because you should love anyway

I wasn't planning to write this morning, at least not here.  When asked why not by my husband, my response was that I didn't have anything to say.  I don't like to write just to write, like you shouldn't speak just to speak.  If you don't have anything good to say, say nothing at all, right?  In jest, he said, "why don't you cover something simple, like racism and white privilege."  He is very passionate about this topic and I love his desires to research, meet with friends, and have real talk with others on how to bring about seriously needed heart and action changes.  I have many thoughts, future hopes, and frustrations within that topical sphere as well, but he knows covering such subject matter is just not my thing.  I want to dig into the root of a person, the emotional distress and success, the going straight to the heart of an individual.  It's just you and me looking at ourselves and our hearts and seeing and hearing how our inner dispositions can be changed.  That one sheep at a time method can eventually build a herd that can create change together.  I'm honored to be an early stop on the road of a Kingdom changer!

But then my mind wandered to Christmas shopping, which made me think of Cyber Monday, which made me remember a sweatshirt I saw that I really want because of the words on the front.  Words carry weight and alleviate it, and both are needed.  These two, in an instant, did both.  LOVE ANYWAY.

They did both because seeing this phrase pricked my heart of ways I am not loving others well, loving them despite things, loving them Anyway.  It also lightened my heart with the reminder of the way loving another literally lightens you.  It gives you peace and ease to let go of frustration, of the yuck you may be harboring.  Loving anyway takes the pressure away of deciding how to act or be, it lightens your burden when you see there is no decision you have to make, just a truth you have to lean in to.

I am currently rewatching Friends during times when my hands are more needed than my mind.  There are so many favorite quotes that many people who know, like KNOW,  the show can quip back and forth to each other, but there are a few favorites of mine that I do not know if any one else remembers.  One is Phoebe, in frustration, saying "You big, fat did it anyway!"  Even though in context she was referring to something someone did that she asked them not too, it only requires a slight exchange of letters for my heart to take it as a encouraging command instead.  Just big, fat do it anyway.

Before you brush this off as a simplistic view, a few years ago I did a series on learning to love that you can find here.  If you want a more in depth look at what love is, why we can't love on our own, and other angles, please check that out.  I promise it is worth a glance, I personally have to glance back at it often.  For right now, let's just take those two words and live them out, let's Love Anyway, and let's do it for a very simple reason.  God told us to.

Love one another. (1 John 4:7) A new command I give you: love one another.  Just as I have loved you, love one another. (John 13:34)  This is how people will know that we are his disciples, if we love one another.

He tells us to love, period.  He doesn't tell us to love the lovable.  He doesn't tell us to check someones background to make sure they are worthy.  He doesn't tell us to scan a person's clothing choices, skin color, body odor, or bank account.  He doesn't tell us to skip those people he knows we can't stand being around.  He tells us to love, period.

When your child is having a meltdown and all you want to do is scream, Love Anyway.

When your friend is snapping back at you or pushing you away because of a hurt going on in their own life, Love Anyway.

When you see or hear someone say something so opposite of what you think it makes your blood boil, Love Anyway.

When you see a person purposely hurt another, Love (them both) Anyway.

When you see another in need but don't want to leave your cozy, safe bubble, Love Anyway.

When your temptation is to roll your eyes, return a comment with sarcasm, or to talk about another behind their back, Love Anyway.

When your desire is worldly justice instead of Kingdom work, Love Anyway.

When it feels like your life is falling apart and you have no idea what is going to happen in the future, Love Anyway.

When everyone tells you that you do not have to love someone else because what they have done doesn't deserve such a feeling, Love Anyway.

Is your heart starting to write a few of its own?

I want that sweatshirt because like the tattoos on my body so permanently reminding me of other truths, I want that reminder to Love Anyway.  That reminder that it's not that I should do it, but that I am ABLE to do it, because God loves me.

We do not have to be scared or nervous or defeated or sad or angry.  We can just love because it does not matter if that love comes back void or full, all the love we need God fulfills and if we spill all of it out on others He will keep filling us back up.

Not every subject has to be ground breaking.  Not every lesson has to be the first time you have learned it.  The most needed ones are the ones you have heard and learned a thousand times over, but still need again.  Today is one of those days.  A day where I am reminding myself that I need to love anyway and that I will forget so I will need to learn to love anyway again.

Praying you find ways today and forever to Love Anyway, pray for me.

because even though you can't change your past, you can change someone else's future

At writing workshops, one of the most talked about topics is having an ideal reader.  You need to know who you are talking to in your head so that you can get across the information necessary to that person.  One point that is sure to be made is that you should not make yourself your ideal reader.  You must broaden your scope, be a little more general while staying specific, specifically general, so that you reach a wider audience.  Sound confusing? Well it is.  I have never been good at this, which is probably why I am far from a famous writer, but in my opinion, or at least for my personal desires and purposes, I need to be intimately connected to the topic.  Whatever I am saying has to be something I feel or have felt deeply.  Something that I also need to hear.

To me, if sharing advice or encouragement or knowledge or wisdom, if it is not something you do not also need to hear, you have no business saying it, because you have no understanding from which to pull.  My heart needs to comprehend just how much another heart may need the same words, the same lessons.  If that means a smaller audience so be it. If Jesus can leave 99 to go after just 1, then I can too.

The thing is, if it were possible, I would often make my past self the ideal reader.  What would I say, for example, to the five year old girl so very afraid of the dark, the twelve year old who had no clue how to deal with a friend all of a sudden not wanting to be her friend anymore, the sixteen year old who was trying to balance high school and boys and driving a car without getting lost, the nineteen year old who had her heartbroken, the twenty-two year old newlywed with a new job in a new state, the twenty five year old with a baby completely dependent on her, the thirty-one year old who hit a road bump in marriage so hard it could have possibly totaled the whole thing.

We often say, if we could just go back and tell our past self this, this, and this, everything would have turned out differently, but would it have?  Back to the Future is probably not the most intellectual example to throw in here, but in my recollection, going back and making any changes did not seem to help the future out too much.

Changing our past just isn't going to bring sudden happiness and perfection.  While I do not completely agree with Rafiki when he whacks Simba on the head and tells him it doesn't matter, it's in the past, I highly agree with his next statement, "You can't change it, but you can learn from it."  While we learn, we store away those hard fought lessons for a reason that reaches way beyond our own life's peace.  With our life, we have the ability to change another's.

Not everyone has hit the milestones you have, not everyone has gone through the same suffering that you have, and not everyone who has gone through similar sufferings and experiences have made it to the other side of them.   There is always someone farther ahead of you and there is always someone coming up behind.  One of our jobs as believers is to accept those hands that are there to pull us up and also to reach back with our own hands and pull up another.

We can not do anything about what is done because, as they say, it is done, but we can do something about how we use what happened for not only ourselves, but the ones around us.  By living in community, sharing our stories, and saying out loud the things we know we need to hear instead of pretending as if we have it all together, the ones we walk alongside will see, will hear, will have the opportunity to learn without it having to come in the hardest ways.  Like Hamilton told Eliza, if I had to fight a war just to meet you, it would have been worth it.

My birthday is tomorrow.  37 years.  Dang, that seemed so old when I was in elementary school, but seems so young at this very minute, because of all I know I still have to learn.  Regardless, it's been another year of life on earth, another year of making mistakes, another year of successes, another year of growing, another year of seeing how tightly I am held in the hands of my creator and that abiding in Him truly is the best place to be.  In honor of this milestone, privilege, I want to share some of my hardest earned lessons, the things I would love to tell my younger self, but can't.  Instead I share them with you, the things I want someone else to know in hopes they can learn in an easier way.

*  It's ok to be afraid of the dark, it doesn't make you weak.  It most likely means you have an overactive imagination which just happens to be an amazing character quality.

*  Friendships are hard, but they are worth fighting for.  If there is someone you want to remain in your life, take the time to let them know that.  

*Friendships are hard, and sometimes they need to be let go, and it's ok if it still sucks even if it's also a relief. 

*Friendships are hard and sometimes friendships end and neither of you know why or really wanted it to happen, it just happens.

*  Some boys are insane, emotional, and careless with you heart.  Some boys are kind, thoughtful, and careful with your heart.  That second group of boys will still do stupid stuff.

*It's okay to forgive someone for anything. It doesn't mean you'll still be in each other's life.  The forgiveness is more for your heart anyway.

*  Being an introvert is a dang good character quality and never apologize for it.  It just means you were created to serve this world in a different way with a different view.

*  It's always a good idea to have the conversation.  Even if you're nervous, even if you're terrified, even if you will cry the whole time you are talking.  It's better than leaving needed words unsaid.

*  Almost everything is hard the first time you do it, that's why you need to do it a second time and a third and keep going until its easier.  Except if what you are doing is illegal.  Just stop that now.

*  If something comes easy to you that doesn't come easy to others be thankful.  You found one of your gifts.

*  You do not have to prove anything to anyone.  Be confident that you can feel what is best for you.  If you don't want to do something, don't do it.  If you want to do something, keep at it.  Friends will encourage for both sides, non-friends will pressure you on just one.  Stick with the encouragers.

*  If a boy breaks up with you because you get scared at scary movies then he is an idiot and you are better off without him.

*  If there is something nagging you, deep inside, telling you to do something, it doesn't make you feel better to ignore it.  Step out in faith knowing the one who has called you to it is trying to do something beautiful somewhere.

*  Lifting weights is super fun and makes you feel like a super hero.  And even though you know it is super cliche, throwing them down every once in a while is the best feeling!

*  Parenting is all kinds of hard and all kinds of beautiful and all kinds of exhausting and all kinds of sanctifying and pretty much the best thing I have ever been allowed to do.

*  If you're feeling like a hot mess, say you're feeling like a hot mess.  If you're having a crappy day, say you're having a crappy day.  If you are in love with where you are in life, say that you are in love with where you are in life.  Your honesty is sure to help another be honest as well!

*  If one day it feels like life is falling apart, well it might just be, but that doesn't mean it won't get built right back up again, usually in a different and better way.  

*Pivots in life don't mean you chose wrong the first time, it means that part is done and it's time to move on to the next thing.

and lastly,

*THERE IS ALWAYS HOPE!

I would love to hear some of your hard earned lessons, but until then I am praying that you will learn to use them for others and have the opportunity to see how they can change a life, pray for me.

for when you need to know the big picture doesn't matter as much as you think

Our oldest has been introduced to Google Earth and he's obsessed.  I am still not sure if this is a male only obsession or if I'm just a female who happens to not get into it, but either way the introduction came from his daddy who is just as obsessed with it and has been since college.  One day I was walking in our old town main street towing two little boys at the time when the Google car with all it's cameras atop the roof came past us.  One of the two times I have checked Google Earth on my own was sometime after that to see myself on the street.  The other time was in my olden days of being a second grade teacher before smartboards so we all huddled around a desktop to see a visual representation as we were learning the differences between continents, countries, counties, states, and cities.  Every other has been my husband yelling come here and then showing me a view of something somewhere that is obviously amazing enough to interrupt whatever I was doing.

I love this tool and I love his interest.  Watching my boy visually see and seek out places on this earth that are different from his is wonderful for this mama heart.  This quote by Mark Twain is a favorite, "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.  Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime."  Seeking out new places spurs the desire to see new places which opens your heart to learning much about all the people and places God created and placed purposely in this world.  But the best part is not zooming out to see the big picture, it's zooming in to look at the details.

We are often after the big picture of life.  We want to know what's going to happen or why is this happening.  Lord, we pray, just give me a glimpse of the big picture and I promise I'll be able to follow more faithfully.  Truth bomb, it's not really the big picture that we're after, it's the right picture.  We want to see what we want to see.  We want to zoom out in hopes of a glimpse of the finish line, how things will end, we're not really concerned about what it's going to look like on the way.  Confession, if I had been given the gift I so longed for, to see the big picture of my life, I can already tell you I would have planted two feet in the ground as hard as possible and refused to move on.

Seeing the big picture does not matter as much as you think it does, what matters most is the infinite number of little spots that build that picture.  The purposefully, perfectly placed small stories in the middle.  Those are what truly show God's faithfulness. 

In numerous places in the old testament it talks about the Babylonian Captivity, for anyone not familiar to that story this is the jist...Israel was continually ignoring God and was going to be punished by being exiled to Babylon, held captive, taken over by another country and no longer allowed to lead themselves for 70 years.  This got their attention and many wanted to run and hide, but God told them through the prophet Jeremiah that if they would surrender to Babylon they would live, but if they ran and hid they would die.

I say this to explain that the big picture sucked, the big picture was being exiled, away from the country and place you loved, and being ruled by another, but if you get past the big picture and zoom in more and more you can find one person, a man named Daniel.  Daniel is one such perfectly placed spot in the middle of the story.  You see Daniel loved the Lord and God placed him right alongside of the king and used this one person to impact the heart of several rulers who then were able to impact the lives and hearts of their kingdoms with God's Kingdom.

Zooming down through the messy picture of powertrips and war and captivity is a single spot of love and grace working and growing.  Daniel is not the only spot.  Ruth was one in the middle of the time of Judges. One story of one woman, who became great grandmother to King David in the lineage of Christ.  Paul was one in the middle of torturous persecution.  Jesus, the brightest spot, came in the midst of terrible Roman rule to an obscure place in the middle of a tiny insignificant town.  We are each one.  Each of us in the middle of what feels like a mess are a single spot, perfectly placed tangible examples of God's faithfulness to His people and His promises.

Life is ever changing, human leadership is ever changing, we are ever changing while constantly learning, growing, and being made new.  Some days we feel as if we are being held captive in our own Babylon, some days we feel as if we are basking in the sun of the promised land.  Some days two people looking at the same event are feeling both extremes simultaneously.  If given the chance to see the big picture we most assuredly would not look through it with the same eyes God is able to, so instead of worrying about the big picture, focus on the single spot you make in the midst and do that work He has given you well while ever glorifying Him.

Praying today that you not only see the spot you have been placed in, but grow to love the purpose you hold while there and see the beauty that is being made.  Pray for me.