Pensive Procrastination

  Dear brothers and sisters, I implore us to seek unity with one another, just as John encouraged us to do through his letters to the early church. Let us not be pulled apart by disagreements that lead to hate and division. Can we show the world what it looks like to disagree with love? Can we show what it looks like to have differences but be united because we have something so incredible connecting us that we can’t be pulled apart? We all have this one major, amazing, life changing thing in common, not only with each other in the church but with those outside the church. We are loved by God, who provides and cares for us so deeply. Within the church we recognize the need we have for God, not only for salvation but for true and abiding hope, for unshakable peace and unspeakable joy. We know as a church family that the only reason we can stand before a loving, perfect, Holy God is because Christ stands besides us and reminds God that we have been pardoned because of His sacrifice. ...

  Dear brothers and sisters, I write these letters to you because I love you. I don’t want to see you destroyed by hate and pride and isolation. I don’t want to see the church fall apart because we are so focused on ourselves and our comfort that we ignore the pain of others. We’ve stopped looking at others with God’s eyes and instead we’ve begun to label others as “them”. We’ve started to first consider what works best for me, what is comfortable for me and not what Christ considers best. We’ve started to judge first and then, maybe, consider what Christ would have done within the confines of what we want. My generation of believers who grew up in the church was raised with the question, “What would Jesus do?” I fear that as we tossed those bracelets in the trash we also tossed away the question and reflection it brought. Can we say with confidence we respond as a church the way Christ calls us to? Are we reaching out with love and compassion? Sitting down with those cast aside, j...

  Dear brothers and sisters,  I am writing to you from the darkness of my bedroom in the dead of night because my heart aches within me.  I’ve had this song running through my head recently that I learned back in grade three. It goes, “They will know we are Christians by our love, by our love. They will know we are Christians by our love."  I don’t believe this is how Christians are seen anymore which deeply saddens me. When I look at the general state of  North America and the hate that is often spewed and fear that is lobbied like bombs, meant to attack, used to defend, I feel so heavy. I think Christians are known more for our hate- not only for those outside of "us” but for those within "us”.  I think it is truly time for all of us who call ourselves believers and followers of Christ, myself included, to really look at ourselves and look at the Bible. Actually, read for ourselves verses in context, and read to discount our own hypothesis (because this i...

 Hello! Thanks for reading this. I know it's been a while. I'm not the most consistent and steady of bloggers so I appreciate you taking the time to even click the link and pop over to my blog! I'm so glad you're here. Recently, as I've been reading the news and talking with close friends I've had this heaviness weighing on me. It is partly the heaviness that comes with the reality that the world is not as it should be. I think no matter your faith background you could probably agree with me on this point. Another aspect of the heaviness comes as I observe and see Christians within Canada (and much of North America) and the way that we show up in spaces. In reflecting on this I had this song pop up in my head that I had learned in elementary school (I went to a Christian school). That song spun out into more reflection and one night when I was lying in bed, unable to sleep because of the sadness (and to be honest anger), I felt prompted to write a letter to my f...

Disclaimer: This has been written over a period of a few weeks due to school ending and then all three of my kids getting sick one after the other. So, continuity may not be great and I cannot guarantee that all thoughts will flow perfectly.  The other day as I was journalling through the feeling of discomfort coming from not knowing myself as much as I would like to, a feeling of being off balance and a certain measure of anxiety thrown in there it suddenly hit me in the middle of it...God knows. God knows. He knows me so intimately and deeply, none of my insecurities, fears, struggles are a surprise to Him.  I've always loved to know the why. I will happily analyze myself endlessly to discover the why (or at least attempt to)...but sometimes the why can't be known and that is unsettling for me. The unknownness of something is constantly something that can cause me nervousness/anxiety and it's something my clients often share as a source of anxiety for them as well.  I d...

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...

 I have to try really hard not to begin these posts with "so". Apparently, that is my go to starter word...which is odd but true. I skipped yesterday due to the cold that was taking each member of our house captive one by one. Why is it never all at once? Sometimes this feels it would be easier than this long, drawn out affair we have been experiencing. Our youngest has had a fever for the past two days and while at first she handled it like a champ she, like all of us, only had so much to give before she just decided the whole being sick things sucks and is now over it. Anyway, I skipped yesterday and considered skipping today as well but then I felt like I wasn't really challenging myself then. So this might be another lighter post but the point was for me to write every day not write something groundbreaking every day (or ever!). So, when I looked at my list of things one that stuck out to me was Bible verses that have impacted me. I think that even if you aren't a...

  Wow, in typing that out I've realized just how many days I've missed. With only 7 days (less when I finally get this posted) left until Christmas I've missed a good half of the days I meant to post. This, however, is a great example of expectation management. I feel like I am constantly managing expectations these days, not only my kid's but especially my own.  I don't know about you guys but in many ways I expected myself to be a very different parent. Some days I get to see glimpses of who I thought I would be as a Mom but for the majority of my motherhood journey I have looked at myself in moments of parenting and thought, "Who are you?" I think there are a lot of different things at play here, one being that when I was thinking on what I would be like as a parent I had yet to experience the weight of parenting nor the pure exhaustion that can happen.  There was a moment early on in my parenting journey that made me stop and think…how would I do this ...

 Again, as I start another blog post I'm not really sure I will have anything worthwhile to say and I haven't had a lot of opportunity today to just let my mind wander while I think about things. I've started to feel like this was just terrible timing to start something like this! Though through the exercise of writing and thinking about what to write I have noticed myself responding to situations differently than I may have in the past and each of these things is making my days feel a little lighter. For example, this morning my middle child was trying to get up on a chair at the table and somehow ended up on the floor with a bowl of cereal and milk all over his head. Now, normally I would have found myself getting quite frustrated with this situation. Often times, in all honesty, these moments just feel like one more thing has been added to my to do list that never seems to get finished. Most of the time I'm not able to laugh about it- at best I will sigh quietly and ...

I’m having a hard time coming up with an idea for today’s blog. I have all these ideas written up in a little note on my phone and for some reason none of them seem to be sticking out to me. This is always the difficulty that I have found with writing, if an idea doesn’t “catch” me in some way I really struggle to write about it. Hence the fact that I have started two books in my lifetime and I have not finished either of them. I think this is also due to the fact that I get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of writing ahead of me and then instead of taking it piece by piece I just stop (remember my freeze response I mentioned in an earlier post?). Now though this opens the debate that if this was meant to be a challenge for me to write no matter what for 25 days then I really just need to pick one of these ideas and write about it.  I was going to go grab a book that I have that is full of writing prompts and ideas, I find it helpful sometimes for just sparking an idea but it’s ALL ...

  I’ve been thinking about this topic for a while ever since I read an interesting article by an obstetrician back when I was pregnant at the beginning of the year. I was trying to see if I could find anything helpful for pain management in labour and I came across this article where the obstetrician said that in her experience when women were in labour and in the transition stage (which for those of you that haven’t had a baby is generally right before you have the baby and one of the most painful parts) that this was often when they would express that they couldn’t do it anymore. Typically, she noticed that, at this point a lot of women would say that they gave up/ they couldn’t do it/it was too much and if they were attempting an unmedicated birth they would often ask for an epidural. She also noticed that the effect that this created was that everyone drew near to the birthing mom and began to encourage and support her more than they may have been previously. It also was a good...