When Listening is the Answer to the Question

This is only my second year – the second time I’ve officially stepped up and committed to one word to define the 365 days of 2014.

Looking back, I can say I both completely embraced my word and yet completely let go of my word. It was return – and return I did – to many of the things I wrote that I wanted to embrace and dwell in. There are things I wished I dived in to more, but lingering on the missed opportunities won’t bring them back, and I am in desperate need of grace ….

As this year tipped over towards its sprawling close – alight in the hustle and bustle of celebration, and festival, the quiet question shimmered in the back of my mind: would I do it again? Would a word find its way into my heart? Would I feel led towards of word of meditation? Would I return?

It came down to three words. First scribbled into the margins of my planner. Questions more than anything. Wondering if these one of these words was the one. I prayed and asked and read – seeking a confirmation that I was headed in the right direction. Each petition followed by silence and a hanging feeling of an ellipsis – still incomplete.

The words migrated to three post-it notes on the edge of my calendar – hovering over me on bright pink squares – unresolved.

Then Saturday night while sitting somewhat distracted in the church sanctuary – the echo of worship songs still in my ears – I heard the word, and the description of the feelings I had around the word – repeatedly in both the children’s talk and the evening’s sermon.

I heard it in the story of Elijah – fleeing for his life into the wilderness of Beersheba; standing in the mouth of a cave and bearing witness to the terrible, awesome power of God; yet finding him in the aftermath – in a whisper. I heard it as Pastor Paul spoke of the benefits of restorative rest – not just taking a break, but being intentional about setting aside true Sabbath time for rejuvenation and reconnecting with the Lord. I heard it as I remembered Sarah Bessey’s prayer from the IF Gathering and Faith & Culture: my first writer’s conference; where she prayed over us from a passage in Matthew – calling us to Christ and in to the unforced rhythms of grace.

I heard my word and felt it breathe in to me.

Listen.

This is a good word for me. This is a hard word for me. I have been described as a good listener, but I’m not sure I listen as well as I used to; as well as I could. I am clouded and cluttered by pre-disposition and pre-meditation. I struggle through my own ideas of culture and expectation. There is more to hear. From my God. From my daughter. From my husband. From my family. From my body. From my neighborhood. From my community. From my world. Things I need to extend myself to without judgment and without immediate answer.

So as this next year dawns, I will be leaning in to hear. I will be waiting with patient expectation. I will be seeking the unbroken rhythms of restorative rest. I will be listening.



As one of my readers, you are one of the ones I want to listen to. One of the ones I want to hear from. Do you participate in the One Word project? If so, I would love to hear what word has called you this year.

I'd love to connect with you some more - stop on by the Three Bees Facebook Page or connect with me on Twitter @3BeesBlueBonnet. Let's continue the conversation!

Five Minute Friday - Prepare

On Fridays a bunch of brave writers gather here to all spend five collective minutes writing on a single prompt. It’s a great way to catch your breath at the end of a long week. This blessed, beautiful place where we open our hearts and let words and tears and the inner workings of our lives bleed and flow and dance across the virtual pages. Yes, this community opens wide and invites you in to share. Come and visit and read. You will be blessed.

You’ll forgive me if I steer gently around the holidays for this post. It’s drawing me – so much to say – so much goodness. I’ve been writing about this a little already – I fact, my second Advent post spoke to exactly this. Maybe that’s why I’m pulling myself in another direction. Besides, it was art class today.

This week: Prepare

Go

They are so small: these tiny hands that grasp gently at the elegant length of deep oxford blue drawing pencils. I sped so little time in the world of children – despite having my own. Her life as an only lends itself towards more grown up conversations and themes – though I fight hard for every inch of childhood.

I sometimes forget the precious lives that inhabit the world two feet below my shoulders. But these children have utterly enchanted me. I have the privilege of sharing art with them once a week and I dearly wish it were more.

Our public schools have been losing curriculum they consider superfluous or unnecessary. Or simply not cost effective. These learning pillars that fall? They’re art; music; library – sometimes even physical education. Despite learned knowledge that these pillars shore up and round out an education as much as math, science, and writing.

So in I go every Tuesday morning. Heart pounding and completely terrified that they’ll look up; see beneath my carefully prepared lessons; and discover that while I might have a passion for arts and a flair for the creative, I am not actually a trained artist. My diligently packed 31 Gifts bag overflows with pens, pencils, color in many mediums, sandpaper, scissors and clips, paintbrushes, and books.  But is that enough?

After much thought and still with some trembling, I must say yes. Solidly. Completely. Confidently. While I might not have credentials behind my passion, I have a dedication to the craft and a deep desire to prepare their young hearts and minds to understand that they too are artists.

Soon enough, they will come crashing headlong into the naysayers and critics – those who will tell them they are not good enough; that their lines are wobbly; that their colors don’t work, and that cats simply cannot appear in every piece of art they create. They will face a lifetime of detractors and barricades – they may even find those barriers surfacing out of pools of worry and anxiety in their own hearts.

It is my deepest hope and prayer that in those moment, they will have a memory – something from way back – when someone leaned into them, believing, and said, “great job – I love what you’ve done with light and shadow there.” I hope they’ll remember a compliment of color, standing around images of the galaxy and learning about grayscale, putting pen to paper and making their first zentangle.

I hope my hour a week gives them the launching pad they need to leap deep into the pools of creativity to discover and navigate confidently through those waters on a lifelong journey.

Stop



How to Join
Want to know about how Five Minute Friday got started, and how to participate? All the details are here. No editing or second guessing. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community.

I'd love to connect with you some more - stop on by the Three Bees Facebook Page or connect with me on Twitter @3BeesBlueBonnet. Let's continue the conversation!

Five Minute Friday (and on a Tuesday!) - Dear

So here’s a new one for me.
Five minutes (well, we’ll see).
Not Friday.

My schedule often puts me behind the eight ball when it comes to the Five Minute Friday writing exercise. I’m still at work when the pre-festivities Twitter party begins and am more likely than not in the car on the way home or running errands when the prompt hits. But I like to join in when I can – this is still my favourite spontaneous writing exercise.

It’s not just the writing or the tweeting that grabs me. It’s the community.  There is so much depth and breadth here – more than I ever imagined. And so, I return to the prompt, four days after it’s been given, to share some thoughts.

On Fridays a bunch of brave writers gather here to all spend five collective minutes writing on a single prompt. It’s a great way to catch your breath at the end of a long week. This blessed, beautiful place where we open our hearts and let words and tears and the inner workings of our lives bleed and flow and dance across the virtual pages. Yes, this community opens wide and invites you in to share. Come and visit and read. You will be blessed.

This week: Dear

Go

I am a keeper of all of the things. I’m not going to use the “h” word – that’s a bigger reach than I’m willing to take. I am a collector. I am a treasurer (sometimes with all this treasure, I am also a treasure hunter). I am a gatherer and preserver of all things necessary and unnecessary because someday, they might be.

In among the collectibles and things preserved, there was a magazine. Kept for months. Read a thousand times. But for all the times that I’d read this particular issue, I hadn’t seen the article. In a national publication with 23 million subscribers, written by a best-selling novelist.

She wrote: “I don’t believe an online relationship is a relationship – not a real one.”

Not talking about dating or internet brides.
Just friendship.
This writer did not believe online relationships are real.

While I agree whole-heartedly with Ms. Best-Selling author that real-life, real-time, in person relationships are utterly essential and life giving, I cannot agree that online friendships have no merit.

Three years ago, I might have told a different story. The extent of my online friendships revolved around dragons and elves, vast lands to develop, and conquering heroes. Yes. I’m a gamer. Please notice this remains in the present tense.

It was fun rallying around goals (bring down the Frost Giant – garner great reward!) and connecting on some level with the players. I got a recipe for midnight margaritas from a bartender in Virginia; got to be pretty decent friends with a nurse from Australia; and my husband and I still exchange birthday greetings with a grandfather of three from Wales.

But three years ago, I discovered the (in)courage community and this tribe of Five Minute Friday writers. That discovery was a game changer.

I’m not sure if I really believed that online friendships could hold the weight of those grown over cups of coffee and tea; shared times with families; and service together for a higher goal.

I’m not sure I could have been more wrong.

With the upsides of social media, I have grown and cultivated authentic, vibrant friendships with women writers across the country (and into other countries). We have laughed, talked, prayed, and served with one another over the weeks and months that begin to mark years. Thanks to handy apps like Voxer (or frankly, the phone), I know their voices and have called on them to share both joys and tears. Many of us participate in the growing project hash tagged fmfpartysnail mail – writing letters each week to post to new friends across the miles: encouraging, praying, and sharing.

These friends are in the inhale and exhale of my daily life. There is a mutual lifting up, a shared cheering as we cross various finish lines in our lives. There is the long-distance hug that feels nearly tangible when shadows fall. There is generosity of spirit. There is truth.

Is it even better if we get the opportunity to meet up at a conference or arrange a real life meet up where hours feel like seconds? Absolutely. There are several friends in my online community that I am counting on meeting someday soon. No matter what. But in the meantime, can we still relish friendship without our heads inclining toward each other over a table or without walking down a quiet path side-by-side? Absolutely.

My online friends are some of my most dear and treasured ones. I’ve been blessed to have them enter my life, and whether I meet them on this side of heaven or after; they will remain ever present in my heart and mind, and will always be counted among the ones I cherish.

Stop



How to Join
Want to know about how Five Minute Friday got started, and how to participate? All the details are here. No editing or second guessing. And then absolutely, no ifs, ands or buts about it, you need to visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments. Seriously. That is the rule. And the fun. And the heart of this community.

I'd love to connect with you some more - stop on by the Three Bees Facebook Page or connect with me on Twitter @3BeesBlueBonnet. Let's continue the conversation!

The Light of Preparation

We set our eyes on hope.
We take off the mantle of what came before.
We direct our attention to the future.

Whether immediate or sometime in the unknown future, hope kindles our heart for what’s next.

If our heart is Christ’s home, we are always in a state of anticipation for him. What we will learn next. What he will reveal. Where we will be led. When is he coming again?

That anticipation leads to preparation.

During Advent, our hope is centered in anticipation on God’s gift of love to his people. The rock and redeemer born of spirit-and-flesh-made-one is the hope of the nations – the restoration of world fallen into darkness; the light on the edge of the dawn of joy.

Our preparation takes on many forms: lighting candles, gather our families for special devotions, perhaps finding those outside our own immediate circle who need encouragement, hope, and the gift of our time or resources.

But overall, let this time of preparation happen in our hearts.

Let us prepare for joy – making room and bowing low in humble thanks. As heaven opens in song to remember the receiving of her king, let us join in with our own song, and repeat the sounding joy. Let us look with hope to the future when sorrow and the infestation of the imperfect will be no more because of God’s blessings that will flow without end. Let us anticipate the future heaven and future earth where God’s peace and truth reigns and the nations celebrate the wonders of his glorious love. Let us repeat the sounding joy.

I pray that the light of preparation will be kindled and renewed in your hearts as we move forward into this season of discovering the greatest gift.

I'd love to connect with you some more - stop on by the Three Bees Facebook Page or connect with me on Twitter @3BeesBlueBonnet. Let's continue the conversation!