Book Club 6

And my summer reading catch up continues... :-)

A Beautiful Mess – Danielle Strickland
How God Re-creates Our Lives

This was another great book. I read it in three days. I may have underlined a strong third of the book, and I may have only been borrowing it (oops ~ wink). I hope what I underlined will help the next reader to connect, relate, agree with my “ah-ha” points of exclamation, and not hinder the message they are to take from it.

This book was bought through my work, at a Leadership Conference we recently attended, knowing it was a book I was probably going to gravitate towards and identify with (the title alone pretty much calls my name, right?!). This book centers around the theme of embracing the chaos in our lives, and work, and allowing God’s light to shine into our darkness, making room for growth, clarity, and redirection. It was about control, and order, and holding on, and resting (all huge areas of discourse and struggle for me)… and about ultimately trusting God’s purpose, timing, and situations in our lives. At the end of each chapter there was a section of questions to spend time in self-reflection. I think this would make an excellent small group Bible study, that I would personally love to go through again within a trusted circle of a few others in deep and heady conversation and discussion.

Book Quote “The truth is that we are afraid of things we can’t control. Chaos in uncontrollable – by its definition you can’t predict what it will do or what effect it will have. This makes those of us who fear change and loss of control very uneasy. We like to know what we are facing and we like to control our environment. But chaos doesn’t care about our fear. Chaos enters and turns everything upside down. Perhaps this is the right treatment for those of us who think we hold it all together; those of us who are afraid of change and afraid of circumstances outside of our control. This “mess” called chaos reorders things in our lives… shifting and changing our values and reminding us of what’s most important.”


Scary Close – Donald Miller
Dropping the Act and Finding True Intimacy

This was a book my friend brought and put on my desk after I texted “Out of books to read, no money for an amazon order, please bring me something…” I’m not sure if this book would have jumped out at me on its own, but I honestly love how God has always simply and carefully brought books into my hands through various avenues, within the appropriate seasons, for me to most benefit from reading them. I’ve learned to just trust this.

This book was also a good read, and one that I also read in less than a week. I thought the author was engaging and enjoyed his insights and raw honestly as he wrote about something he personally felt he wasn’t actually all that good at – relationships, connection, and intimacy. It wasn’t so much about introverts and extroverts and all the idiosyncrasies within personalities, but more about engaging in a daring authenticity, laborious self realizations, with identified and healing improvements. It was about identifying and letting go of control, and how we can find a freedom to get beyond our past hurts, fears, and control issues to earnestly work to live, love, connect, and be in true relationships with those around us, free of masks and half truths. Take the risk to be open, vulnerable, honest, and share your story…

Book Quote “There’s truth in the idea we’re never going to be perfect in love but we can get close. And the closer we get, the healthier we will be. Love is not a game any of us can win, it’s just a story we can live and enjoy. It’s a noble ambition, then, to add to the story of love, and to make our chapter a good one. We don’t think much about how our love stories will affect the world, but they do. Children learn what’s worth living for and what’s worth dying for by the stories they watch us live. I want to teach our children how to get scary close, and more, how to be brave. I want to teach them that love is worth what it costs”

Book Club 5

Holding On To Hope – Nancy Guthrie
A pathway through suffering to the heart of God

As I’ve said before, I have come to trust that most books that come into my path and are given to me, have God’s hand in their journey to my hands.

One day several months ago I was at work and someone came in to talk to me. She felt called to stop and to give me this book. After a meaningful and filling conversation, we hugged and she left the book on my counter. I did not immediately pick it up and dive in. It wasn’t until several months later that I actually opened up the book and started reading beyond the front and back cover.

I have to admit, I was honestly shocked to realize the book was about the loss of the authors infant daughter who suffered from a rare genetic disease. Honestly, nowhere on the outside of the book was this little detail shared. I honestly got about five pages in and wasn’t sure I wanted to continue reading. But I did. It was a hard read, but it was also a good read. As I continued to turn the pages, I did find myself knowing that had I tried to get through this book any earlier, I would not have been able to. I would not have been at a place where I was just ever-so-slightly ahead of that initial bottom-of-the-barrel intense pain and lost-ness the author is initially addresses and holding her hand out to her readers to grab onto. I was a few baby steps into my healing and self awareness of my loss and pain, which allowed me to actually be able to let myself venture in just a little deeper and a little further in the healing journey.

The author paralleled her story of loss with the story of Job, and at the end of the book there is an 8 week study with daily questions and points to ponder. It would be great for a personal study, or within the circles of a group bible study. While reading this book, I found myself going back into the book of Job and diving deeper into this book of the Bible I tend to completely ignore. I read the story for the story it was, and I went back and started reading it all again, looking at it closer and more personally within the context of grief and loss.

I did get myself through the book, and it was a well written book, it just hit really, really close to home for me. I have not been able to get myself to pick it back up and commit to walking myself through the daily 8 week Bible study though. I photocopied the lessons and slid them into the pages of my Bible. I look at it on occasion and think it is something I know I should do, but I’m not exactly at the point of having it be something I want to do. Sometimes we do just need to do that which we don’t want. Sometimes it’s just easy to put that need off a little longer.

Quote “The day after we buried Hope, my husband said to me, ‘You know, I think we expected our faith to make this hurt less, but it doesn’t. Our faith gave us an incredible amount of strength and encouragement while we had Hope, and we are comforted by the knowledge that she is in heaven. Our faith keeps us from being swallowed by despair. But I don’t think it makes our loss hurt any less.’”

Carry On, Warrior – Glennon Doyle Melton
Thoughts On Life Unarmed
This is a book I borrowed (you know, because I’m all out of money to order any of my list of waiting amazon books...) and took on vacation. I read it in one day. Less than 24 hours. I couldn’t put it down. It wasn’t my book so I didn’t underline anything, but basically, this book – this author, could have been living inside my head. I could not get over how much I connected with this author as I read her book. The crazy inside her head – totally matches the crazy inside my head. Scary close really.  

I had read some of Glennon’s momastery.com blog posts, but I’m not a faithful follower. I have watched her TedTalk, which I loved, and she pops up now-and-again in my facebook feed, which I sometimes click on and sometimes don’t. I was fairly certain it was a book I’d enjoy, I wasn’t prepared how spot on I connected with most of her writing and thoughts.

So, what is this book about you’re probably thinking. Ummmm… life. Real life stuff. Messy, obsessive, control, addiction, eating disorders, grace, kids, husband, relationships, family, forgiveness, fear, hard work, mom work, wife work, trying to be enough, failing, winning, trying… and a beautiful testimony of God’s presence and love woven all throughout. As I read it I couldn’t help but think two things – One: there might actually be other people out in this world dealing with an internal and external “crazy” besides myself (here I thought I had to honestly be the only one day-in-and-day out simply trying to survive myself, let alone survive what the rest of what the world is trying to fling at me) or Two: there are going to be people who pick this book up, and have no idea what in the world this Glennon is talking about, with a raised eyebrow and odd expression on their faces. I personally just found it refreshing to realize, maybe it’s not just me… I am not alone…

Book Quote “When you start to feel, do. When you start to feel scared because you don’t have enough money, find someone to offer a little money. When you start to feel like you don’t have enough love, find someone to offer love. When you feel unappreciated and unacknowledged, appreciate and acknowledge someone else in a concrete way. When you feel unlucky, order yourself to consider a blessing or two. Then find a tangible way to make today somebody else’s luck day. These strategies help me sidestep wallowing every day”

Book Quote 2 “I pray and pray for God to help me feel some peace and stillness in the midst of my mommy life instead of feeling constantly like a dormant volcano likely to erupt at any given moment and burn my entire family alive. And God say: Well G, here’s the thing. Peace isn’t the absence of distraction or annoyance or pain. It’s finding Me, finding peace and calm, in the midst of those distractions and annoyances and pains.”

Book Club 4

Well, my eyes have apparently been busier than my fingers this summer.

I just looked at my growing stack of books I’ve read, realizing I have not blogged any Book Club posts in months.

I’ve spent an intentional summer trying to rest and live in a season of slow. Some weeks I went without reading anything, other weeks I couldn’t put them down, eagerly looking forward to the weekends or evenings.

Here are a few of what I've read this summer...

The Firstborn Advantage – Dr Kevin Leman
Making Your Birth Order Work For You

This was a book I bought and had on my shelf for a few years now. I’d gotten part way through, and for whatever reason, never finished it. I was through all my other books, and plucked this out because I really didn’t have much else to pick from. The back of the book say “You’re driven. You have big plans and dreams. You demand a lot out of yourself, you’re the benchmark setter, you’ve always done what’s expected of you…” Ok, so I may identify a little with that, doesn’t everyone? Well apparently not. :-) This book is an interesting look at the different personalities and behaviors associated with our birth order, which I personally found extremely interesting. I am a complete, spot on First Born: organized, natural leader, reliable, list maker, perfectionist, creature of habit, over achiever, pursuer of excellence… yeah, I know… It gave science and insight behind many of the reasons I am apparently the way I am, and why I do the things I do. Why I struggle with what I struggle with within me. It explained how my upbringing also strongly affects my habits and tendencies, and how how I am parenting is also affecting the way my children will be affected as they grow up. I found a lot of this area very humbling and scary.

I found it interesting though, that as I read and thought about the birth order and personalities of my husband and children, that none of them really fit their expected mold like I did. I wondered about that, and while much of that is still puzzling to me, a lot is explained when you look at the different variables and parental factors within each person. It really is all quite intricately woven and intriguing, but I can’t say that by the time I closed the book I really knew how to live my life differently so that my “birth order would work better for me” like the cover of the book claimed. But, it did leave me with an understanding and insight as to personality quirks and oddities and why certain relationship dynamics are the way they are. And it did give helpful insights and clarity for things to watch for within our relationships and leadership rolls.

Book Quote: “Balance is a crucial issue for a firstborn. Firstborns need permission to be able to relax. We struggle commonly with time management, stress management, and prioritizing because we tend to take on a lot… in fact, too much."


The Connect Child – Karyn Pruvis and David Cross
Bring Hope and Healing to Your Adoptive Family

This was another book out of my library that I have read before, many times in fact. It’s probably a book I should just continually read over and over and over. Every time I read it I underline a few more things, and take away and connect with a few more nuggets of understanding.

This book contains amazing insights, help, and support for parents and care givers who deal with children who have special behavioral or emotional needs. This is a book I wish every care giver, educator and anyone in a leadership roll with children and youth would be required to read and study.  It's such good, good stuff.

The first time I read this book our youngest child, who is adopted, was very little. There were a few habits and traits we were already starting to stumble over with him, but it would be coming back and reading it again the second, third, fourth times as the years have continued, that this book has really offered a sense of hope and light into difficult daily parenting for me. Hand-in-hand with this book, my husband and I also took a multi-week seminar covering this same material as well a few years ago. I would have to honestly say that this has been one of the most transformational tools for the small successes we have made in our home, and a great reminder and help of basic points and logic as we continue through issues we struggle with. It offers understandable science and basic reasoning behind behaviors with useful strategies and phrases to help bring an environment of healing, health, and connection within the difficult relationships. It’s a change in direction and thought from the world’s standard way of dealing with learning and behavioral issues, explaining why it’s important to first identify the cause of the behavior, before you will ever be able to deal with the behavior itself.

Book Quote: “At-risk children can easily feel alienated and cornered, alone and against the world. Feeling that way, it is almost guaranteed that they will come out fighting, manipulating, or fleeing. Then, the only adult attention they receive is endless scolding and punishment. Soon this dysfunctional dynamic becomes a habit, and the children learn to seek familiar and available attention by acting out, which is a scary and miserable way to live. You have a unique opportunity to change that scenario by building a bridge to the world for your at-risk children… Instead of seeing yourself as the victim of a pint-sized terrorist, begin seeing your role as a compassionate, nurturing guide and ally for your little one. Respect and honor the child’s needs, even when you don’t entirely understand what drives them.”

The Responsibility of Legacy

I’ve spent a lot of time recently thinking about the word legacy. I went to a Christian based Leadership Conference recently and I heard this term as a common theme woven throughout nearly every speaker. Perhaps it was what I kept hearing over and over, because it is one of the underlining areas I have been struggling with and feeling the gentle prompting from God about lately. I’ve heard His continued and quiet whisper that I need to be conscious of my actions and reactions lately, knowing I’m in pretty major need of some self improvement on.

What legacy am I leaving behind when I look in the rear view mirror of my life? What will people remember about me after I’m gone? What am I doing today that will still matter tomorrow?

For me personally, it’s also a few questions further – what legacy am I leaving at my work, what legacy am I leaving within my family, AND do both of those areas mirror each other, or do I need to make changes to alter that so I am succinctly the same person wherever I am?

Over the last several years I have often found myself wondering why God has continued to align me in various leadership-ish type rolls, as I personally don’t often feel that I am a very good leader. I’m great at coordinating, connecting, and organizing, but leading… phew, I don’t know. I daily fear and acknowledge that I’m actually probably fairly weak in the leadership arena.

I often think of my most important leadership roll right now, and that is the roll I carry within my family. If I can’t lead my family well, I surely can’t lead anyone outside the walls of my family well.

For me, the leadership roll within marriage and parenting is hard. Really hard, and it’s one I personally feel I am failing at miserably. I’m caught in a daily struggle of not good enough and trying to grasp at the grains of time that continue to just slip through my fingers in lost opportunities and failed attempts.

I am not in control of anyone under my leadership wing, either within the internal ring of family life or the external ring of my work and worldly life, but I am responsible to them for trying to be the best me I can be which in turn can positively influence how they can become the best they can be. I cannot change them, but I can change myself.

Am I making others better when they are around me, or am I hindering, hurting, and failing them?

I’m 41 years old. I would love to hope that God will grant me another 41 years, and that I am currently sitting at the very middle point of my life. I can only hope that the line continuing forward on my life’s empty timeline is still quite long. Of course I don’t know the number of days left and the date in which I will enter Heaven. I know that the trials, the temptations, the state of my health, and the consequences of others will also affect my near or far off future. I earnestly pray God will bless me with another 41 years of quality life, but I just don’t know. I may not get another moment before my time is up, I may not get another day to right my wrongs, to improve my failings, to make a difference, and to love better than I was able to yesterday.

Today is the day, now is the moment. We cannot continue to ignore, overlook, or stumble along the path of unaware mediocrity. As Lou Holtz states, “In this world you’re either growing or you’re dying so get in motion and grow.”

So I’ve started asking myself, what do I need to do in the next 41 years to leave a better legacy than what I’ve created in the first 41 years? What do I need to do right now to start improving my character and overall life so that the God I serve, the family I love, and the world I cherish will be more influenced from me?

Don’t worry, this isn’t a ten point post about what qualities and habits make a good person with a strong and rich legacy, I’ll leave that research up to you. It isn’t going to spell out all of my personal strengths and shortcomings and the initial three key areas I’ve identified to focus on for improvement for myself. What is within every one of us is going to be different than that within someone else. God made us each special and unique, with our own set of strengths, weaknesses, tendencies, agendas, intensity levels, and quirks. What we create and season with those ingredients is entirely up to us.

I just want to challenge myself, and each of you, to spend time at least thinking about your own legacy, your own traits and personalities. The meat and bones of what makes you who you are and why you do the things you do. How are you being a good leader in your work? How are you being a good leader in your home and families? Is the way you live making the world a better place? Are you taking the time to really talk with, pray, and listen to the quiet voice of God? Are you where you are supposed to be and doing the things you were created to do, in a strong and healthy manner, to help fulfill the mission and purpose God granted you life and breath for?

If you are caught up in the chaos, chatter, and crazy of everyday life, like I am, know you are not alone. Also know that God is calling out to you, pulling on you, pushing against you, waiting for you, just like He is with me, in hopes we will listen, hear, submit and continually grow and change, so that each and every one of us can raise the bar of influence, grace, and ability to love those around us better through the big and the small tasks of the daily grind, so that together, all our lives and all our stories can be woven together to create a family, a society, a world filled with hope, love, and intentional integrity.

May our families look to us and find the love, direction and encouragement they need to find their own success. May others around us look at us and want to know us and be like us. May God look at us and smile.

May we been seen today and remembered tomorrow. May the lives and stories we choose to intentionally live today leave the rich and impactful legacy God created us to fulfill long after we are gone tomorrow.

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August

August is hard.

August means an end is coming soon.

August means an end has already come.

August means change and transition. August means back-to-school. August means the return of stress at work. August means the end of quiet Fridays at the lake with my eight-year-old. And August is the month our little Faith MaryJo was due, had she been born full term. August was the month of unknowns and projected pain a year ago. It was the month that would hold the finality of our journey with her, if we hadn’t already said goodbye before then. August held an end.

We did say goodbye before then. The only heartbeat on the ultrasound was my own, and on that day I also faced the fear of my own death and the end of my own heartbeat as well. I survived her labor and delivery, I did not hemorrhage, I did not die. The fears and lies satan whispered did not become reality. But she still did not live. I don’t hold guilt with that reality, but I do hold incredible sadness.

August is the month we go visit the cemetery, wash off the black granite headstone, and quietly wonder who actually takes care of the grounds and mowing there (as its lack of tidiness suddenly seems to matter) instead of getting to plan an elaborate first birthday party full of pink and polka dots and glitter and sparkly tulle. We pick up broken, mowed over pieces of angel garden stakes and blown away garden flags instead of picking up smash cake frosting and crumbs from under a high chair.

I’ve been enduring the not-quite-so-hard of this August for the last eighteen days now. I am well into the change and transition with back-to-school and added work hours and responsibility. I am well aware of the ticking off of the weekends left at the lake. And I am also well aware of the return of the knot of stress and discontent in my stomach and inner veins.

This year I was somewhat prepared for the silent inner pain to not just visit for a day or two, knowing it would probably settle deep within for the entire month, which last year I was completely taken by surprise by.

Last year for months prior we had dreaded the month of August, but then after we had lost Faith earlier on, we had just stopped talking about August. But then it actually arrived. August 1st I sat on the beach and cried, and I wasn’t exactly even quite sure why. I had once dreaded having to miss vacation and the two day work Leadership Conference we attend every year, but then the time came and we went on our vacation and I got to attend the conference. I remember sitting there both days completely overtaken with unexpected emotion.

I was no longer just grieving what had been taken from me. I was no longer grateful the journey was "over" and our summer had been “spared” – I had been quickly catapulted out of the grief stage with the simple turning of the calendar page, and was suddenly blindsided with an anger and resentment for all that August never got to be.

When there is an end immediately attached to your beginning, it instantly takes away everything along with it throughout its middle core.

August never got to be the month of nursery preparation and baby showers. The crib never went up, the newborn baby clothes and diapers never bought. The car seat and stroller never even thought about. The daycare reservation and deposit never needed. August was never the month of anything pink, or little, or announcement related. August never got to hold the wonder, awe, excitement, and expectation of the arrival of a long awaited healthy baby girl.

I sit here not wanting to wallow, but I also don’t want to rejoice. I don’t want to dwell, but I also don’t want to forget. I’m sad, I’m angry, I’m busier than I want to be, I’m more stressed than I want to be, I’m still quite lost, I’m easily irritable, I’m often lonely yet wanting to be left alone, I’m still blindly searching for the meaning of life and for the me I somehow manage to lose every year over the long winter months away from the lake.

I see how somehow all of that leaves something inside in its aftermath, that is trying its hardest to deliver a constant prick of bitter poison… an incessant scratching ever-so-lightly upon the wall of my soul, echoing and seeping into the empty hollows within. I realize it and am aware of it, but I don’t always know what to do about it, or how to stop it.

Perhaps I am not supposed to do anything about it. Perhaps it’s not actual a bitter poison, but an odd healing salve from God to help me continue to look up and look ahead, to continue to help move me forward and help me not forget.

Perhaps He is trying to simply help me scar more beautifully.

I do not want this loss to define me, I want this loss to refine me. I do not want this loss to make me bitter, I want this loss to make me better. I do not want this loss to have only taken something from me, I want this loss to have also granted and given me something. I do not want this loss to leave me lost and invisible, I want this loss to help me find myself and be seen.

May God continue to cast His light into this returning darkness. May the difficulties of my Augusts somehow turn the page into something bigger and greater than I can currently comprehend. May I allow Him to turn my chaos into calm, my sadness into singing, my anger into contentment, and the simple telling of my story into a connection and entrance point into lives and stories of others also lost in the struggle of the everyday hard.

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