Pensive Procrastination

The idea of trust in God has continually been on my mind recently. The realization that there can be an incredible amount of peace that will consume my life if I can trust that God is good, that He will work in the ways that are in line with who He has shown himself to be throughout my life and throughout history. I am inconsistent with my devotional readings, however, whenever I have picked it up recently they have been talking about trust, specifically trusting God with my children.  However, some of them have just reminded me of the importance of trusting that the Holy Spirit can and will work in the lives of those I love. There was one from May 27th (the devotional is by Nancy Guthrie and it's called The One Year Praying Through the Bible For Your Kids) and this is what I underlined, "We are never meant to be the Holy Spirit to them. In fact, we can't be. Instead we are meant to trust that the Holy Spirit will do his work of comforting, convicting, teaching and guiding

 Man, the levels of sleep deprivation we have experienced with our youngest has been just brutal. Every little milestone we hit we think, "Maybe this will be when she starts to sleep better? Maybe now she won't be awake multiple times a night or for hours in the middle of the night." And according to most recent research we're doing everything "spot on" so it can be incredibly frustrating to yet again hear her little voice call out at 11:00, 2:00am, 2:15am, 2:30am and 5:30am.  I started this post yesterday while in the pit of sleepless despair and wasn't able to finish it due to the lack of thinking that felt possible for me to have. This will be a bit of an all over post today but I'm hoping in the end to hit cohesive takeaway.  One thing that I have found consistently over the past...7 years (?) is that as soon as I sit down to start writing more consistently something comes up that kind of causes a wrench in that plan. After our eldest was born an

 Rob (my husband) and I have recently been watching (very slowly) through the Harry Potter series. While watching the 5th movie (Hrry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince) I found myself continually saying, " I feel like this is very different from the books..." So, after finishing the movie I picked up the book. I was right- a lot is different but that's not my purpose in writing today.  As I was reading I was reminded of something that's been impressed on me before and that's how powerfully fiction can speak truth about sometimes complicated human experiences. There are studies (like this one) that show that reading fiction can increase readers empathy when they have some sort of "emotional transportation" or connection to the story they are reading. Which, I think, is pretty awesome.  Near the end of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (in the books) there is a scene near the end just after the funeral of their beloved headmaster where Harry informs h

As the day of my birth arrives I've been having some conversations around goals for my next year of life as well as just reflections on life so far. I'm still young, a spring chicken in some ways, I like to think.  I've been reflecting on the fact that I'm not particularly career driven. This feels like a shameful fact to admit. Don't get me wrong...I love my work and I seek to do it well. It is an incredible honour and privilege to do the work that I do. It is more rewarding, humbling and inspiring than I ever could have predicted. I cannot picture myself doing anything else.  But in that I'm not focused on basing my success on my career success. I have written and deleted so many sentence in an attempt to explain this and I now think I understand why my husband hates so much to fill out random personality tests I excitedly present to him. There are just too many variables to explain. Would I pick a seminar on a topic on something that would be useful to my wor

Shout out to Jen for being my first sounding board for this poem. Love you, friend! Loneliness It sounds bad, doesn't it? Disconnected and isolated. But I think back To times I was most lonely And that was where I was met  Most. Where I felt God see me And know me And love me Most deeply. And while I was still alone And deeply felt that loneliness I also felt so seen And accepted  And loved. My sadness was not gone My desire for Connection Relationship Community Did not disappear  But It became bearable It became Enriching Life Giving Rewarding And full of growth.

If I were to begin writing again,  where would I start? Have I lost the power to use my words- To use my words to craft pictures, feelings, senses? I question A lot. Is what I have to say important? Unique?  Worth writing down? There is doubt- Doubt that I have anything to add  to an oversaturated  world of words. But then… I love it. There’s healing in words In sharing a thought Expressing a feeling And having it be seen And felt And shared. It connects Me to others  And others to me. And that is what I love That is why I write. To connect To communicate To share. To remind me, you, us That we Are not alone.

Well, so it begins again. I have a desire to write and some time to do it. Unfortunately, these two do not seem to coexist for a very long time together so I'm just going to take it while I can and not set any unrealistic expectations for how long it will continue.  A few months ago when I was walking through the forest with my kids I had a thought that kind of tickled that writer part of my brain. I wanted to sit with it but never really had a chance to sit with it and let the thought grow. I find that this is the hardest part about writing with children around- it is rarely quiet and, unfortunately for me, that is a key part of what I need to be follow a thought through to "completion" (or at the very least communication).  I listened to this podcast recently (called Let's Make a Rom-Com) and the one thing that they did in it was write something called "vomit drafts" where they took an idea and just wrote it out. They weren't attempting to make it good