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Faith and all the wonder and terror of it. Not so much anchored…more tied to a kite or a wild and friendly dolphin.

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Advent Stories: Hookers, Heathens, and Me

Posted by Nicole on December 18, 2013

One week til Christmas. One week til we celebrate God being with us.  

For some people, their lives are so full of family and friends, hot chocolate and Christmas Lights, that the darkness is just a shadow in the corner or a fading streetlight down the road.  For others, this is a time where the darkness threatens to swallow them whole.

Light flaunts its warm power in the life of one and barely flicks the skin of another covered instead in cold, dark loneliness. 

Advent is the waiting. The waiting 100s of years for God to come and make things right. Waiting generations for triumph and light and love to flood the world.  Waiting for God to be with us – really with us. We need God with us.  God, who says He is Light and Love, and yet seems to leave us lonely and scared in dark places. 

God, are you avoiding me?
    Where are you when I need you? Psalm 10:1-2

 

Advent is the waiting. We have no choice. Reminded of our powerlessness against the speed of time, we wait.  We cannot save ourselves or our friends from the pain of waiting on God to BE WITH US. 

With Christmas comes the promise of a future where we are whole and full. Christmas is the promise that while the pain is still here, God is doing a new thing. He came down to sit in the dark with us.  

And this is what He also asked us to do for each other too. While we wait, we wait together.  I will wait with you. 

The light breaks through dark’s hard shell at the exact points we meet each other.  At the loving touch of a friend, a spark ignites. 

The spark that says we are going to make it. 

Every day this week, I will be posting a story or an essay on advent and waiting and God with us. 

Today’s first story is written by Melissa Hawks.  A friend I met through adventure and spontaneity. She knows how to tell a story and she knows how to find God in the dark.

This is a story of sitting in the dark and waiting together – seeing the sparks of God’s great love in our small acts of faith. 

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Hookers, Heathens, and Me by Melissa Hawks 

I left early that dark morning, stopping to get gas on my way. It was freezing and rainy as I stood next to the gas pump, tears threatening to spill over and mix with the drizzle. Standing on tiptoe to keep my too long yoga pants from soaking in the puddles, I was so lost in my own painful thoughts I almost didn’t hear her.

I was jerked from my inner turmoil when an “Excuse me,” escaped her chattering teeth. She was beautiful and had a black eye. A leopard print chiffon shirt bared her stomach, a tiny skirt, and platform heels to rival the ones I tend to wear covered the rest of her. Her blonde fro curled wildly in all directions and her eye make-up was smeared from tears she had cried. At the moment, mine was a mirror image.

“Can I pay you $10 to give me a ride to my car in the parking garage over there? I just got beat up really bad by the last guy I was with. I don’t mind riding in the backseat.” The pain in her eyes.

“Get in the car, girl, and don’t worry about paying me. A girl’s got to help a girl out.” I didn’t really put any thought into it. She was shivering and in pain. “Of course, I’ll drive you. And no, you’re not sitting in the backseat. Get up here in front.” I tossed my bags in the backseat and made room for her.

She climbed up into my Jeep and began to cry. “This man. He just started slamming my head into the TV. Why am I still here? Why am I still doing this? I need to go home. Back to San Jose.”

I was empty. Beyond empty. I was at the bottom of the pit called empty, broken open. All I could offer was this “Our choices, baby, we make them all by ourselves and we have to remember we are in control of our destiny. We have to choose better.”

Sitting in my car with a prostitute/hooker/call girl who had just been beaten up by a john, I’ve never felt more broken. There were no words to her about God. There was just an understanding about her brokenness because I was experiencing it myself.

I think that’s what love does in the face of broken. It doesn’t look away. It holds the face of pain in its hands and says “you’re not too much for me.”

She must have seen that deep pain in me too, because right before climbing out of the car she leaned over. In a cloud of perfume she hugged me and kissed my cheek. “We’re gonna make it, girl. We’re gonna be okay,” she whispered in my ear.

Some days we can only make one good choice in the midst of a dozen awful ones. Some days we can’t rescue someone else. Some days we can not even rescue ourselves. Instead redemption comes from the most unlikely of sources.

No promises that we’ll be unscathed or that we’ll come out whole on the other side. No false illusion covering the a fact that it’s a brutal and ugly process. Not even a pledge of some small beauty that awaits at the end.  Only one simple truth.

“We’re gonna make it.”

God speaks to me through hookers and heathens. Maybe because I am one.

 

****

Melissa Hawks

Melissa Hawks is a curator of brand and story at Hawks & Rock. She is discovering what it means to write her own story and how God lives in the detours.For her personal brand of awkward, space geekyness, and inspiration follow her @melissahawks account  Branding wisdom can be found at her company’s twitter @hawksandrock and the Hawks & Rock website and blog can be found at hawksandrock.com.

Posted in Free Flying Faith, How Can I Help | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments »

The Crowd in the Bedroom

Posted by Nicole on December 2, 2013

The Love & Making It guest essays are rocking my world. These women have written from their guts, helping us all ask hard questions and enjoy our sexuality with more honesty.  Have you read them all yet? Go here!

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Today’s guest, Tara Owens, is an expert in spiritual direction, sexuality and God.  She lives in the professional and spiritual halls I want to roam.  Her words are smart and insightful. THIS IS HOW YOU MAKE SEX MATTER IN THE BIGGEST WAYS. Beware, you will read them and not realize how deeply they hook into your psyche.  But, do not fear, Tara leads by going first.  

If you want your sex life to be more Godly, let Tara’s words guide you there today.

Love and Making It is a series all about sex and sensuality.  Join us in finding the way back to confident joy in our bodies and in our bedrooms. 

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The Crowd In The Bedroom

By Tara Owens

 

Here’s what I’d been telling myself: I’ve already done this work.

I’d gotten up early, picked up a few friends, and driven two hours north for a day-long workshop on sexuality and desire led by Dr. Dan Allender, a Christian therapist and author. It’s a topic I care deeply about, one I teach and speak about, one I write about often.

And slowly, quietly, I’d gotten more than a little self-righteous about it.

Oh, not publicly. Not in talking with and sitting with those whose stories I tend. Not as I taught, not as I read or wrote.

No, it was worse. I’d been slowly getting more and more self-righteous in my marriage, in my own bedroom.

If you’ve never heard Dan Allender speak or read any of his books, let me compare his workshops to being in the presence of John the Baptist, without the hair shirt. He is intense and brilliant, bent on redemption but unwilling to flinch away from sin, kind and fiery all at the same time, unapologetic in pointing not to himself but to Christ. I’ll be sitting with many things from that workshop for a very long time, statements and questions like:

 

“Dogmatism is the comfortable intellectual framework of self-righteousness.”

“You have to grapple with how stunningly beautiful you are.”

“What do you do to escape the passions of desire God has put in you?”

 “God’s design is for us to be worlds more playful with desire.”

“The result of male and female engaging is art. What is the art that has come of your relationship?”

“Most people’s definition of faithfulness is just boredom.”

 

And that was just the morning session.

It was affirming for me, I’ll admit, to sit and listen to someone who teaches, thinks, counsels in this area. I’ve worked hard to reclaim my own sexual story from the ways the world and the church have both sought to define and name me, claiming my past either as a place of false empowerment or false shame.

Coming to Christ as an adult, I lived out the narratives of my culture that sex was powerful, a means of control or connection. My sexual encounters were attempts at both, and the stories that I’d learned and taught myself about the worth of my body (an object to be used for power and pleasure) drove my actions. Once converted, though, the church’s narratives seemed no less about connection and control than the world’s—my sexual history was something to repent of (hide from) and speak of only with shame.

Thankfully, those narratives satisfied for only a short period of time before I began to question and reject them. Instead, God lead me both gently and intentionally through a process of revealing my own search for Him in my sexual story—those nights with boyfriends (I was a serial monogamist, if nothing else) couldn’t be reduced to “sin”, named as encounters to be ashamed of, they were shot through with a redemptive reaching toward communion, toward intimacy, toward God. As I sought Christ more deeply, I saw in my own story the ways I’d been seeking Him in my sexuality, naming and blessing my desires (both physical and emotional) as good and holy, even if I was reaching into places that could never meet those desires.

My husband and I talked a lot about our sexuality before we married. We spoke candidly about what had worked and what hadn’t in both cultural and church narratives in our lives. We chose for desire over control, for union as a path to holiness, and—as is the way of the Kingdom—it actually worked.

But here’s what happens if you camp only on what’s worked before in a living relationship, without following those quiet (and, let’s face it, easy to ignore) urgings to keep reaching for more redemption. What happened to me was a slow shift from redemption to rules, from vulnerability to certainty, from gratitude to entitlement, from union to selfish isolation. I could be talking about what happens in the sanctuary or what happens during sex, and maybe I’m talking about both.

 

“Self-righteousness is more decadent than the worst sexual sin.”

When Allender said it, I went cold, remembering my self-satisfied thoughts earlier that morning. I’ve already done this work.

Maybe I had.

But I wasn’t doing it any more, and I’d been robbing both my husband and my Jesus because of my own entitlement.

Hear me rightly—I haven’t been cold in the bedroom, nor have I been performing just to make our sexual relationship work. What I haven’t been doing is digging into my own desire for more in my sexual relationship with my husband. I haven’t been asking the questions that lead to hope and healing. I’ve been content with what is, instead of asking what else can been restored and redeemed.

And there’s a lot of what else.

Why? Because there’s still a crowd in our bedroom.

Without leading you down the circuitous road that got me there (that would take another 1,000 words or more), one of the things I realized after spending the day thinking about my own sexual story is that I haven’t really left my mother and father. Neither of us have. Genesis 2:24 gets quoted in some form or fashion during most wedding ceremonies: “That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.” It’s the leave and cleave passage. We nod, we smile, we bless this new union.

But leaving isn’t that easy—and most of us, myself included, haven’t really done it. Not relationally, not emotionally, sometimes even not financially—but most perniciously and most destructively, not sexually.

And I’m excited. Not because I’m suddenly aware of these influences my parents still have on my sexuality and sexual intimacy with my husband, but because seeing them means that both he and I can begin to reach for more. We can ask each other questions about how our parents’ lived sexuality (not their words, we’ve talked endlessly about that) affect our hearts and our bodies even now. What kinds of physical touch (or the lack thereof) sent messages about intimacy and how it was to be expressed? How did our mother’s sexuality (or hatred of it) form us? How was each of our innocence shaped by the way our fathers related physically to our mothers and to other women?

These are the questions of my story, of our story, that tumbled out as I saw the ugliness of my own certainty, my own belief that I knew what the story of my sexuality was got exposed. Stripped of my self-righteousness, I could have pointed and blamed, and boy, was I tempted. But I’d much rather come to my marriage naked, broken, hopeful and reaching than covered, certain, entitled and isolated. I’d much rather reach and wrestle together than grow silent and still.

When I returned home, my husband and I talked over a bottle of wine, and I cried a little. We held hands in the middle of the messiness and risk of it all.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was process, and together we’re naming what went wrong, naming it without shame or hiding, and turning toward the redemptive, playful, glorious hope that in sex and in the Kingdom there will always, always be more for us. More healing, more joy, more play, more desire, more life.

**** 

 

Tara Owens

 

Tara Owens, CSD, is a spiritual director, author and speaker. She accompanies people in their journey with God through Anam Cara Ministries. She’s the Senior Editor of Conversations Journal, a spiritual formation journal founded by Larry Crabb, David Benner and Gary Moon. She’s written a book on spirituality and the body that will be published by InterVarsity Press in late 2014 or early 2015, and she lives in Colorado with her incredible husband, and their rescue dog Hullabaloo. She’s a step-mom and a grandma, a Dr. Who fan, and she would love it if you dropped her an email, tweeted or Facebooked her.

 

Posted in Free Flying Faith, Love and Making It | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments »

3 Things to do to Make Holiday Moments Matter

Posted by Nicole on November 18, 2013

Because, it’s the holidays. Thanksgiving is almost here. Christmas too. And we know who we are…

What I thought would be a short post about the holidays for a link-up with an amazing spiritual leader and director, Tara Owen, has become a mission statement.  I refuse to see failure or stress in moments that I didn’t think worked out “right”.  The wrongness does not make the moments worthless. Only my attitude can make them worth-more or worth-less.  

Keep reading if you want to join me!

Because, it’s the holidays. Thanksgiving is almost here. Christmas too. And we know who we are…

 

We are moment makers.

We plan and we dream. We buy ornaments and the perfect decorations; not from Pottery Barn (ok, maybe one thing), but even better than that. We find each piece of our decor all over the city… some at Michaels, Target, Ikea, save-on-crafts, Hobby Lobby … we arrange, we find, and we organize. We make treats and we pray over them when we remember to take the time. We want to create the perfect Christmas Season full of a love our families and friends and OURSELVES can feel. We want to feel it! We want it to soak into our bones in every possible way.

We light candles to remember the light. I have candles. Oh, I love them so much!** My favorite ones are discontinued. I can’t find them anywhere. And when I burn through the last two I have, there will be no more Christmas or Jesus in the world.

We listen to music, we make smells, we bring out the soft blankets and warm boots. We read scripture. We make lots and lots of plans to see every person possible because we love them and it’s exhausting but we love them so we go again. We find a sweater and put on mascara and we go.

And we go and we go. We create and we create and we go.

 

We are so busy making moments.

Another day goes by and we have the sense that it was good. We flop into bed and mumble, “That was a good day.” Because we think it was good. We hope it was good. Sleep, plan, repeat.

It all seems good, but we can barely remember what we did yesterday… we can barely remember what we did this morning. (Except I know I got Starbucks. I remember that.)

We are so busy making moments that we forget to be IN the moment.

 

****

 

This is where I start to have trouble. This is where I am tempted to tell myself and you
“4 ways to slow down and appreciate the holidays”

 

But it’s just not that easy. I know it because I THINK I am living in the moment. I think I am slowing and appreciating and grabbing all that gratitude out of my pockets and sprinkling it on the world and God and myself. I think I am the gratitude fairy.

But I’ve been the gratitude fairy for a few years now. I don’t think it’s working. I still forget what I did yesterday. I still yell at my kids for grabbing an extra stuffed animal to bring with us on the Santa Train, because “Now we are late and the tickets were very expensive … and that stuffed tiger is really big! You are going to have to carry that the WHOLE time!”

How can I create awesomeness if you won’t cooperate!?

 

I am so busy creating a wonderful, beautiful life for myself and my kids that I forget that life is full of wonder and beauty.

Even in the mistakes and the missed trains.

I am so busy making wonder that I forget to notice the wonder all around me.

Even in the imperfect Christmas lights and burnt cookies.

I am so busy making beauty that I forget to notice the beauty in the moment.

Even in myself and my lumpy sweaters.

 

And even when I do remember to pay attention to all the awesome (actual “awesome”), it is fleeting.

I think that’s one of the hardest things about this time of year as I get older. These months feel shorter and more impermanent. Fleeting.

This is part of why I try to maximize every moment… fill every moment to the brim with all the joy and fun and CHRISTMAS I can carry in my little arms. I want to combat time. Perhaps if I create enough fantastic moments, the feelings will last longer than just December.

But they almost never do. I hate that feeling of December 27, 28th …or January 4, 5th…. as we walk around feeling the magic of Christmas float back out to sea with the tide. Emptier, sadder. “Oh right, this is real life…”

There is an underlying melancholy to Christmas that we all feel in different ways because Christmas is connected to so many ideals and it is so temporary.

Think about some of the best Christmas Songs – especially of the last ten years. There is an ache there. A profound ache for home and permanence and love that does not hurt so much.

We do not have those things, and even when we do, they are so fleeting.

****

 

So, Moment Makers, what are we do to? When the moments keep passing? When the holidays become a pain instead of a joy?  When the lights are not enough to keep the darkness far away? When we feel the impermanence? When the struggle to see the beauty and wonder becomes too much and we snap?

honestly…

We do it anyway. We do it anyway and we do it even more.  

The dark will always be there. It makes the light more beautiful. The pain of impermanence will always be there. It makes each moment matter that much more. Do it anyway. Here’s why: 

 

We don’t yet see things clearly. We’re squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won’t be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright!
We’ll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us,
knowing Him directly just as He knows us!

But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly.
And the best of the three is love.

1 Cor. 13:12-13

And so, there it is:  3 Things to do to Make Holiday Moments Matter:

1. Trust in God. Trust that what you do matters – every ornament and every cookie and every hug. Trust that light wins. Trust that you are seen and loved.

2. Hope unswervingly. Hope that the things we see at this time of year: Wonder, Delight, Love, Joy… even when we most clearly see them, it’s just a hint of the future.  We are peering through a mist. It’ll get even better someday.

3. Love extravagantly. Love in whatever way you know how. Love and love BIG. Create moments. Burn cookies together. Laugh as you watch the train pass by. Love. The moments are only fleeting if they are not made of love.

We make moments out of love and trust that they will last forever.

Love is eternal. Love never dies. Love will last forever. 1 Cor. 13:8

 

… Three core “things to do” when we don’t know what to do.  When we want to make the holidays special and meaningful and yet we struggle.  We focus on “why” we are making moments and let the “what” and “how” be freer and full of whatever comes.

Why?
Because we trust that there is more going on than we can see. Because we have hope in a love that lasts forever. 

Christmas is about “Emmanuel, God with us.” Experiencing God directly is what we are really after. We may not always know it, but that’s what all this moment-making is all about. We want to know God directly, but all we can do is create minutes that give us a glimpse of God – a glimpse of the good in life. If I remember that the reason why I create all these beautiful things and all these wondrous moments is to help myself and my kids see God in everything, then nothing is wasted and nothing is a failure. 

At a party with old friends, God is with us.

At home, cuddled in bed, God is with us.

In the car, stuck in traffic to see Santa, God is with us.

Alone, wondering what to do next, God is with us.

The actual contents of the moment are secondary to seeing God there first.

So rather than trying to fill each moment with activities and stuff, I try to fill each moment with my attention.

See God in it.

Emmanuel. God with us in it all.  This is the holidays.  And rather than being the gratitude fairy, sprinkling thankfulness on everything, I am going to be a tour guide – pointing out the God (good) in every little thing.

God is with us.

So, we make moments. We create and we create and we go.

Knowing that God is with us, means we can create with pleasure and hold it all loosely, Trusting and Hoping that everything we do in Love lasts forever.  The dark will still be there. The fleeting nature of time will still pull on us, but we will keep creating.

Another day will go by and we will have the sense that it was good. We’ll flop into bed and mumble, “That was a good day.” But this time, we will know it was good. We will make moments and be in them.  God is with us. It is all good. Sleep, plan, repeat.

-Nicole

 

Find out more about Tara’s 6 week journey through Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany here!

cominghome_icon1

Posted in Free Flying Faith, Honest Home | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

I am a wife and I am a Jesus Feminist

Posted by Nicole on November 11, 2013

“Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.”

 

I am a wife and I am a Jesus feminist.

In the game we were taught, we had assigned roles.

I am a woman. I am the church.

You are a man. You are Jesus. ???

You get to be Jesus in this story?!

Have you ever played an imaginary game with your kids? Or did you play as different characters when you were a kid? What did you love to play? Were you the hero? Were you the parent in charge of it all? Wasn’t there always one kid who took the best role, the best character, and demanded you be like … the pet… or the baby… or Robin to their Batman?? That just sucked, didn’t it?

If you are a younger sibling, this was probably your life-story for a time. 🙂 Well…

Imagine being a woman in the church.

Imagine being told, from the day you started to form a true identity, that your role is to be the sidekick. Even when you were on fire, you were never the hero. To fulfill someone else’s vision, someone else’s hopes and dreams, someone else’s ambitions… this was your life’s work; not as a choice or a calling, but as an assigned character to play in someone else’s game.

People with a desire to lead need followers. Kingdom builders need servants. If men see themselves as leaders, it is very convenient and logical to have a built-in support staff ready to go; they can even grow their own army from scratch. There is nothing evil in this, this is logical for a leader to believe… and men are told they are leaders, they alone have the vision from God, and they have been assigned subordinates.

The difference and the problem we often forgot is that at the heart of Christianity is the design that all leaders are to be servants. And when I see Jesus, he is being a servant – always. He invites people to join him but never demands.

The issues we have between men and women in the church often come down to a differing picture of who Jesus actually is to us all, the church.

Now, there are amazing theologians talking about men and women and Jesus and the church. I am no theologian. But, I do have as much access to the Spirit of God as anyone else and here’s what I know….

Jesus empowers the church.

Jesus empowers the church. Jesus serves the church with his life. Jesus dies for the church. Jesus invites the church to do the work of His Father. And He does all this with excitement and always at our sides.

Jesus says, YOU go and do. I love you and I support you and I am always with you, now GO and be brave and be bold and tell the world the Good News that everyone has access to God and New Creation has started.

Men, today, did you cheer your wife on to boldness and bravery? Dads, did you encourage your daughter to pursue the dreams God has put in her?  Did you empower her to go after her calling to share Love in the way her gut tells her to?

I never saw Jesus tell the church to stay put so He could go out and do great things. Actually, Jesus did nothing but empower others to do great work and be more fully alive, healed, joyful. It’s embarrassing sometimes just how much Jesus trusts us all. Jesus trusts us to pursue our lives and dreams all in His name. He used all of his strength and power and love to make a way for His church to be free and powerful too.

Every encouragement, every hope and reminder to the church in the New Testament is an encouragement and hope and reminder to you too – regardless of your gender. Our gender does not dictate our level of freedom in Christ. We are all the church. Jesus is the only Jesus.

What if we stopped playing the old version of “Jesus and the church” where men always get to be Jesus and women always have to be the church that silently serves? What if we started playing a new game where we are all the Church living free and brave under the power and wild encouragement of our servant-king, Jesus?  Jesus changes everything. Everything.

We are all the Church. Jesus is the only Jesus.

It makes no difference whether you are a Jew or a Greek, a slave or a freeman, a man or a woman, because in Jesus the Anointed, the Liberating King,
you are all one.  – Galatians 3:28

I am a wife and I am a Jesus Feminist.

Us Again

I am dedicated to making sure the world knows how beautiful the present and future are for everyone, under Jesus. I am dedicated to loving my husband in the way that makes Him more human, more brave, more free, more himself. He is dedicated to doing the same for me.  This does not diminish him, this makes him more of a leader and more of a man after God’s own design.

We can both be heroes. We can both be Batman.

We cannot both be Jesus. Only Jesus is Jesus.

*****

This piece of my story has been written as part of a synchroblog to celebrate the amazing Sarah Bessey’s new book, Jesus Feminist. It’s not what you think. It’s a book about love and hope for all people – even you, even me.

Jesus Feminist

Posted in Free Flying Faith | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Learning New Things

Posted by Nicole on October 21, 2013

Do you hate learning new things in front of people? I do. A lot.

I haven’t learned to ballroom dance because I do not want my husband to see me “learning” to ballroom dance. Until I try in front of him, I can keep the mysterious question going…  “is Nicole an awesome, naturally-gifted ballroom dancer?? Could be!!”

… I am settling for that.

A few years ago, we went on a cruise with a large group of friends. One night, we went to the karaoke bar. Now, I love singing when no one can hear me: loud concerts, the shower, my car. But, singing karaoke in front of people – especially friends with whom I work and will continue to see regularly…? Nope. No way. I actually remember saying the words, “I like what you currently think of me. There’s no way I am messing that up by singing in front of you.”

“I like what you currently think of me.” 

 

I am more comfortable with the
potential of being awesome than living the
struggle of becoming awesome.

*****

Before we get to all the life-lessons I should have learned by now, let’s talk truth for a second:

We are judgmental as people. Every single day, I hear people whisper critiques and make decisions about each other. Oh, he’s not great at this. She’s not ready for that.  I, myself, have seen someone try something and thought, oh. That was not very impressive.

We make decisions and categorize each other’s abilities.  And, then, as opportunities arise – both professionally and personally – we decide who is allowed to participate. Who is good enough?

Entire TV channels are built on this, this “making or not making the cut.”  You mess up once and you are out. Passion doesn’t matter unless you impress us. Perseverance is actually pitiable when you are not really that good.

This system is what makes some of us sing only in the shower and dance only when the door is locked tight.

I am so scared of not being allowed to participate, that I choose not to participate. I opt myself out before anyone else can cut me from the list.

But this hurts and limits me (you too??) in any attempt to reach goals or actually learn the best skills in life – the skills and arts that could free us and make us feel most alive.

I want to stop living in my potential and start training in the actual. Otherwise, I will spend my life dancing behind locked doors and burying my voice in the noise.

Can we each believe that as long as we are trying, we are succeeding?  Is that possible?

Can we find the bravery to stop settling for potential and start grabbing hold of actual?  Can we value the ACTUAL above the POTENTIAL, no matter what the outcome?

*****

Posted in Free Flying Faith, Wonderful Wrestlings | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 3 Comments »

When We Were On Fire

Posted by Nicole on October 17, 2013

If you’ve read this blog since it’s inception, you know I am a woman of open and hopeful and thrashing faith. I believe in a big God who loves each individual… but that belief is a wrestling I do fresh every day. Like Jacob in Genesis, I wrestle and prevail, and like Jacob, I am constantly finding God in new places – finding Him Even Here.  I met Jesus by name in a youth group when I was 14.  This entry is a poetic remembering of that time as part of Addie Zierman’s synchroblog in honor of her beautiful new book:

When We Were On Fire.

 

We ran through fields and over chain-linked fences to escape the hands of the enemy, in practice for the rapture. Dropped off in the middle of the hills and left to find our way back to the school auditorium, we feared Jesus would someday leave us behind because we didn’t truly believe.

*

We sang at the top of our lungs with Joel Weldon at Hume Lake. We sang of love and hope and a Jesus who was everything. We knelt and sang quietly, trying to find the perfect pitch so Jesus would know we were worth loving… and so the boys next to us would too.

*

We piled in vans and went to outdoor festivals to rock for God. When we were on fire, we could do anything for God! We moshed for God. We bought tshirts for God. We floated on crowds who lifted us up on their hands – 1000s of hands lifting us up so we could be closer to God, voices of love and cheering and camaraderie.

*

We held hands and vowed to give our very bodies to God and only God, no matter what it took. And some of us kept our promises to ourselves and to God while some of us made babies… ones we kept and ones we did not.

*

When were were on fire, we shaped our gold into a god in the refining flames – A shape to worship that made sense and we could hold, until, in a fit of tears, we would melt our golden god down; reshaping Him again and again.

*

We will always be grateful for the days we were on fire, to know we can melt, that at one time we were not too cold or too far to be reached by Love – a love bigger than our confusion and much much bigger than our idols.

*

AND to know we can be on fire again, but this time we will keep the doors wide open; avoid the backdraft and explosions that happen when we try to control the fire.

 synchroblog-photohome_uk

Posted in Free Flying Faith | Tagged: , , , , , | 19 Comments »

Courage and a Poem

Posted by Nicole on September 4, 2013

What have you done in your life that took courage?

This is what my boss asked us all in our staff meeting: What have you done that took courage?

Sitting there quietly, hands knitted together, making eye-contact so as not to seem distracted or weak; I let him finish and I listened as my friends and coworkers stood up to speak about skydiving, surviving strokes, having kids, traveling on missions trips, going to college… so many amazing things.

And while I can remember doing individually impressive things that took courage, the truth is… for me…

 

EVERYTHING TAKES COURAGE

Getting out of bed

Answering the phone

Calling AT&T

Singing when you can hear me

Talking to my neighbors

Admitting to really liking something

Going after my dreams

Parenting my girls

Creating from my heart

Everything

Calling AT&T takes as much courage as skydiving, for me.

But now, I have come to a place in life where I realize, I cannot take fear into consideration anymore – at least not anxiety, worry, insecurity. FEAR in it’s purest, most primal force, can save our lives. I am not talking about that kind of fear… I am talking about the insidious kind that takes us captive, binds us, so that we never grow in the direction of the sun.  We bend and warp to it’s controls. We never grow straight and strong. I don’t want that for me and I surely don’t want that for You or my daughters.

So remember today; the day this very scared person told you to be brave. DO IT AFRAID.

So remember today; the day this very courageous person told you to be brave. DO IT AFRAID.

This is why I wrote this poem, “Hello, Monsters”

[youtube id=”QxRi4PSHREI” width=”600″ height=”350″]

 

“Tell fearful souls,
    “Courage! Take heart!
God is here, right here.”

Isaiah 35:3

Posted in Free Flying Faith, How Can I Help, Poetry | Tagged: , , , , | 1 Comment »

Hi Mom!

Posted by Nicole on July 15, 2013

When your mom reads your blog, you realize a few things…

The person with the biggest love and biggest hopes for you is here. She’s reading. She’s cheering. She’s feeling it at levels you don’t even feel it.

She’s a lot like God, my mom. And God is like my mom.

 

See it started when I wrote this piece on beauty.

And then my mom wrote this comment:

“There has always been a beauty about you that is stunning to me, both outside and inside. Your beauty physically is touching precious and great. Your eyes shine such a light. Your skin is like silk and your face brightens a room. And then from the inside your essence takes my breath away. The beauty formed escapes from you and makes everyone around you feel more beautiful, more full of life. I have felt blessed to have been given the gift of your life being, to have seen and known such a touch of pure heaven. And yes your daughter also stuns me at times when I look at her. I think how can someone actually be that beautiful. She has yet to fully know and shine her light, but she is blessed by a beauty that I do not think will ever diminish, only excel. Sometimes it is scary just how beautiful she is, and yet so real and so talented in her expression and the truth of her being. Some of that thanks to you and some thanks to the touch of God.”

THIS.

This is what my mom does for me. She’s a lot like God. And, God is a lot like my mom.

If God is real and cares about us as a parent, then it follows that God loves and hopes and cheers even louder than the best mom on earth.

God goes to the soccer games and spelling bees. God hopes we feed ourselves healthy food. God watches us grow with pride. God reads all our essays and looks over every inch of our finger paintings with patient interest. God sees precious beauty and brilliance in us.  We bring God great joy.

It’s a funny thing to reread “I almost never feel beautiful” knowing that my mom is reading it as well, and knowing her heart for me… how ridiculous a phrase that must be to my mom. It’s like telling her I can’t get my feet to stick to the ground — very clearly to her, gravity and beauty are holding me just right.

Now, I imagine God reading those words as I write them, and knowing God’s heart for me… how ridiculous a phrase that must be to God. It’s like telling him I am floating off the earth. “Gravity refuses to hold me, God!” — very clearly to God, gravity and beauty are holding me just right.

This does not only apply to me, Friend.  You are NOT disqualified from this amazing reality… this TRUE perspective.  You are beautiful… and none of this just beautiful-on-the-Inside crap. You are beautiful on the outside too.

Gravity and beauty are holding you just right.

 

*********

Now, I don’t know your mom. For some of you, just talking about moms is painful.   This is part of why I long so deeply for women to actually like other women. We can be love and hope and encouragement for each other, if we can stop competing and critiquing. We can be God’s tangible love and powerful motherly care.   And this we MUST be for each other, Friends.  I wrote about beauty for the Wild Gosling’s book before I knew what God was doing in my spirit… this Holy Discontent being stirred… this emergency message I must send out for myself and my friends who are going to drown.

It’s an SOS.

We are lost at sea. We gave our compass to a cute boy in 7th grade and we must find our way back to shore using the heavens to guide us.  Somehow we were tricked into believing a loving mom’s opinion didn’t matter as much as that guy in biology. We belittle her truth by mocking and disregarding, “My mom says I’m pretty…”  (read in sarcastic font).  Do not do this any longer. Do not do this to God… “God says I’m pretty…” God’s opinion does not matter less than some confused and distracted man’s opinion of you – or any woman’s either.

Anyone who disagrees with God on this is just wrong.

“You are altogether beautiful, my darling,
beautiful in every way.” Song of Songs 4:7

So, tonight, let these words be to you from God – however you can receive them… I believe there are no mistakes in life and that if your eyes are following these letters on this screen, somehow these words are also meant for you.

“There has always been a beauty about you that is stunning to me, both outside and inside. Your beauty physically is touching precious and great. Your eyes shine such a light. Your skin is like silk and your face brightens a room. And then from the inside your essence takes my breath away. The beauty formed escapes from you and makes everyone around you feel more beautiful, more full of life. I have felt blessed to have been given the gift of your life being, to have seen and known such a touch of pure heaven. … I think how can someone actually be that beautiful. You have yet to fully know and shine your full light, but you are blessed by a beauty that I do not think will ever diminish, only excel. Sometimes it is scary just how beautiful you are, and yet so real and so talented in you expression and the truth of your being.  I love you.”

SOS47 No Flaw

Much love, Beautiful.

 

 

Posted in Beauty SOS47, Free Flying Faith | 4 Comments »

Jealousy Remedy

Posted by Nicole on June 28, 2013

www.ohsheglows.com

www.ohsheglows.com

 

The Interwebs of Jealousy.

The more active you become online the more overwhelming it can become. I look at Pinterest and the world of blogs and it sure seems like there’s a huge movement of women and men taking it upon themselves to be amazing.

Let’s take just one topic, for instance: FOOD

“Talented Girl’s” evening…
Organic, home-grown, or farmers-market-bought produce… fresh salads, home-made salad dressing… and for dessert she grinds up those almonds herself to make that almond butter and drizzle in dark chocolate made from local, small-farm ingredients. Oh, and, side-note, when she purchased the block of chocolate, she also somehow helped save starving children in Guatemala. She took crisp-focus pictures from multiple angles at every step of the process and put it all on Pinterest, Tweeted it, posted it on her Blog, and on Instagram too – ending with a beautiful picture of beautiful kids in a beautiful backyard under homemade bunting.

Oh, the foodporn! Oh, the earth-helping, child-saving glory!!

Delicious. Real food. Made from scratch with no processed ingredients. I am beyond jealous. Not only do I WANT the food in my mouth but I also want to have made it, grown it, taken such pretty pictures of my creation that others pin it repeatedly, and written eloquently about it all so someone else (NOT ME) could be jealous.

 

well…

I guess I could take pictures of the Trader Joe’s Orange Chicken we ate last night. I could take a picture as I pull it out of the TJs freezer it grew in. I could talk about how the cold bag kept my ice cream from melting in the car. I could take extreme close-ups with my phone as I rip open the bag with my bare hands and each little chunk of beige chicken cascades onto the cookie sheet.

I could write about my children and how they most enjoy jumping up and slapping their tiny butts during dinner, rather than posing under homemade chevron-covered flags and bunting…. the four-year-old yelling things like, “Oh, Sexy Boy!!” “Boooty!” (#motheroftheyear)

But, that’s only impressive to a select group of people.

**********

How does a regular person compete with all the genius going on online? Because it is in EVERY area of life. It is organization, business savvy, branding, art, children, spirituality, fitness, and everything else anyone can become a genius at.

Before all of this, we each lived with the nagging thought that we might not be the “best.” I might not be good enough. We had an inkling that there was probably someone smarter and better out there doing what we try to do.

But Now… Now, we can find concrete evidence of our mediocrity within minutes.

Right now, I literally have 10 tabs open in my browser of blogs and things I think are awesome.

Here’s some:

http://sarahbessey.com/

http://squeeinc.com/

http://ohsheglows.com/

http://eloranicole.com/

http://catalogliving.net/

http://www.aholyexperience.com/

http://www.hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/

http://www.sevenly.org

And that’s just to name a few.  I am overwhelmed by the giftedness of the human race. People want to help each other. People write about what matters to them. People create, laugh, eat, strategize, build, write and share. People are amazing, brave & creative.

 

And

I

am

jealous.

Not just a little

a lot.

 

Wrestling with jealousy is like hitting yourself in the face and expecting to feel so much better.

 

I do not feel better. I see your brilliance and I feel small.

So, how do I deal with it?

 

I could drink and laugh and fall asleep… which is tempting but overdone. OR (and this is a challenging OR)

When I fall into this whirlwind of my needs and desire, I could ask them hard questions like I know I should…

 

Why am I jealous? What am I missing or falsely believing…

Because if the things I wrote and created were LIKED by more people, then would I feel like my life was well-spent?

Because I am unsure?

Because I want to make a BIG difference in people’s lives?

Because I hope my life helps people see God?

Because what is the point of working or striving or caring unless it reaches lots of people?

Because there is a heat that drives me to write and create but it’s not the same if no one knows I’m doing it?

Because I want to connect?

 

And now, I must FACE THE FEARS…

The scary things chase me and I run.

Must. Turn around. And face the scary things. Face them down. Call them out of the darkness and into the light.

 

MONSTER: So, what if you write and no one ever cares? If no one reads your writings, was it worth leaving your kids for the evening? … Worth their questions of, “Why can’t you just stay home? Can’t you work next to me here? Don’t leave me!”

When I face a monster, the hero in me must stand up….

HERO:  Listen, can you believe in a God who values the sparrow no human ever sees or cares about? And let it be enough for you?  Can you live your life – passionately and honestly – as an offering to your Creator, no matter who else ever sees?  Can you listen to your passions and act?

 

Can I be God’s sparrow?

Building nests.

Chirping to myself and the air

Flying! A miracle no one may ever see

But a miracle meant for me and my Creator.

 

Flying with my God…

My, God! How I missed it!

I am flying. And I’m missing the miracle. When you are FLYING, who cares if anyone else sees!?!

 

It is incredibly challenging to enjoy the genius of others and still allow our own lives to matter – for a creator and artist, especially. But flying is flying and I cannot let myself or anyone who happens upon this little collection of words to waste another day.  At the end of this era of my life, when I am older and my abilities have changed, I never want to look back and remember how wasted my wings were. 

It all matters. Everything we create, everything we do, every word we say to ourselves and another human being …. the sparrow’s morning flight and mine.

Dear Friend! Whatever is holding you back, the idea that lots of other people are already doing what you might want to be doing… who cares?  No bird sees others up in the sky and thinks, “Oh well, someone got there first.”  Other birds flying do not diminish your own miracle.

If you want to fly, FLY. There is room in the sky.

Fly in the sky

 

-Nicole

For more on motivation, community, inspiration, jealousy, struggles — all the good stuff that goes along with creating and dreaming.
Check out these previous posts…

A Cold Cup of Water

Create for the One

Girl in the Windbox

Posted in Free Flying Faith, How Can I Help | Tagged: , , , | 4 Comments »

Hello, Monster

Posted by Nicole on June 27, 2013

There was a time when my daughter was very scared of monsters. These were nights of 3a room visits and long conversations in the dark. Nights when the blinking light on the smoke detector threatened to eat her in her sleep.

During the day, we could talk openly about her fears and I tried to find humor and perspective for my Dear One. “Face your monsters,” I’d say. “Monsters chase us when we run. But, when you turn to face them, they either run away or they play with you.”

So, one day we tried to look straight at the monsters and get to know them…

 

Wolves

BEING A MONSTER IS LIKE….

E = my daughter’s answers, Age 5
M = My answers, Age unnecessary

E – gobbling up chips really fast

M – knocking down a door when you try to open it.

E – Eating everything around you when you are hungry

M – trying to bounce a basketball and it goes through the floor.

E – Winning every basketball game because people are scared of you.

M – Being scared of the light instead of the dark

E – they like to sleep in your room all night and protect you. In the morning, they are in your room with the lights and blinds off.

M – looking in the mirror and startling yourself

E – being scared of your shadow

M – trying to watch TV but your fingers are too big for the remote control buttons

E – …So he just kicked the TV

M – wanting to make friends but everyone just runs away.

E – eating everything (including the jar) in one bite

M – loving camping and scary stories around a campfire

E – when you sleep in a tent, make sure to bring meat to eat

M – trying not to scare the bears

E – he wants to see wildlife, but he can’t because he’s a monster!

M – what does a monster eat while camping?!

E – Meat.

E – Rock climbing is awesome for a monster

This exercise made us laugh and gave us something funny to remember at bedtime as the lights went out.  Now, three years later, I hear her creating stories full of scary but empathetic monsters just struggling through life like the rest of us.

**********

I think, right now, I am really scared of monsters. But mine don’t come at night, they are here all the time and I just keep running. It’s scary to feel chased; a serious fight-or-flight instinct kicks in. Adrenaline. Fear. I don’t dare stop running or look back. We all know that when you look back, you trip on a tree branch and get eaten. We know. So, just look ahead. And run hard til you get to town.

I’m not following my own advice, though.

Have you ever done that? … Not followed your own advice?

So, today I am vowing to turn around and face my monsters… to name them and examine them.

Hello, Monster, What’s your name?

Loneliness– no one cares
Criticism– if anyone cares, it is only to criticize
Shame– you suck
Disqualification– no more tries allowed
Failure– wasted time and energy

I’m ready to see which ones run away and which ones I will learn to play with.

What about you? What monsters are chasing you?  Are you ready to face them today?

-Nicole

Posted in Free Flying Faith, Honest Home | Tagged: , , , , | 6 Comments »

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