Month: May 2016

The Writer’s Burden

Blog_ValleyIt’s hard to write when the heart is heavy. Hard, but therapeutic. There’s something freeing about weaving thoughts into words. I’ve often said I don’t know what I really think about something until I get it down on paper.

And so in the pain and confusion that so often is life, I’m grateful for pens and journals and computer keyboards. Even though I just spent a half hour pouring my heart out on this topic and the computer deleted every last word. Ugh. Admitted, I attempted to strangle my computer after the fact. Not so therapeutic.

Anyhow, I’ve found that writers are called to bear burdens. One is called modern technology, but that’s the least of them. Often, we’re called to walk through valleys long before anyone else gets there—just so they won’t be alone once they do.

When Moses was called to lead a nation of former slaves through the wilderness, he asked for help from a man named Hobab, telling him, “Please do not leave us. You know where to camp in the wilderness, and you can be our eyes.” This man had been through the wilderness, and now his calling would be to help others make their way through.

Every burden we’re called to bear endows us with strength and wisdom to help others when they encounter similar trials. Each of us has been entrusted with a gift of suffering in whatever form it comes, which enables us to lighten the burden for others when they walk under the heaviness of life’s trials.

This is true for everyone, but I find it to be true for writers in particular. Words have the power to free and encourage, strengthen and uplift. If our words are to gain such power, we must go through many difficulties to bring them to birth. In the end, it will be worth it, if even one life is changed as a result.

Photo Credit: Free stock photo: Valley, Mountains, River, Stream – Free Image on …

Weathering the Whethers of Life

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I try not to complain about the weather. Really, I do. But I must admit that where I live, it’s hard to keep a positive outlook. The other day, while walking to work, I had that fleeting thought, “Maybe we should just move somewhere warm and sunny.” I’m sure that’s not a rare thought among those who live in a place where spring temperatures can plummet below zero and above 100 degrees in a matter of hours.

The seasons supposedly turned from winter to spring back in March. Since then, it’s felt like deep midwinter on most days, and the dog days of summer on others. Through it, the refrain of an old poem I once learned comes to mind, “Whether the weather be fine, or whether the weather be not, we’ll weather the weather whatever the weather, whether we like it or not.”

As much as the weather out here tends to frustrate even the most grateful of souls, I know deep down that I wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. I love being where I can watch winter melt into spring, spring burst into summer, summer drift into fall, and fall transform into winter. We Midwesterners get to enjoy the best (and worst!) of every season, and we’re stronger for it.

Life in the land of unchanging seasons would be boring, and I imagine we’d start taking the sun for granted. Not so, here. Never a dull moment in the realm of weather, and we most definitely appreciate our sunny days.

It’s much the same in life. Circumstances pass through our lives like the seasons, breathing hot or cold, rainy or windy, icy or breezy. We see life at its best, and life at its worst, and we’re stronger for it. Hard times till the soils of our hearts, birthing gratitude.

Much as I don’t like change or hardship, I’ve learned to see the beauty in it. Just as there’s beauty and purpose in every season, there’s beauty and purpose for everything that comes to our lives, good or bad. A change in perspective helps us to see through the trying times to the blessings that will come as a result. To embrace the different seasons of life is to cultivate joy.

“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

Photo Credit: Through the Seasons-Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer | Flickr – Photo …

(Not) Photoshopped

Blog_CameraConfession: on multiple occasions I’ve been tempted to ask my tech-savvy husband to photoshop my pictures. And on a couple of occasions, I’ve almost followed through. Though my husband is expert in all things graphic design, I wouldn’t have been happy with the results save for the red-eye removal. I’d rather be real than photoshopped.

Still, I hate having my picture taken and only do it now to preserve memories for my children. My sister was always the photogenic one, with the perfect smile. It takes about a hundred shots for me to take a decent picture, and even then I only like the ones where my super-cute kids draw attention away from me.

Even now the only profile pictures I use consist of me and my kids. My preferred gravatar shows only my face, but if there were space to pan out you’d see that I’m holding my daughter. The day my husband took the picture, we’d gone to take some professional family photos with my in-laws. None of the professional pictures turned out, but the one my husband took is among the few photos I like of me because it captures a moment of genuine contentment and joy—not fake and forced as in a photo shoot.

Maybe my aversion to selfies is a result of pride, not wanting my flaws on permanent display in photo format. Or maybe I only like the ones with my kids because I’m most relaxed and real when with them. In those pictures, I’m laughing, joyful, genuine, not posed. They make me feel beautiful.

Yes, I’m content with how God made me. But I realize it’s who he’s made me that determines beauty. As the Bible says, beauty doesn’t come from external things, as the world would have us believe. It comes from the heart. My children make me feel beautiful because I know I’ve sacrificed for them, and would give my life for them if needed. They’ve seen me at my best and at my worst, and they love me still. They’ve seen me in my most real, most raw moments—unphotoshopped, and somehow find the beauty in it. And that’s how God sees me, too, because he looks beyond the surface and into my heart.

Photo Credit: Free stock photos of analog camera · Pexels

A Different Kind of Beautiful

Blog_TiaraPearlThe other morning my son woke me up by holding my face in his chubby little hands and whispering in my ear, “Mommy, you’re beeeeyoutiful. You’re my most beeeeyoutiful Mommy.” I was ready to give him the world if he so desired, when he went on to say, “Your hair is messy. It needs a brush. And so do your teeth.” Three-year olds. They can be heavenly sweet and brutally honest, and it only makes you love them all the more.

As we enjoyed some precious cuddle-time, I vaguely wondered if his latter comments about my messy hair and other maladies negated his initial compliment. And that’s when I realized. Children operate on a whole different standard of beauty.

We grow up in a world saturated with impossibly-perfect super model standards. Photoshopped, of course. The media convinces us we’re less-than-worthy if we don’t measure up to its definition of beauty. We can’t even pass through the check-out lane without a barrage of images staring us down, telling us we’re not enough. And all this right next to the 700-calorie candy bar display.

Yet in the midst of it all, my son sees his haphazard-haired Mommy-without-make-up and says, “you’re beeeeyoutiful.” It’s not that he ignores my imperfections. Instead, he sees me in all my imperfect glory and knows that beyond it all is a heart full of love for him.

Maybe that’s why the Bible says we should all be more like children. Not childish, of course, but childlike. They see from a higher perspective than we who tower over them in stature. I believe they see from God’s perspective…God, who “does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

Photo Credit: Tiara | Flickr – Photo Sharing!

Embracing Change

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If we can look beyond the moment of change to the ultimate outcome, we may more readily embrace it. Faith enables us to see change as a seed, piercing the ground and transforming the soil. Our response is to patiently wait, knowing the seed will transform into something beautiful in its time.

Source: Embracing Change