write

life is hard.

it doesn't always feel good and i'm definitely not always happy-clappy.

life sometimes comes hard and fast and at other times more like a slow drip.

i get irritated about my own proclivity of doing whatever to make it my way.

contentment takes its queue from comfort, and anger takes its queue from annoyed.

i wish circumstances didn't dictate my reaction to life. 

a small ridge forms in between my eyes a lot of days.

the lines stay there for awhile to remind me of the gruel of patience.

i complain more than i accept the way things simply are.

it's so hard to loose anger and disappointment at how things aren't. 

yet, it's really actually easier and less exhausting to let things be.

i'd like to be more tolerable that everything is out of my control.

barbed wire juts out from my mouth when i don't get what i want.

there's usually such a bloody mess left in the wake of my selfish impulsiveness.

i've learned what leads me to back to love my own messy self. 

it settles the popcorn in my noggin and gives me permission to be.

it's how i remember i'm human, in my raw and real and free.

i write.

this is my worship.

linking with Lisa-Jo.

how doing really does matter

The past 31 days dared me to feel.

I began willing, though admittedly I was only just so-so on the heat index scale. Tepid-like.

I wanted to feel comfort. Not frazzled or fear-filled.

As it turned out, I was all of this. Someday's hot and other days cold. Often times frazzled (with fear), though everyday found me filled.

A rhythm ensued six days in, a simmer of the steady kind. It wasn't a challenge as much as it was a have to. I was propelled and not by my own "must do". Early on I fought to resist and not long in I literally ached whenever I tried to hold it all back. Because something big happens when you're called.

You can deny it and delay it, but it eventually becomes what it's meant to be. 

Try as I did to keep it tucked in tight, I discovered that the unraveling has always been His will.

As I wondered if my words were sometimes junk, I was met with truth: "Nothing is wasted."

And, "there is no such thing as junk."

Gratefully, God's economy is so different than mine. He is thrifty with each day's willingness and He tells me that all of the words will be purposed in some way and that they're full of possibility and potential.

There were days when I wanted to look the other way, cross my arms, duck and cover, and I often considered just packing it all up. Though there were some days that held a richness, a steady-on kind of peace that came without my own seeking or sweat-palmed trying, they were few and far between.

Fear found me again near the end of these days -- loud and obnoxious as I stared down the gritty, roll-up my sleeves, more than ever need to trust part.

I considered that maybe I actually heard Him wrong. And how dare I even think there might be something with a cover on a shelf someday.

And now the words What If? make me giggle.

We're not done yet. There are no pretty bows or wrapped up words. No agent or editor or publisher. Not yet. Though someday there really truly just might be.

I'm still doubting, though I'm still doing. Because I know that the doing really does matter. It's Holy . . . sacred . . . truly, Real worship.

This has been 31 days of stepping forward -- of pursuing. #ThisIsMyWorship

{31 days} | Stepping Forward :: #bookwrite

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ordinary

I rejected the idea of being like everyone else.

The perspective that people are lazy was what drove me to try harder, always harder. Because it's not enough to just be as you are, you have to be more -- you're never doing/trying enough. This was my assumption about life.

I didn't want to be like everyone else. I thought I wasn't supposed to be.

Ordinary implies to me that there's nothing special or unique about it, but rather it's just like the others.

I believe that I am unique just as much as you are. I see how we each come at life differently and it's okay to be ourselves.

Realizing I am human, though, I can see that there is an ordinariness to me, a normalness I share with others. I am human -- messy and in progress. I share this commonality among others.

And this kind of ordinary is not a bad thing. It keeps my try-hard life quieted, less important than the choosing of rest in the moments of each day.

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The quiet between my posts here are a reflection of the focus on my "semi-biggish project" -- on my worship. These October days are finding me a rhythm I wasn't sure was possible. I'm writing and churning and cranking out this book. Well, I'm stepping and He's leading. It's beautiful and it's hard; especially when I think of the editing and the fears I have associated with them, and especially when I'm tired, or when it's #WeekendWrite and The Boy-Man and I get up together and I've lost my time. And this, up above, how it connects to what I wrote this morning is astounding, miraculous-like -- it just happened without my trying.

This is day 11 of stepping forward -- of pursuing. #ThisIsMyWorship

{31 days} | Stepping Forward :: #bookwrite

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write

It's been four days now and I'm chugging along.

These 31 days aren't a cell to keep me boxed in. They're a rhythm, keeping me close to Him.

It isn't so much the discipline of the doing.

These 31 days are giving me freedom for the telling of a story I am certain now was made for purpose.

I'm flinging the doors open wide and letting people in. 

I'm sharing of a semi-biggish project book I've been working on, more loudly than whisper-thin telling of it.

I'll give color and texture to this writing I'm doing.

Together we'll smell the fresh breeze and see hope splash herself strong.

To do this requires courage that only He can give. He will lead, speak, and guide.

It's a focusing on me and my story, not them and theirs.

All of this doing, I see now, is worship, too.

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This is day 4 of stepping forward -- of pursuing. #ThisIsMyWorship

{31 days} | Stepping Forward :: #bookwrite

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considering

It's sometimes a process to get to a place where we're comfortable with a decision because we know it's inherently right for us.

I used to tell my son: "make good choices today, for you."

Over and over again I would hear those words come out of my mouth and hold my breath, as I knew that I didn't do that. I hoped he would exude more confidence in himself and live with more peace.

We suffocate our very life when we are more concerned about what other people will think. 

We live when we make the choice to honor who we were created to be by considering our own wants and desires . . . when we're kind to ourselves first by giving ourselves permission to first put on our own oxygen mask on and breathe.

This is worship. And this is the semi-biggish project I'm working on.

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This is day 3 of stepping forward -- of pursuing. #ThisIsMyWorship

{31 days} | Stepping Forward :: #bookwrite

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