Depression

Over the last few months, I have been preparing for a speaking engagement I have coming up next week at my local church. I’ve been gathering my thoughts and writing out words to say to a group of teenagers about Identity. And it’s been a cathartic process for myself. A healing process. And if it weren’t for the time I’ve spent preparing for this lesson, I would not be able to write what comes next. It’s been hard for me to reckon a discussion about identity without bringing into the light what has been hidden. And unfortunately, the events in the news the last few days about the suicides of two prominent cultural figures has my mind churning.

We’ve seen far too much tragedy lately and often I’m at a loss for what to say or how to respond to most of them. But this week, after these deaths and the staggering figures about how many deaths occur because of suicide. It’s frightening how so few are talked about.  I’m finding myself deep in thought and, unlike the other aforementioned tragedies, I have so many words to say.

I’m not particularly overwhelmed by the deaths of Kate Spade or Anthony Bourdain because I was invested in their brands, rather I have very little knowledge of either one. I only recently had listened to the episode of “How I made this” an NPR podcast, that featured Spade and her husband and the story of how they started the company so famously known and I found myself admiring her business mind, but I found it a little odd that her success wasn’t driven by passion. For Bourdain, I’ve only seen a few episodes of one of his many shows and I remember they made me laugh. His ball-busting attitude mixed with what I think was a genuine desire to make and embrace experiences that would improve the world, was so refreshing.

But instead of words about these people, I have words about the mental health and the depression they both suffered from. This cuts too close and very deep.

Many social media posts are about checking in with your friends, but I haven’t seen one yet where someone has opened up about their own struggle. So I will give a voice to it. Over the last few months, I’ve only begun to accept it myself and have only openly talked about it with a few close friends, but I suffer from depression. It’s not the first time I’ve felt a strong depression. If I really evaluate my life, it’s more like the 4^th time. But I denied the 2nd and 3^rd rounds. The last 18 months have been my worst. I truly thank God,  because suicide has never crossed my mind. Please let me repeat to my family and anyone close to me, suicide isn’t an option for me and has never been. But I won’t deny that many days have been dark and gruesome.

Before I go too far here is a caveat–my words are only about depression. I recognize that mental health issues span much farther beyond depression and need to be talked about openly, but I do not have the experience at which to talk about it.

Whenever I hear stories of people with depression, I don’t particularly notice patterns to why it begins. The only common thing I see is that no one is usually aware of when the depression started, it just slowly became a part of everyday living. The lack of a pattern means there also aren’t formulas for someone to heal from this either. Depression is unique to each sufferer. Each person will have their own response, their own attitude, their own coping mechanisms, their own outbursts. Some have depression because of traumatic life experiences, for some it’s hereditary, and others are the simply the unlucky ones. This is a classic case of why not to judge a book by its cover.  We can’t compare apples to apples here.

From both sides, people stay quiet about depression. Avoidance of awkwardness is often viewed best. My opinion is of why suffers don’t speak of what they’re suffering from is that when you have something so unique and personal it’s easier to not speak of it to avoid the malformed interpretations and advice on how to overcome. And on the other side of the coin, non-sufferers don’t understand. It’s hard to comprehend the depths of which depression can go. This adds to why mental health is one of the least talked about diseases.

I recognized in high school I had depression, but even then, when exactly did it start? I don’t know. I didn’t talk about it, I didn’t let it stop me and I eventually felt better. A few other times I had drawn out longer periods of sadness, anxiety, loneliness. But again, it eventually ended on its own. This time I denied it for a while because I was taking unrelated medication and I was warned that one of the side effects could be increased feelings of depression. Long after the medication stopped the side effects didn’t. And life got harder.

I wear my emotions on my sleeve so in some ways my unhappiness and my affected attitude and demeanor have been apparent to those who see me in the day-to-day. But that is truly a small number who see me daily. For the rest, I’ve done well to hide my depression behind busy schedules, by saying I’m not feeling well or by withdrawing from activities and commitments. In some ways I know I’ve thrown up red flags for people to notice, but that has gone by without notice. The few suspects out there were then quickly covered up with the delusions that all is well. For example, I met with a friend who is one of the most trusted people in my life and one whom I’ve shared with more than most. I was describing a situation I was struggling with and weighing out some options. I mention that it didn’t help the situation that this has been one of my most difficult years ever. Thankfully she stopped me to ask what I meant. An hour and so many tears later, she had a better picture. She even recognized that she was close to me and had no idea.

For me, the last 18months has looked like someone in mourning, because I have been. I’ve had some major losses –of opportunities and of people– that have felt like deaths occurred. Some friendships have barely survived. My identity has been assaulted. There have been days when I wanted to sleep and sleep and sleep. There have been bursts of anger. There been days I couldn’t stop crying. I’ve eliminated nearly every external commitment I have, besides my job. There’s been anxiety attacks, and sleepless nights. My body is rebelling in multiple ways. I live alone and can easily escape when I want to but I’m consciously making myself engage in some social activity, only to be a shell of a person when I’m there. I worry I’m too emotional for my friends, to distant from my family and too mean to my co-workers, when in reality I’m just trying to hold my shit together in one way or another every tiring minute. My thoughts are a constant contradiction of what I want and what I don’t want. The 18 months have had me questioning my capabilities and my strengths. It’s tested my faith and commitment to Christ. I have evaluated whether to give up going after hopes and dreams. That’s one of the toughest parts, is feeling like maybe I have to settle for this.

But you know what, I’m still here and I know I’m as strong as anyone and I’m still fighting. Inch by inch, blood on my face, on my knees in the mud, but I’m still fighting. If you know me, I have big dreams, big plans, and I’m not usually afraid to do hard things. So I keep moving towards them, some days more slowly than others. And I’m giving myself the grace to take all the time I need to heal, through the guidance of a select few friends and professionals. And I’m so grateful that I did have a deep foundation in a relationship with Christ because it’s steadfast and it has broken through to the darkest of place.

I’m intrigued that social media posts have highlighted that these recent deaths have been the least likely people. The ones who made others smile and feel valued, the ones who looked from the outside that they were pushing forward with fierce tenacity. I don’t for a second doubt their tenacity, because this is a tough battle. But I also agree with the comments that the strongest people still need support systems too. I know, because I’ve been told, that people see me as resilient and indestructible, yet I can feel so much the opposite of these. Let me just say when positions and authority, or persons and attitudes are idolized, this is a failure to recognize things hidden in the dark that one way or another will come into the light.

In my opinion, Depression sufferers want people to know what’s happening and would like help, but let’s be honest… Not everyone is safe to share our feelings with, nor is everyone deserving to know our business. (Don’t be offended if I don’t offer any more of my story beyond this post) Everyone cannot be the help we get. But hearing phrases like “Happiness is a choice” or “snap out of it” is particularly unhelpful.

But rather than tell you what’s unhelpful to someone with depression, let me tell you what is helpful from my experience. Be aware of changes in patterns, appearance, attitudes, and how frequently you see someone. This could mean life or death. Be willing to ask tough questions (no matter how much both sides hate it), but then have the ability to shut up long enough to hear the answers. Do the work to figure out how a depression sufferer feels love the most, then do that. If they need words, give them words. If they’d need their dishes washed, then grab a sponge. Depression sufferers have contradictory thoughts, emotions, and actions in our best attempts to sort it out- pointing out the contradictions every two minutes grows old fast. Do pick up a phone and call or text, or better yet, just show up. Everyone has to eat, so share a meal with them. Remember it’s not about you–which means two things; don’t nullify their experience by saying the same thing has happened to you, and their problems are not yours to own, solve, or carry the burden of. If you did play a role somewhere in this own what’s yours and apologize if necessary. Allow everyone to feel loved and worthy. Make a space for the discomfort.   

By sharing this all I feel a little lighter, and I hope it adds another voice to a very quiet topic. If you know anyone who suffers from depression, don’t just throw a 1-800  number out there to them. Please, be willing to get in the trenches. Thank you.

Oceans

I was listening to a lecture the other day for a course I am a taking and on two separate points, I felt a nagging at my heart. It was like God was saying “Pay attention to this, Katie. This is something you need to hear right now.” After processing it through, I’ve now thought maybe I need to pass on my thoughts to others.

My thoughts were snagged at the first point, when he began discussing Biblical references to water and “the deep” of Genesis 1:2. The lecturer was explaining that often times this passage of the deep as being sin, evil, and deception in the Bible, but instead it was formless and but it was about to be given life through the breath of God.

Hmm… bear with…switching gears for a moment now.

We all have our things that make us uncomfortable and the discomfort easily slips into varying degrees of fear. I don’t even have to think about mine, or maybe I spend too much time thinking about mine. The thing(s) that make me most uncomfortable is being in water and anything that occurs below the surface of large bodies of water. From the shifting sands below my feet when I stand knee deep and the animals that live below, to the cracks and crevices of land that has shifted and changed over time. Even the thought of the large amount of wreckage from storms that has been lost to the depths of the sea, it awful. I just don’t like it. Mainly, I would talk the about my discomfort of how animals are on the far end of the scale for it all in creeping me out. I avoid them at all cost in the ocean, lakes, or aquariums. And I do not, I repeat DO NOT, enter their territory. Mind you, I know that many animals can move quietly, can appear out of nowhere, and have the power to overtake me quite easily, and not just those animals dwelling in water. Humans too, have the same behavior. Yet, under the surface of the water so much more is at risk than just the animals.

Ironically, I have lived within close proximity of the ocean (100 miles or less) for more than 20 years of my life. I love spending time on the beach. The smell and sounds of the beach is an incredible gift to my senses. And now that I’m living in the desert, the ocean is the environment I miss more than any other. This origin of this sense of dread toward the ocean is something I can’t fully explain because it was once non-existent. I enjoyed my time when I played in the ocean as a child. I used to study ocean animals with fervor (ask my family about the 4^th grade month-long focus on whales, oi vey). I never have been caught in a rip-tide. I have had some incidents with animals (eels and marlins), but even when those happened it didn’t stop me in the moment. Yet, I distinctly remember in my university years not wanting to go out on the Ocean Beach Pier in San Diego because it extended a quarter mile out into the water where the likelihood of danger grew with each step. The fear presented itself and grew from there.

Recently, I was at the Titanic Museum in Belfast, Northern Ireland. In the year and a half it had been open, I wasn’t too keen to go to the museum. However, I was with a friend, and we had agreed we were doing touristy type things, so to the Titanic we went. It was indeed interesting. Yet, as we moved along chronological layout of the ship’s history, eventually we would approach the demise of the famed ship, where I knew we couldn’t escape without some exposure to the wreckage. This meant underwater. As we entered a theater showing a short documentary, I felt the shift in my mind, setting in the unease. There were the sound effects of sonar pings and the breathing through masks. It had the visuals of animals crawling across the ocean floor and things growing on the boat. Even then cheesy commentary did nothing to help. I was more and more uncomfortable. Only five minutes passed, yet it felt so much more drawn out. Then we went downstairs to a movie screen with frightening creatures. I just passed through the room with little to no slowing and waited for my friend. The situation was just humorous to her.

What I’ve come to realize over much thinking. Is that what scares me most about the deep waters is the unpredictable nature of the environment, compounded with lack of control and loss of senses.

I’ve been fully submerged. It can feel like time is standing still, then everything moves at hyper speed. You can’t hear anything, then sounds are suddenly amplified. You can’t speak or breathe without additional equipment. And known water dwelling species are larger than any other land dwelling animals. There deeper in, the less light there is. All of these things are what scares me.

Going back to my lecture, the second point that he came to was through Genesis 1:2 where it says, “The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.” From here light was introduced, and separation of sky and water, and life came forth. What the lecturer said was that the dark and the deep were still things of God and he thought they were good. Good! The things I fear he says are good!

Out of the dark, he brought us so much more than we could imagine. Over the dark, God hovered. From the beginning, he covered the darkness with His Power, and His Strength, and His Glory. He wasn’t afraid of it! This hit me straight between the eyes. Somewhere I lost the wonder of the ocean’s depths and it was replaced with anxiety and dread. My fascination with the animals was replaced with an unhealthy view that they were too powerful and strong for me. And somewhere along the line I’ve taken a view that my journey in draws me deeper into the unsafe, uncontrollable, dangerous unknown without a protector. The only false part of that is that I do have a protector. My Protector has never stopped hovering and breathing life into me.

Even with the Titantic, they had a protector. The museum portrayed, in brutal honesty, that the captains were warned by many ships moving along only hours ahead of them, moving in the same path, that there were treacherous iceburgs and that they ought to slow down and keep watch. But they moved ahead into the darkness not listening to the voices speaking to them. Oh, they moved unafraid foolishly, and found what rightly describe by the warnings. It was a decision that was destructive to so many.

It's in this message that God has been speaking to me this week, that when I am afraid and unwilling to step into His goodness and allow His breath to fill me, then consequence befall me and others.

It's interesting to me when God wants to communicate, he repeats the message. Just tonight, as I read through the passage of my Bible-In-One-Year app on my phone, they featured the book of Jonah. Talk about dealing with what scares me. Jonah decided one type of darkness (Nineveh) wasn’t good enough and he choose a different way straight into a storm and the stomach of a whale. His choice brought consequences to himself and others on board that ship and delayed the promise of God to the Ninevites. God had an animal large enough to swallow a human and keep him alive—the same ones that make me cringe— as a tool waiting in the deep for his exact purpose.

Maybe you’re like me, though you can step into the ocean with ease, your “things of the deep” are keeping you from what is available to you in God’s power. Perhaps you have different issues like a job situation, a family struggle, emotional distress or any number of things that feel out of your control. From Genesis 1 we know that these things are near to God and he can call them good. It’s time to release the fear and remember God is hovering, ready to bring light into your dark deep places.

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As a side note: 

I can think of at least three people who will read this and will now, even more fervently insist I go swimming in the ocean again. I'm not hopping on a plane to do it, but one day I will. Promise.

Trust.

For months, several posts have been on my mind, but as my life typically transpires, it’s a whirlwind and I still have the thoughts needing to get out. So it’s now the end of the day on January 1, 2014 and it seems appropriate to write.

The year of 2013 both started and ended tense. It was far from the easiest year I’ve experienced. It was a growth year and growth hurts. It was a year of trust.

Every year I pray over and chose one word to focus on for the year. Instead of a resolution, I ask God to help me chose a word that he wants to teach countless lessons to me over the year and this year it was Trust. Immediately I began to learn lessons of trust.

2013 started with trusting God’s voice in my life. I knew Northern Ireland and the UK was a place God was stirring things in me, growing desires in my heart, releasing dreams, and connecting the dots for many areas of life. My problem was that I was back state-side for Christmas, facing delays in the visa process and gaps in my funding. I was in limbo of where I would end up and logic looked different to every active influencer in my life. I knew God was saying ‘Trust me and we’ll do this together.’ With 24 hours before my return flight, my visa was delivered to me, and I had to make a choice that a few thousand dollars wasn’t going to be the wall to hold me back from chasing God and trusting him.

I stepped into a new season living in Northern Ireland. I continued to be a student at Causeway Coast Vineyard’s Encounter School of Mission. I stepped into a role as Graphics and Multimedia Intern at the church. I stepped away from expectation of others and I continued chasing God and the shared dreams we have together.

This year I learned lessons of trust in God:

• When I want to be a dreamer - He give me dreams.
• When depression struck me and I pulled away from many relationships - He knows the loneliest places of my heart and he brings peace. He stops the lies and replaces it with joy. He gives the wisdom to speak the words “I’m sorry, and I need your support.” His support comes in friends willing to call me out on my crap and my attitudes and who drew me back to reality that I am loved and I could experience happiness again.
• With a longing for a Mr. to share my life with - He is the lasting love who comes before all, He doesn’t want to deprive me but he doesn’t want me to settle on just anyone. Love doesn’t look like what I want it to, but He never leaves or forsakes me. He forgave and forgives me when I have and will mess up and hurt others who try to love me. Waiting on His timing and not pushing for my own is hard, yet will be rewarding. Hearing “I love you” from another person doesn’t always mean butterflies in the stomach. I may feel ready, but I have to trust that my Mr. is also being made ready for me. There are AMAZING men of faith around who prove that daily.
• When finances proved a continuous struggle - God is the financial provider and asking for and accepting help is not bad. It teaches humility and appreciation for people, their generosity and their love.
• When family was far away - He sets the lonely in families, bringing new people in for comfort. He also taught me that sometimes, only the sound of our own family's voices, is the comfort I can have, even if it is only from the far end of a phone line.
• When I step out on faith against logic time and time again to follow His lead - He cheers me on. He blesses me. He honors it. And then He asks me to go farther because he trusts me.
• When I want to be creative. He fills me with ideas, he sets me with people to spur me on, He provides opportunities beyond measure.
• When I call myself an adventurer - He called me that first, and he’s calling me into greater adventures of my faith
• When I want to try my limits He cheers me on and steers me away gently and forcefully. Good things: New recipes, new business endeavours , praying for the sick, prophesying, filming, creating motion graphics, applying for jobs, swimming and so much more. Bad things: saying yes to wrong relationships, debt, not getting enough rest, staying away from His love.

I wasn’t always on the side of being asked to trust. Often, I was asking others to trust me.

• A foreigner in a different culture brings words, traditions, inflections, attitudes, and demeanors that aren’t always comfortable for others.
• Skills and expertise are given for us to use them, but sometime others are uncomfortable and scared by what they don’t know
• Building relationships takes work. A lot of it.

2013 was filled with amazing moments. Tragic moments. Splendid moments. Quiet moments. It was a year that I stood up for what I believed in, when it was counter-cultural (in oh so many ways) and I took hits for it. It was a year I saw lives changed, the kingdom of God brought forth, and God’s presence overwhelm. A year that my skills expanded, my patience was challenged, and my skills where used to connect people to a community of hope. It took a lot of trust.

I have hiked many trails in my life and I’ve seen that these paths— whether oceanside, mountainside, or deep in a forest—can change course without warning. Life is much the same way. We can walk in trust and think everything is going one way, but it changes. I should have expected it, but I just didn’t.

In August, I had a few weeks of growing anxiety surrounding many things. But my word, trust, was echoed in my ear, in my dreams, in my conversations, in my prayers. God was asking me to trust him to lead me away from Northern Ireland and back to the states. September 22 I said ‘see you later’ to many friends, I spent the night with some of my favorites, and the next day I was brought to a bus, which led to a plane, which delivered me back into the United States.

I had no plans. No job. No solid understanding of why. Except God said trust me.

It’s been a few months of being in Arizona and continuing trust to know that the answers will come of why the change.

In these few months home, I’ve been exposed to a new song that I am claiming as one (of many) anthem for the year. It is called ‘Oceans (where my feet may fail)’ by Hillsong United. There is a chorus or bridged that says:

Spirit, Lead me
where my Trust is without borders
let me walk upon the waters wherever you would call me

Take me deeper
than my feet could ever wander
and my faith would be made stronger
in the presence of my Saviour.

Lead me where my trust is without borders. No matter what 2014 brings, I want to be walking where my trust is with out borders. I want to experience all God has because I’ve been reclaimed, renamed, renewed, redeemed, and there is nothing that can be more satisfying.

The Masterpiece

This blog, is one I wrote for Real Women: A blog from the women of Causeway Coast Vineyard, posted August 11, 2013. I hope you enjoy it. And if you do, pop on over to their site and check out other wonderful posts http://causewaycoastvineyardwomen.blogspot.co.uk/

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I love art! I enjoy all forms of it. And like any love, there is growth from where it started to where it’s going to end up.

When I was a child, the moment it was time for art, I was so excited. I could have been at school, at church, or at a friend’s house, my materials could have been pipe-cleaners, paint, chalk or clay—if I was allowed to get messy with anything at anytime I was ecstatic. My favourite thing was melting crayon shavings between two sheets of wax paper to make a “stained glass window.” These masterpieces, I would carry home to my parents and they’d get their time on the refrigerator door or bulletin board and eventually they’d come down. When they came down most often I didn’t know where they’d go.

My dad had his office that was a black hole. We avoided it because we weren’t sure if we went in that we’d come out of it again. But one day I ventured in, snooped around a bit, and was shocked to find artwork I had created years before. Not only my work, by my sibling’s as well. If found things that I know for certain I had thrown into the garbage bin because I wasn’t proud of it, or thought it had lost it’s value. The work that had been tossed away by me had made it back out via my father’s digging hands. He responded that he was proud of the work we did and he wanted to remember how we’d changed over time. I thought he was too sentimental.

At age fifteen, I painted a picture of three angels and a bible verse on a piece of slate with a leather cord for hanging. Again, I carried it home to my mom. That week it was hung next to the front door, and fifteen years later I cringe when I walk through the door because it is still the first thing I see. No matter the amount of my begging and pleading to remove this art that I find subpar, my mother refuses. She still loves it and she says it reminds her of me in my absence and it reminds her to welcome guests as angels. The verse is Hebrews 13:1.

In my final semester of university, I was in an advanced art class and I began a series of artwork where I took one surface and then used the material least likely to be matched with it and essentially wrote out my journal entries. On walls I used pen. On canvases I used pencil. On post-it notes I used paint. On a white boards I used permanent marker. I wrote my entries it in a way that no one, including myself could really read the final outcome without intense effort. Intentionally, I also wrote it in ways that were meant to disappear when the series was done. In the critique, my lecture and fellow students asked why I choose the materials and subject I did. My explanation to them was that I had always been a journal writer. However, when I would fill a journal I would throw it away. The emotion came out in the writing but I didn’t want to remember what I had been through and so it went in the bin. In that moment, I saw the jaws drop throughout the entire group. My professor loved the work, but hated the idea behind it. He told me, that if I didn’t present one of the pieces to him the Friday before graduation (still four months away), he was failing me in the class, because my thoughts and my art were worth remembering. Not only did I have to show it to him before graduation, he challenged me to keep that piece for the rest of my life. I still have five of them.

Today, and for the past eight years, I am a graphic designer. Recently, I completed a website with a portfolio of my work. It’s the first I’ve had. Chatting with a friend, they asked how I chose what went on the site and I had to say honestly that some it work I really like and some is stuff I hate but it’s work that shows my capabilities. They asked why I hated my own work, and my simple response is that I can do better. He pointed out that we are always going to expect growth in design. As a matter of fact we expect it in art, writing, technology, and so many other things, but we don’t always expect it in other areas. He specifically mentioned that we don’t expect growth in our leadership capabilities or even our faith.

My mind started racing at this profound thought that people don’t always expect growth in a faith walk. Often people cling to familiar ways, be it a selection of worship songs, the seat on the aisle, the popular pastor, or the one theological point that is impossible to break free from. There is a tendency to pine after days of the high highs, and moving past the low lows can’t come fast enough. But in this messiness and change, we are shaped into a masterpiece that is loved by God.

My dad dug out of the bin, the artwork that I found worthless, because he found it priceless. God did that for our lives. The world is out to say we’re nothing—a mere passing spec—but our value is defined by One greater than us. In the Message translation, John 3:16-17 is so beautifully written “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again.” We are pulled out of the bin and restored to honor.

My mom displays my painting in a place where every person entering her home sees it first, because she loves it and she wants to show me off. God puts us on display because we are pleasing and beautiful to him. We are on display because we have a role to play. “What is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet.” Psalm 8:4-6. Maybe you make the best treats of all the primary school moms; perhaps you are in charge of a team of employees; or it might be that you are a freelancer like me. No matter what it is that fills your days and takes your time God is pleased by you. He likes you and he wants to honor you.

My professor challenged me to keep my work, because he knew that power comes in remembering your journey. In Joshua 4:1-9 there is a scene where God commands Joshua to choose twelve men to a place a stone each at the middle of where they crossed the Jordan. It says they are to be a memorial forever of their journey and where God brought them. Growth in faith is messy. It is happy and sad and every other emotion under heaven. But if there is no remembrance of the journey, future generations miss out on the lessons taught by God.

My progression of art has changed, as has my faith. My materials changed, my tools more precise, and the process is more costly. I can learn new methods, hear new thoughts, and create new ideas. Still the chaos remains. I now keep journals because though they hold the uneasiness, they also hold the beauty God has been so merciful with. Still I want to improve. Improvement is good and healthy. But instead of seeing myself through flawed eyes, I see the masterpiece God has carefully crafted me to be, and I know that the craftsman is not done.

I have expectancy that things are going to change. I have the expectancy that God is going to meet me in new ways, ask me to remember many more things, to teach others, to give up my critiques of worth, to challenge my thinking, and to move me further along. After all, it’s His masterpiece He’s creating, not mine.

Homesick..

It doesn't happen a lot, but today I'm a bit homesick.  I wear a navy jersy-knit dress, gray leggings, navy and pink floral wellie boots, and a moustached print scarf. It's 2:30 pm and I'm trying to stay warm and dry from the rain pouring down outside and the 54º (12ºC)  weather. It's July. It should be warmer.

There's a heat wave in Arizona where my home base is now. They're getting 115-120º (46º-48ºC) and would call me crazy for wanting to be in it.  But I want to smell the sun on my skin, and feel the dry hot breeze across my face.

Picture from Tammy Kleck

I want tortilla chips accompanied by bowl of my friend Jen's fresh guacamole and salsa. I want to drink Boba tea with Danielle. I want to sit pool side while my nephews beg me to swim with them. I want to see all the babies born to my friends while I've been in Northern Ireland. I want to be a bbq with the friends of my small group. I want pizza and pepsi with my mom, and coffee at a diner with my dad. There are so many other events I wish I could do today.

There are red white and blue flags flying here, but they're the wrong ones. I want to see the one to the right.


Tomorrow I'll be fine I'm sure, but today good ol' Uncle Sam is calling.

Generosity – Part 3

Generosity and identity – those are key terms for me in this past year. I understand more fully that they aren't interchangeable, but you can't be generous without knowing a sense of your identity.

I’m still taken by Jeff Shinebarger's book, More or Less: Choosing to Live a Lifestyle of Excessive Generosity that I wrote on in part one. In his book, there is a chapter titled 'More Than Enough,' that touches on the topic of identity and generosity. It has fuelled part of this post.

It seems like we have an innate struggle to see ourselves in a positive light. It is always said we are our own worst critics. We fear our incapability. We dismiss our opinions. We are quick to point out our flaws. We put out the idea to others and to ourselves that we aren’t worthy.

Generosity – Part 2

Yesterday I posted about Generosity and how it has been challenging me. Today, as I was checking a blog from one of my favorite author Donald Miller on his Storyline Blog. It was titled 'A Surprising Way to Become More Generous." I was intrigued. The post isn't actually written by Miller, but a guest contributor, Allison Vesterfelt. Upon reading her post, it described me and my heart towards generosity at times.

So instead of writing it myself, I re-post her blog for you to read. The original post can be found here.

A Surprising Way to Become More Generous

I used to think I was a generous person. Then, I met my husband.