps us from living at a full tank every day. When we lived overseas, we became aware of this dynamic. We likened it to our lives as a bucket of water, the water as our life energy. The challenges of living cross-culturally were not poking huge holes in our buckets that drained us. Then why were we so tired? Because the challenges, while often small, still made holes. They were just little pinprick holes. From those holes, life drained. One pinprick, OK. A few, no big deal. But we had a thousand pinpricks, and that adds up. Living with the on-going challenges of the pandemic is like a thousand pinprick holes in the bucket of our lives. Constantly adjusting to a different way of living is exhausting. No, it's not as big as in the beginning when we were stuck at home. But think of the mental and emotional energy that a series of small events in one day can take: What Drains Us Remembering to bring a mask with you everywhere. Awkward social greetings because you don't know if your friend is OK with physical touch. The isolation of working from home. Being surrounded by family while you're trying to work. The kids need you for their calls. You forgot to mute yourself. Or you forgot to unmute yourself. Hours of trying to read people over zoom. Zoom butt (my husband complains of this daily) You just got exposed to someone with the virus. Watching people argue on social media. You are the one arguing on social media. We don't see eye to eye about the pandemic. We don't see eye to eye about politics. It's unclear where either of us stands on the pandemic or politics so now it's awkward to have a conversation. Another event date that should have happened passes by. And all that on top of normal life events that would be a challenge even without a pandemic. Every day there are a thousand little things that drain us. A thousand ways life is different, not the way we knew, not the way we hope. We could pretend it's fine. Just look on the bright side. Console ourselves with, "Well, it's better than it was." But those thoughts don't fill holes. So what do we do about the drain? We need more filling. So much has drained us this year, and few of us have taken the time we need to refill. It's hard to find the time, honestly, between zoom calls and online learning and navigating new social situations. We can't control the situation we live in, but we can be kind to ourselves by recognizing that…

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Living in Reality

  "You don't get to decide reality. You just get to enter it." That's a phrase a friend of mine shared years ago, and it changed my life. Reality is what is true. It's true whether or not we believe it to be true, whether or not we want it to be true. It just is. How We Respond to Reality I think of this a lot, as I see people choosing the parts of our current reality they want to embrace. Not all of it-just what fits the picture we want to hold onto. Some of us prefer optimism-let's find the silver linings and look on the bright side. There's a benefit to that, but not when it's delusional. Not when it turns a blind eye on the plight of the less fortunate. Some focus on the gravity of the situation, with just cause. We can't look away from the reality of the pain this is causing so many, including ourselves. We can't avoid the hard truths, but in doing so sometimes we miss the good that is happening. Sometimes it's not optimism or pessimism that keeps us from reality. It's just willful ignorance. A stubborn refusal to name what is real. Like an athlete who says, "No, I'm good to play" when they are obviously injured. This reality isn't one that any of us would have chosen, but it what we have. We don't get to decide if we want it, but we do have the opportunity to enter it with Jesus at our side. My friend Iris recently said, "Jesus will not meet us in fantasyland. We meet Jesus at the foot of the cross in reality." Our current reality is rough. Each morning I wake up and wonder if maybe this pandemic is a nightmare we can shake off. We can't. So if we can't shake it off, how do we enter it? How Do We Enter Reality We enter it honestly, confessionally. As with any trial, we are being stirred. This situation shows us where our idols are-where we hold too tightly to comfort, security, control, success, peace. So as we recognize them, we confess them. We agree with God about the hold they have on us. We speak honestly about our emotions. So many are stirred in us in situations like this-anxiety, grief, anger, frustration, discouragement. God wants our unedited hearts. He can handle them. We speak the reality of how we feel, knowing that He will sift through it and bring us to His version of what is happening. We don't pretend that things are better than they are. Nor do we take God out of the equation and predict despair. We look suffering in the face and see God standing with us in it, holding us, comforting us. The more we are willing to enter suffering, the more we can minister to others in it. We enter it knowing that while we are all in this together, we are experiencing different realities.…

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Why We Need Kindness Right Now

  Sometimes as I think about this strange season we're in, and how much longer it's going to be I wonder how we will get through (honestly, it's good they're doing this in stages. We need to be eased into the reality of it). What I keep coming back to is this: we need a lot more kindness. Why We Need Kindness We need to be kind to ourselves, and we need to be kind to others. In stores, online, in zoom calls and on the streets (from a safe social distance, of course). Our world needs more kindness if we're going to get through this well. We need kindness because we've never done this before. And when we do something for the first time, we don't know what we're doing. Which means we'll feel lost and uncomfortable and incompetent. And the last thing we need right then is to put unrealistic expectations on ourselves to know what to do and be able to keep going just as we did before. No, we need someone to be kind to us. We need someone to be patient while we learn this new season. We need kindness because this is scary. And when things are scary we get anxious. That's normal. Some of us are more anxious than others for a lot of really good reasons-our health is poor, or our parents are old, or we have to work in hospitals. Whatever the reason, whether it makes sense to us or not, it's understandable. When someone is scared, it doesn't help to tell them not to be scared. They need empathy. They need someone to listen to their fears and tell them we're with them. We need kindness because it's just too much sometimes. And when it's too much it's not because we're weak or we did it wrong or we stink at this. It's too much because we weren't made to live this way. Adrenaline is only supposed to last us so long-just enough to get away from the danger. We can't get away from this danger. When we hit the wall (and we will) we need to be kind to ourselves about it. We need kindness because this isn't normal. But this is the only normal that we're going to get for a long time, and that's hard. Learning to live with that is discombobulating, which is a fantastic word but something none of us like to feel. We're living with little "t" trauma all the time. A lot of us feel disregulated. Kindness helps get us back to a healthy place. We need kindness because we're sad. The big, obvious losses we're incurring are easy to note, but we tend to ignore the little ones. We did a zoom call the other night with old friends from overseas, and while it was a delight, the fact that they are here in my city and I can't see them grieved me. Those little losses are like pinhole pricks in the…

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Leaning into Mystery

  Last summer at a spiritual retreat, the question was posed, "How do you feel about the idea of mystery?" The woman next to me took the words out of my mouth, "I like the idea of mystery, just not as it applies to me." I'll have what she's having. While there's something about mystery that intrigues and invites us, leaning into mystery can be frightening. It's unknown, unpredictable and uncontrollable. And God is mysterious. Pondering the idea that there is so much about Him that is beyond our comprehension, that He is a being unbound by our limitations, is exciting. It's an invitation to experience awe, wonder, the miraculous. That's what I like about the idea of mystery. It's humbling in a way that frees us. We don't have to know everything-we can trust what is simply beyond us. But leaning into that means letting go of whatever modicum of control we might think we have. It calls us to surrender to something we can't grasp, something greater than we can imagine. We have to submit to a God whose ways are often unpredictable and incomprehensible. We cannot shape Him in our own image anymore. My friend Catherine McNeil, in her new book, All Shall Be Well, says, "We're dying to leave the mystery behind for an idol, to form God, life, and the future into something that makes sense . . . sometimes we just can't handle the wildness of it all." Like I said, less appealing when it applies to my own life. But everything about God screams mystery. He says Himself that His ways and thoughts are so much higher than ours. Would any of us have written the redemption story the way He has? Would we lead people to wander in a desert for 40 years or make predictions of a Messiah 400 years before His birth, or send that promise in the form of an infant? But think of what all that mysterious work has given us. Would I substitute my salvation for a knowable, predictable god who does exactly what I ask? When I balk at mystery, what I think I'm really doing is thinking somehow that my version of the story would be better. It never is. Leaning into mystery is contingent on a dogged faith in the love of God for us. To believe that, as C.S. Lewis said with regard to his Christ figure Aslan, "Of course he isn't safe. But he is good." I can have a safe God or a good one. I will not allow myself to be caught up in mystery if I'm not convinced that the Mystery is relentlessly committed to loving goodness toward me. 2019 was a mysterious year in many ways. I didn't understand what God was doing with my health. I wondered how this book would turn out in the end. We waited on answers to prayer, wondering what on earth He would do. How easy it is to want to grasp…

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Grace for the New Year

  I woke up one morning soon after Christmas break all ambitious for the day (the 5-word title of my biography will read Maybe She Was too Ambitious). I planned a few hours of writing, a few hours of talk planning. But then we had an unexpected doctor visit (all's well, thanks for asking). That's alright, I thought-a little less writing, a little less planning. And then I realized how tired I was. So I decided on a 20-minute nap. 4 times in a row. While I went in and out of sleep, I felt that old nagging friend, Anxiety, whispering, "You're not getting things done," and her companion, Guilt, "some start to the new year. I mean seriously, it's day 3 of being back to productivity." But then, Grace showed up. And Grace said, "Apparently you need sleep. Good thing you've got time next week. It'll be okay. It will happen. One day that doesn't go as planned does not derail your life." It doesn't take long into a new venture for those old voices to start whispering to us. Maybe we bit off more than we can chew. It might be too hard. Do we really need to go to the gym? How important is that habit I wanted to start? Is that dream actually worth pursuing? It's easy to fall into an all or nothing mentality. If I'm not doing it well, maybe it's not worth doing. If I skip a day, fall short, miss an opportunity, maybe I shouldn't have tried in the first place. But that's a life without the voice of Grace. We won't get far into our adventures this year without it. What Grace Says Scripture says the righteous person falls seven times and rises again, but the wicked stumble in times of calamity (Proverbs 24:16). The wise woman hits repeat four times on her alarm and then rises to try again, but the foolish one lets the negative voices tell her she's disqualifying herself. In the pursuit of the goals, habits, and dreams we hope to accomplish this year, we will stumble. Grace is the voice saying, "get back up, you're not done." Grace says one day doesn't take us out. Or a week of days. Or even a month. It says we can still hope, and God doesn't desert, and this is all part of being human. So let's bring Grace along this year in every endeavor. Let it be the voice that speaks loudest in your mind whenever you get sidetracked. Listen to it call you to freedom and rest. May it be the voice that encourages you to keep going. Related posts: Grace for the Less Than Ideal Days Grace Will Take Us Places Hustling Can't

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Speak Your Dream Out Loud

Accountability is a beast, isn't it? I once trained for a 10K, but I didn't tell anyone except my husband. The morning of, I thought, "No one knows I signed up. If I don't go (and my body was telling me that was a good idea) no one would know." But I went. And I ran a pretty good time. When you speak your dreams and goals out loud, then it all matters, doesn't it? And that's exactly why we should do it. When I Learned to Speak My Dream For the last six years, a dream stirred in me. I wanted to write a book. The first couple of years, I wrote by myself in Panera and the public library and Starbucks. Once, a stranger asked me what I was doing. I told him, "I'm a writer." He was incredibly impressed, and I felt like a complete fraud. I don't remember when I first told someone, "I'm writing a book." I do remember that as the years passed, and the book still wasn't finished, and then it wasn't published, I grew sheepish. Ashamed that I had told anyone I was attempting this. Because accountability. I should have kept my mouth shut, right? But no. I'm glad I didn't. Because when we put our dreams out there, they become a little more real. And others rally around us. Or not. But that's irrelevant. Because we are meant to speak our dreams out loud. Why We Should Speak Because this is what I know: when something good stirs in us, it's from God. It's not just a pipe dream-it's the whisper of a calling. It might be more than just an idea; it might be the very thing you're called to do. And when we say it out loud, we honor what He puts in us. It makes us a little braver, or at the very least, slightly less willing to set it aside. And maybe that in itself is bravery. Speaking our dreams awakens hope. It opens our hearts. It makes us stand a little taller, try a little harder, look a little further. Maybe the dream won't come true. Maybe God will transform it into something else. Something better, even. His ways are even higher than ours, so why not start with speaking the dreams He's given us? It's the only way to move toward seeing the bigger things He has in store. Hope is scary. But so is letting it die. People keep asking me what I'm looking forward to in 2019. When I say, "My book getting published" it feels like a surreal, delightful dream come true. I'm so glad I never gave up. And I'm so glad for those who heard my dream and wouldn't let me forget it. It wouldn't have happened if I hadn't spoken it out loud and invited others to encourage my dream. My Challenge to You So dream big this year, friends. Speak your dreams out loud. Anything from, "I'm going to…

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Question the Messages

Years ago, a hair stylist told me that I should always have bangs, and short, blond hair. And I believed her. For years, I obeyed those rules. Whenever the crazy idea entered my head that I stray from them, her authoritative, expert voice rang in my ears, cowing me into submission. I currently have long, brown hair, no bangs. And I like it. Which makes me think, "What else have I taken as truth, and let guide my life, that isn't necessarily true?" Granted, a hairstyle isn't life-altering. But let's dig deeper. What about my 15-year-old self, staring at that friendship break-up note that said I wasn't worth being friends with anymore? Or my college self, feeling the sting of a friend's accusation, "You don't care enough about relationships," (oh yeah? tell that to 15-year-old me). Messages about friendship. Our bodies. Our value. What we can do. What we can't. How far we can go. Not enough. Better to be safe than sorry. Be amazing. You don't fit in. Be indispensable so others love you. Don't rock the boat. Along the way, we get marked with messages. Those messages shape us. They shape how we see ourselves, how we present and protect ourselves. They tell us who we should be, or who we can't be. But those messages don't have to define us. They simply may not be true. So we have to question them. Consider the source. Did they come from someone who was for you? Do they keep you from living freely? Do they stem from patterns over time, or from someone's observation in a moment? Because friends, we are not moments. When we learn to question the messages people give us, we can overcome them. Take a lesson from these fine people: Modeling agencies told Marilyn Monroe she'd be better off as a secretary. Rudyard Kipling was told he didn't know how to use the English language. Thomas Edison's teachers said he was, "Too stupid to learn anything." Walt Disney got fired because he, "lacked imagination and had no good ideas." (that one makes me laugh out loud). Imagine how different those lives would have been if they had carried those messages as truth. Friends, we wouldn't have Disney World. Or light bulbs. Let that sink in. So what messages are you letting shape your life? Question them. And then walk in the truth. Related posts: The Illusion of Having It All Together When Comparison Tell Us Who We Are

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5 Things to Do When Life Is Good

  Recently, my husband and I tried to arrange a night out with some good friends. He suggested staying in, and I replied, "Oh, you know how he is-he'll want to go out instead." And it hit me: I love that I know this person. He's someone I did not know prior to life in Orlando. I love that God has given us not just new, but dear, dear friends. Life feels good right now. Our cups are full. That's more precious after the rough transition we had to Orlando. We have history here, good history. It is a season of joy, a time to revel in the rich harvest of this place God has given us. So the natural question becomes: how can we make the most of this? Because life doesn't stay put for long. God keeps leading us to new seasons, and some of them are tough. Here's what God has been encouraging me to do in this time: 5 things to do when life is good Rest Transition takes a toll. Chances are, it took some climbing to get to this spot. God gives us times when our souls can rest. Take a deep breath and look around. Get to know this new landscape God created. Don't spend energy looking back at what you left, and don't waste it trying to prepare for what might be ahead. Just be all here. Give thanks The practice of gratitude is so essential to navigating transition well. When it's over, it's tempting to forget where all this goodness comes from. Thank God for bringing you to this place and for every little blessing that you see. Celebrate the heck out of it! The other day I made a list of things I'm grateful for, and I felt God's absolute pleasure in giving them to me. It's His joy to bring us to wide open spaces. Realize that fact and respond. Remember others It wasn't long ago that we were the new people, the ones without community or roots. Those people are all around us, hungry for connection. We could be the one to meet their needs. Remember what it felt like to not be in this place, and ask God to lead you to grab others by the hand and walk well with them. We can give them the strength we feel right now. Bear witness When you're in the storm of transition, it's hard to remember that there are places of abundance, solid ground to stand on. Scripture says a good word from a distant land brings hope. We can be that good word to others. Sometimes we're discouraged from sharing about being in places of blessing when others are struggling. But bearing witness is about giving credit to God, and reminding all of us of His goodness. Let it fuel the future  Life changes constantly, and what carries us through is remembering that God is our anchor. Like I said in my New Year's post, we look back so we can look…

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When Your Birthday (or any day) Sucks

Birthdays are supposed to be great. They're supposed to be the days when all your wishes come true. But sometimes, well sometimes they just suck. Our family took a once in a lifetime kind of vacation this summer. On one of the last days, my husband was scrolling through his Facebook feed and said, "Oh hey-it's my birthday." This was news to both of us. Not the most auspicious beginning. The morning was decent-a long walk around the insanely cool, old neighborhood where we were staying, some quiet reading time. Then we set off for London. It kind of went downhill from there. We couldn't find anywhere to eat. We had to keep stopping for the bathroom. Since my husband was the only one registered for the rental car, he had to do all the driving and for crying out loud that country's not made for driving high speeds. Or two lanes at the same time. Plus, left side. And stick shift. I think we all lost years off our lives navigating those roads. Thank God for a diesel engine because where are the gas stations? Four plus hours of this. But we had something to look forward to-seeing the new Spiderman movie at a cool old theater (can we just assume everything I'm talking about is cool and old? This includes my husband, wink). And then . . . We couldn't find parking, because no one actually drives in London. Or rather, they drive but seemingly never park. We finally found a space, begged a parking permit off a local, and made our way to the theater where we discovered we had shown up for a 6:30 showing that was actually at 7:30. Dejected, we headed back to our hostel, which was seemingly 4 miles away yet took us 30 minutes to drive. So, dinner. Dinner at-say it with me-a cool, old pub. But we got a late start and most everything in the little town center near us was closed. We found a place called the Snooty Fox which sounded oh so promising. Ah, but no children under 18. They directed us to a restaurant 10 minutes away. It closed at 9. It was 8:50. Ready to throw in the towel, we found a mini mart where two of us grabbed snacks to eat. In the end, the others got burgers and fries from a sketchy looking pizza joint. And thus ended the lame birthday. Yep, sometimes your birthday sucks. Sometimes you have the highest expectations for the perfect day and it's anything but. It rains on your wedding day. It's 100 degrees at Disney World. You drive 2 hours to take beautiful beach pictures and it's actually super windy and cold (this may or may not be a true story). And you'd think we would be ok with that, but there's something bred into us, woven into the great American dream that "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" means things SHOULD go our way. It's our…

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Where’s Our Hope?

  I've never been an optimist. I don't like to call myself a pessimist, though. I prefer "realist" because it sounds better. Less of a downer. I just don't want to be disappointed. Who does? Yet all the time, in so many ways, we hope. I hope that the light will stay green until I get through it, or there will be good BOGO deals at Publix. I hope that the kids will find something else to do so I can have time to myself, and the key lime pie from last night doesn't show up on my hips. Those aren't so bad. The bar is low. It's when I hunger for deeper things that it can get dangerous. I hope that my husband will always be there for me. I desire deep friendships. I long for our kids to grow up to love Jesus and follow Him. I want my life to impact others in a positive way. I would love to avoid pain. I wish all my prayers would be answered in timely and satisfying ways. That is where hope gets tricky for me because I know the potential for disappointment is so much greater. These are unpredictable, temporal desires, out of my control. My husband travels and leaves me alone.  Friends get busy. Our kids have to choose their own way, and it may not be mine. I am just one person amidst a sea of voices. The path of growth often leads through suffering. God has other ways of answering my prayers. It's tempting to lower my expectations, play it safe, safeguard my heart. That's not where life is though. So do we stop hoping? Or do we fix our hope on something more solid? This spring and summer, I have been camped out in the Psalms. I keep coming across verses about waiting on God, hoping in Him. He doesn't ask us to stop hoping. He just asks us to place it in a different place. We hope not in gifts, but in the Giver. But what does that look like? For me, I'm learning that it means laying all my desire before Him, acknowledging that they are good and God-given desires. And then I have to open my hands and release my expectations on how those desires will be met. I trust that He will satisfy me in His time and His ways. Easier said than done. But when God is the anchor of our hope, we aren't blown about by the winds of disappointment as easily. We believe that He sees our hearts and knows our ways, and if we don't get what we want, there's something better in store. We have Him to come back to, our solid place when we are disappointed. Without this, without Him to go back to, I could easily lose hope. But with Him, I am reminded that hope is good. Hope keeps us expectant. It keeps us looking to Him, believing in His goodness, trusting in His love. Hope keeps our hearts open.…

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