Beauty in the Imperfections...

Sometimes you have those days where you wish you could just hit the rewind button and start over.  Yesterday was one of those days.  I had just come off a long weekend away with a group of Youth Pastors from all over the country digging into poverty and cross cultural awareness prep for missions.  By the time I flew home Saturday night, I was mentally exhausted.  I knew that my exhaustion was not going away anytime soon, due to the fact that I had a two year old waiting at home for me and preparation for a retreat that I would be speaking at the very next weekend (I know...not great timing on my part!).

Monday morning came faster than I wanted to and my predictions were correct.  I was exhausted.  From the start, all I could think of was the 95 million things I had to get done and the little time I had to get them done.  On top of that, it was Monday.  Nate works part time on Monday tutoring English Language Learners in one of the local middle schools and Mondays have become my day home with Biruk.  Our typical day includes going to Target, going to Library time (which is a task in itself), dropping by Dunkin for a cup of coffee and some Muchkins, eating lunch, putting Biruk down for a nap, and then working the rest of the day in efforts to begin my studying and preparation for Youth Group on Wednesday night.

I should have know when I woke up and saw it was pouring outside that the day was going to be a struggle.  I quickly made a huge pot of coffee and decided we would stay in until we had to go to Library time.  Let's just say the morning was a challenge, Mommy was not very patient, Biruk had figured out how to press every one of my buttons, and preparation for Youth Group included me staring blankly at my computer screen wishing for some kind of creativity to miraculously show up in my brain.  By the time Nate got home, I was in full meltdown mode (yes...me...not my toddler...who ironically was still in his crib laughing like crazy, NOT sleeping).

I was burned out.  I had very little to give.  It was not a proud moment.

The other day Nate and I were running our usually 2.5 mile loop when I was reminded of how much we need each other in life.  On our runs, we take turn pushing Biruk in the jogger.  At 30+ pounds, he's not exactly a light weight.  The neighborhood we run in has series of hills, and by the end, I am on empty.  The past several times, we have gotten to about the last 1/8 of a mile, when I see what's in front of me...a huge hill.  Every time we have gotten to the hill, Nate has turned to me and said, "Want me to push the rest of it?"  Without hesitation, I give the jogger up, let Nate push Biruk, and we finish strong together.

This past year, one of the things that I learned from my Women in Youth Ministry cohort, was the importance of having a group of people that would surround me and pray for me.  Our cohort leader called it a Prayer Shield and encouraged us to get one started in our life.  I spend a lot of time thinking about all the people who had invested in me, believed in me, understood my heart, and had a deep love for Jesus.  I put them on a list and began to ask each one of them if they would commit to praying for me, my ministry, and my family.  The response was overwhelming.

This morning, I started my day different than yesterday.  I woke up at 6am, lit a candle, made a cup of coffee, and spent some time just being still before God.  At first, everything I had on my list of things to do began to run through my mind.  God reminded me once again...to seize striving and just be.  It may have been one of the best 45 minutes I have had in a long time.  When I got to work, I sent an email out to my prayer team, creating a vulnerability as I shared my worries, my inadequacies, my "less than moments," and my desire to have the Holy Spirit fill my soul.  Within minutes, those very same people began to pour into my life with words of encouragement, words of wisdom, poetry, scripture, prayers, and love.

We are not meant to do this life alone.  The reality is, we are all going to have days that we wish we could unwind, days we wish we could delete, and days that we hope we will find the strength to forget.  There are going to be times when we feel like we are in an uphill battle to finish strong.  We are going to feel inadequate, less than, and even burned out at times.  We will be tempted to fight those battles on our own, but the truth is, God didn't intend for this life to be lived alone.  He has placed people along our journey to encourage us, challenge us, and to help us grow.  We have to look for them...because they are often little hidden gems along the path.  But when we find them, and we choose to open our hearts and our lives with them, living in the most vulnerable of ways, we will discover beauty in our imperfections and joy in the journey.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Mother's Heart...

Image
It was the night before we were ready to leave for Ethiopia that it dawned on me. We hadn’t given the necklace to Biruk yet. When we had exchanged necklaces with his birth mom ten years prior at the orphanage, we had no idea when we would give it to him. We just knew that we wanted him to be old enough to appreciate it, as it would be the only thing he would have from her. We had no idea if we would ever see her again.  There have been several moments in our journey where I’ve had to pinch myself, because it has felt like I was dreaming. That night as we put our final things in our suitcases, took a deep breath, and came to the realization that we were not only taking our kids to Ethiopia, but that Biruk would in fact meet his birth mom…well, you had to pinch me, because it felt like I was dreaming. It also felt like the perfect moment to share this gift that we had been holding onto for 10 years. So we pulled out the necklace and gave it to Biruk. While words can be few and far
Read more

Stories Matter

Image
Yesterday, my family and I found ourselves at a local elementary school’s culture club, presenting about our trip to Ethiopia. Even as I write those words, it kind of blows my mind how God has continued to use our story in unexpected places. When the kids were old enough to understand, we began to talk about taking them back to their birth country when they turned 10. We figured at 10, they would be old enough to be pretty good travelers, but still approach the adventure with a childlike wonder. What we didn’t plan on, was that the year Biruk turned 10 would come on the heels of me taking a brand new job, our family moving to a new state, and buying our very first house, in an economy that felt as though it was tanking!  I remember talking to my counselor one day and sharing with him that while we had always promised this trip to our kids, it just didn’t seem to make financial sense. After all, last time I checked, Southwest Airlines does not travel to Africa. He said something
Read more

Thin Spaces...The Sights and Sounds of Ethiopia

Image
When I was in Seminary, I went on my first Mission Trip to a third world country. I was just two years into my marriage, a young 23 years of age, and I had no idea how the experience would change me. My Dad happened to be taking a team from his church to the Dominican Republic and I needed a cross cultural experience for a class I was taking, so it seemed like a perfect match. That trip not only changed my life, but created this passion to serve in third world countries and was the launching pad for all the mission trips I would get to lead at the churches I was a youth pastor at. By the time I was I reached 40, I had taken 2 more trips to the Dominican Republic, a trip to Costa Rica, a trip to Guatemala, a trip to Africa, and of course 25+ trips to Honduras.  There is something about being in a third world country that feels like home to me. I know that sounds strange, but I have often found myself saying, “I’m my best self here.” They are places that breathe fresh life into me,
Read more