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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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Read more about the article When We Don’t Get Closure

When We Don’t Get Closure

  In February, we finished off our last high school soccer season. We knew each game might be our last, so we tried to take it all in. We took lots of pictures. My parents came. The girls got sweatshirts made to commemorate it. While it was sad to end, we had closure. Closure is important. We teach our ministry staff, when they come back from overseas assignments, to build a RAFT (Reconciliation, Affirmation, Farewell, and Think Destination). In other words, we take a good look around and see what needs healing, celebration, and grief. Then we look ahead with hope to what is coming next. That aspect of Farewells-saying goodbye well to a season, both to people and places, and allowing ourselves to grieve well, is essential. When we know something is going to end, we pay attention. We notice what we've taken for granted. The ordinary suddenly becomes precious and noteworthy. When we are cut off from saying goodbye well, it is difficult to fully engage with hope in the next one. It's so devastating and unnatural when we are denied the opportunity for good closure. This season we're in is full of cut off endings. When We Don't Get Closure When our daughter went to school the Thursday before spring break, we didn't know it was her last day. We had no idea she wouldn't wear her school uniform or drive carpool again. If we had, we would have done it (and the days leading up to it) differently. This spring we all missed so many events, but maybe the most difficult are the lasts that we won't be able to get back. The things we can't reschedule. Watching the last club soccer season. Celebrating the end of a year-long program. Enjoying the last days of work before retirement. A friend moved away and you didn't get to say goodbye. You had to leave your host country and you don't know when (or if) you'll go back. I've wondered why this feels so wrong, this cut-off grief. I wonder if it's because we ache for shalom-the way that things are meant to be. The peace God intended. We bend toward justice and righteousness. It is good to desire what is right, and this just feels wrong. When we work toward healthy closure, it's like a satisfying ending to a book. We are shalom people. We celebrate goodness. Ending in a place of restoration and peace is in our wiring. It's so jarring when we are kept from that. So What Do We Do? I've contemplated what to do about this abrupt grief we feel. We begin by acknowledging the weight of it. It's another part of living in the reality I talked about in my last post. It doesn't feel right because it isn't. Like stopping a race before the finish line, or quitting a book halfway through a chapter, it's unnatural not to finish well. It's been helpful for me to recognize this. It's a particular…

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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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Making Peace With Change Is Here!

  My book is in the world! Here's live video of me this week: https://gph.is/g/ZWm0WXv   This is the book I wish I'd had when I got married, when I moved overseas, when I had my children, when I changed jobs. So that's why I wrote it. I hope this book is a bit fat permission slip to people navigating messy change to admit where they're not ok. I want you to be honest in a way that helps you find the grace you need. Tell us where it's hard, and invite God and others in to help you. Give yourself grace as you rest in what is constant in God and how He sees you. Change may be challenging, but it's also a gift that can transform us. If you haven't bought a copy yet, I hope you will. My deepest prayer is that this book will find the hands of every person who needs it. Like paper missionaries, I want my book to go out and minister to hearts around the world. It's been a long publishing journey, and I'm grateful to get to this place. If you'd like to buy a copy of Making Peace with Change: Navigating Life's Messy Transitions with Honesty and Grace, it's available at Our Daily Bread Publishing, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Christianbook.com.

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Plan to Stay Where God Calls You

  In light of my recent book, Making Peace with Change, I thought it fitting to repost an old article on transition. It's based on thoughts from Jeremiah 29, a passage that has come to be a meaningful one to me when it comes to this topic. If you're new to my blog and you subscribe below, you can get a longer version of my reflections on this passage.   Leaving home is hard. Finding home is harder. We live in southeast Orlando, in one of the fastest-growing neighborhoods in the country. Few of us are "from" here. It's a transient community. Many of us never anticipated living in Florida, of all places. It feels like somewhere between where we were and where we plan to go, not home. We all face the challenge of how to carve out a new life here in this place to which God has called us. Like I said, it's hard to find home. Sometimes, it's because we're looking elsewhere. Maybe we can't settle where we are because we are looking back on the life we had. We miss the community we left, our favorite coffee shop, our old job, or the life we had before kids. Or we peer ahead to what is coming-the season when kids won't be in diapers, or we'll get that better job, when school will be over, or we're finally married. It's hard to dig in right where we are and live it fully. But if we dwell on the past, we won't see what God is doing in the here and now. If we focus on the future, we miss the blessings of today. We will not find home until we plan to stay. In Jeremiah 29:5-7, God told the exiled Israelites, "Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters . . . Increase in number there; do not decrease." Strange words to give to people wholly displaced. The Israelites did not want to stay there. They wanted another, a different life. This season was supposed to be temporary.  The fact is, this world is not our true home and never will be. We are on a journey from where we were when God found us to where He will take us in the end. Where we are now is exactly where He wants us to be. So how do we make it home? Invest where you are God told the Israelites to build homes and settle down. Life is different when you own something. You put in time, money, and energy to make it a place you want to stay. Finding home means living like we aren't renters but owners of this life, however long the season might be. We give fully of ourselves to the people and places in this season God's given us, believing that it is worth this time. Investing is hard because it means we pour pieces of our hearts into this season that…

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His Perfect Timing

  When I learned I was pregnant with our son, it did not feel like the most opportune time to have a child. We were at the first weekend of our training to live cross-culturally. That fall, we were going to move overseas and lead a team of missionaries. I had language learning and cultural adjustment and leadership to do. A baby did not fit into the plan. But the thought occurred to me one day, "What if this kid needs to come into the world at this time instead of when I had planned? And because of that, someday, he's going to be in just the right place at just the right time to do something God wants him to do?" Fast forward 19 years, and I look at my son, who in high school ran for president of his student government with the kid who ended up being just 3 months older than him, the one he grew up with. I think of the people our son knows, whom he has impacted, and I know this: God's timing is perfect. This concern about timing doesn't just crop up in my circumstances. It permeates deeper, to the core of my walk with Him. Recently, I spoke with a group of women I gather with regularly for some good old deep-end-of-the-ocean soul-baring. When we share, it's inevitable one of us sighs with the realization, "I thought I'd learned this already." You know what I'm talking about. It's that realization, "hey, this lesson seems familiar." I thought I was past this. But no, here we are again. Or maybe worse: how am I just now figuring this out? It's tempting to get down on ourselves, to wonder why it's taken us so long to learn something, or to realize what we thought we'd learned didn't sink in deep enough. But I am learning this: we're right on time. "You're right on time." It's a phrase a friend of mine uses to encourage me when I wonder why I'm just now getting this or learning some lesson all over again. This phrase invites grace. It invites us to trust in God's patience, His wisdom, His ways, rather than our own. If God had wanted me here sooner, He would have brought me here sooner. He says it to remind me that God knows the path of growth he has for me, and his timing is impeccable. This is when God chose to bring me to this lesson. Or back to this lesson. Again. He doesn't condemn. He doesn't wonder why we didn't get it sooner. There is a time for everything. God's timing is not ours. Because who knows that you haven't come to this moment for such a time as this? Who knows that you didn't learn this lesson now for a specific reason? Who says there's a timeline we have to follow? If we really believe God numbers our days and knows the plans he has for us, we have…

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Finding God in the Wilderness

  In March, I spoke at a women's conference about finding God in unexpected journeys. I talked about the Israelites as they left Egypt (when a season isn't the good you expected), wandered in the wilderness (when God makes you wait and you don't know why), and experienced the promised land (when life is just the way you want it to be). Last fall, when I was writing these talks, I was living in a pretty good season. I resonated with the promised land experience. And then God invited me back into the wilderness. Suddenly, I need to listen to my own words. Finding Myself in the Wilderness I warned the retreat attendees about this: our real promised land is ahead. God doesn't leave us long in those seasons. He has more for us to learn. Hence, the journey back into the wild. See, for most of 2019 so far, I've experienced bouts of dizziness and headaches that at times have been debilitating. At the least, they are rarely completely gone (thanks for nothing, new year). Finally, after an MRI (thankfully clear) and a trip to the neurologist, I was diagnosed with basilar migraines, a diagnosis that still leaves me skeptical, but at least gives me some direction. It's been a strange season to walk through. It's hard not knowing how I will feel from day to day, how long it will last. I've wondered what He is doing, what He wants to teach me through this. Like the Israelites, once I realized I was back in the wilderness, I started asking God for the shortest way out. Sure, You can teach me something, but could you make it fast? And easy? It's hard to be in a place where we realize we aren't the ones in control. The wilderness is tiring, humbling, and at times confusing. A friend of mine put it recently, "God has you in a fog." Indeed. I don't know about you, but I can't see well in the fog. Yet as I said at the retreat (curse my words coming back to haunt me!) we can find God in the wilderness, no matter how foggy it is. Better yet, He can see through the fog. He knows the way out of this wilderness. So I'm looking for God in all of this. And I'm finding Him. Finding God in the Wilderness He is using this season to slow me down even more (I swear pretty soon I'll be going backward). As much as I hate doing less, He reassures me that it doesn't diminish me. Prayers I have prayed are being answered through this (be careful what you pray for!). In my hardest moments, I have heard His voice speak tenderly and consistently to me words of comfort and invitation. He has felt closer than ever. Friends have stepped in and wrapped my weakness, fears, and grief with love and care, and in the process taught me more how to let others care for me…

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For the Moments When We’re Not Ready

“I’ve been waiting for this moment and now it’s here and I’m not ready.” This is what my daughter said to me the night we sat in our car on a dark street, waiting for another soccer family to pick her up and take her away for a weekend tournament. The weeks ahead of that one moment were marked with anxiety, not knowing the family well, wondering how she would do without me. So often life feels like that. Moments we knew were inevitable, but we just aren't ready for them. I Wasn't Ready Either Back then, I wasn’t ready for our son to drive on his own (could I just always be in the back seat?). I wasn’t ready for colleges to send him invitations (back, vultures, back!). Our kids were gearing up to fly to South Africa (SOUTH AFRICA) without us on a mission trip for 6 weeks. Life just kept coming at us. If I thought I felt unprepared then, how much more now, as those college invites DID come, and he just left? And his sister, who also just got her license, and a job, will follow him before we know it. Life relentlessly marches on, and these moments that feel unbearable keep happening. I Thought I Would Be Ready When they were little, I thought I couldn’t wait for these moments. I couldn’t wait for them to do it on their own. I couldn’t wait for my time back. I couldn’t wait. I’ve been waiting for this moment – the moment when our kids would grow up and stretch out, becoming independent, learning to live without us. And now it’s here, and I’m not ready. But just like I told her at that moment, He is with us. He has brought us to this moment, and He will carry us through. And just like I promised He would be with her in those moments when I wasn’t there, I have to tell myself the same truth – He will be with them when I am not. When we said goodbye to our kids that day at the airport, our friend who accompanied them saw the fear in my eyes for my 14-year-old and gently said, “We’ve got her. She’ll be okay.” And she was. We walked through that, and college applications, and teenage drivers, and we’ll get through this too. He's Always Ready Sometimes we’re just not ready, but He is. From that first day of kindergarten to the last day of the place you love. The first scary step into a new dream, or the death of an old one. The last goodbye. The first anything. [ictt-tweet-inline]He is more than enough for those moments we feel inadequate to face. [/ictt-tweet-inline] The next season that feels so huge, scary, undesirable even, you will get through. So we do it scared. But we never do it alone. "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep…

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We Grieve and Then We Hope

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever find what I have right now again. There’s just so much that’s unknown.” That was our son’s deep cry as we talked one night. He’s slogging through the final weeks of his senior year of high school, staring down freshman year at one of the country’s largest universities. It’s a big transition. His days are consumed with studying for AP tests, shifts at the local grocery store, graduation parties, and college prep. This chapter is closing in a flurry of activity, so much so that finding the emotional space to prepare for the next chapter is difficult. He despairs in the loss, and fears for the future. We all come to places of transition where the temptation is to despair or fear. Instead, we can choose to grieve and hope. Read the rest of the story today at SheLoves magazine.  Related posts: When Grief Surprises You Plan to Stay Where God Calls You Having Hope in a New Season

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When Grief Surprises You

I'm in a season of grief right now. Oh, I'm not sad all the time. It surprises me, actually. It comes in waves, like the ocean. I've become more acquainted with the ocean now that we live 45 minutes from it. I love walking along the beach at sunrise. The waves are so unpredictable. They surprise you sometimes, coming up further than you expect. You can't predict them. Sometimes the water stays far away. Other times it stretches out and touches your feet, even washing up to your ankles if you're close enough. That's my experience of grief. If only it were a linear, predictable process. Hard at first, and then gradually subsiding. Less and less over time, until you don't feel it anymore. A clear timeline with a precise end date. You do your grieving and then you're done, praise Jesus. Instead, grief feels like a stranger popping out from behind doors at the most unexpected times. When we walked onto the stage to stand with our son at graduation, I was surprisingly calm. Later, as one of his good friends stood there with her parents, I lost it. When I have thought about graduation in the past weeks, I have felt more pride than sorrow. Then a week ago I read an email from friends overseas and the tears spilled over at how well they're doing. His graduation party was all joy, then last week I folded one of his never-to-be-worn-again uniform shirts and I broke down. That's the thing with grief-it's all right there, but we can't control or predict it. I'm often frustrated by this unpredictable guest. Probably because it reminds me that I am not always doing as well as I would like (or like others) to think. It keeps me vulnerable, never knowing when a wave of grief might catch me off guard, when I might start crying about some random person's life, when it's really just touching my own. But I've been learning these last few years that grief is a necessary companion. In fact, it is a doorway to wholeheartedness. I know that part of the reason my grief comes out sideways is that I don't want to deal with it. It's easier to stay focused on my to do list, buying dorm essentials and harping on him to finish those thank you notes (I swear, he's working on them), than to let the waves crash so hard I lose my footing. But losing our footing in grief is what we must do sometimes. More and more I am learning to stop and walk straight into the waves. To let myself dwell on what we are losing, and how much it hurts to lose. To say a proper goodbye to this beautiful season we have lived. When I do, I find that those waves don't drown-they heal. And I'm learning that I cannot navigate the waves alone. It's easier to weather waves of grief when there are people walking beside us, holding us…

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