Category Archives: Writing

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It’s Official – It’s No Longer A Series, It’s Graduated To A Theme

A couple of weekends ago I was chattin’ with the Lord about some things on my heart:  family, grace, love, vacation, the grocery store, making dinner, Bible study, writing.  You know the usual stuff.  I took a lot of notes about our conversation.

I keep several small notebooks around all the time because you just never know where you are going to be when inspiration hits and you’ve got to jot it down.  I am apparently at that age when inspiration hits you better get it down fast or it’s gone, quick.  And I mean like lightning.  Sometimes it’s gone before I can even uncap my pen!

I’m just going with the flow though.  It’s a season of life and Jesus is enough.  I just try to laugh… A LOT!

Sometimes when I am chattin’ with the Lord He answers questions for me.  Sometimes He just tells me things I wasn’t even thinking about.  He often speaks to me in the shower or when I first wake up and haven’t gotten distracted yet.  Sometimes, our conversation is more of a regular dialogue and less of a question answer session.  You know, like a regular relationship.  So as we’re chattin’, I jot down notes.

In case it’s not obvious, I have spent quite a while talking to Him about grace, love, The Resurrection, abundant life and reigning.  The more we talk about it, the more He reveals and I have begun to realize that it is truly a never-ending topic.  And for that, I am profoundly grateful.

So back to a couple of weekends ago, as we were talking, I heard a question in the back of my mind, “What would you write if you thought it wasn’t for public consumption?”

I thought about what that meant.  Honestly for a while I wasn’t sure I even understood the question.  But what I finally came around to was, if I wasn’t concerned about audience, format, topic, length, voice, marketability, etc., what would I write?

Once I understood the question I had to admit that I wasn’t sure I knew the answer.

So I sat down to find out.

I started doing some regular, spontaneous free-writing (I am sure there is some technical writing jargon for this process, but I am learning as I go and someone can tell me in the comments what it is called) just to see what would happen. So I’ve been sitting down with a blank Word document, praying and then I just start writing and see what happens.

 

Writing Desk

 

And you know what inevitably happens? Every single time no matter how I start at the beginning I end up dialoguing with God on paper instead of out loud or in my head.

And you know what we talk about?  Grace, love, Jesus, abundant life, reigning, Bible study.

I guess my point is, even when I sit down in a completely unstructured environment with no expectations or planned outcomes, this is still what’s coming out of me.  Therefore, I think it’s safe to assume for the foreseeable future it’s going to be a theme around here in this space.  My series on abundant living and reigning in life has graduated to a theme.

I would also like to take this opportunity (or should I say risk) to invite you to share your thoughts here.  Maybe you have some examples to share or ideas about what it means to walk free in Christ, to live abundantly and to reign in life.  Maybe you even disagree with my ideas.  Adventures are so much more fun when we share them together.

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Play

chocolate bar milk shakes

chocolate bar milk shakes (Photo credit: twobobswerver)

Pressing the Play button after a Pause is a little daunting.

Just needed to sit on some thoughts and ideas for a bit to let them become more clear before spinning them back out in this space.

Picture making a chocolate milkshake.  You grab your blender, put in different ingredients – chocolate ice cream, milk, chocolate syrup – and then you blend them together.  If you don’t put the lid on the machine while it’s blending you’ll just be scraping a mess of ice cream, milk, and chocolate syrup off the ceiling, you and the floor instead of enjoying the end product.

Sometimes keeping the lid on things for a bit produces a more enjoyable, well-blended treat.  It might still be messy in the end and it will NEVER be perfect, but at least it will be poured out and presented in a more attractive manner instead of splattered everywhere.  🙂

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And Then There Is Fear

Since this turned into something of a series on abundant life and reigning in life (see The Day After and Abundant Life?), it probably would have been helpful to title them consistently and add numbers.  I guess hindsight really is 20/20.  Thank you for your patience, I am learning as I go and really enjoying the process.

The process, I use that term loosely, but what I mean by that is sitting down and talking to the Lord about the things He is doing and has done in my life and asking Him to help me articulate them…as much for me as for anyone else.  So if it ever seems as if I am thinking out loud on the computer screen, I probably am.

My thoughts turned to abundant life and reigning in life as I reflected on the importance not only on the celebration of Resurrection Sunday, but celebration of the Resurrected life.  The truth is, as believers the cross represents the crucifixion of our old self (our human spirit that was dead to God), our burial, and our resurrection (us made alive together with Christ).  Shouldn’t our lives be different?  If ‘Christ in us, the hope of glory’ is true, well…that’s a total game changer, if we let it be.

Thinking about this it seemed the obvious place to start was with what abundant life is not, since that really is the part I am most familiar with :).  I think I made a good case in my last post for the idea that TRYING HARDER IS NOT ABUNDANT LIVING (is it true that when you use all caps it’s like raising your voice to your reader?  Please let me know because I want to scream that from the mountain tops)!  My life is an honest example of the truth in that statement.

Another honest example from my own life is that FEAR is not reigning in life.  The fact that I had so many of these to choose from (fear examples) made this post hard to write.  Fear based living could become a series within a series…or a book.  The easiest one to see is in how I mothered my girls.

Every decision I agonized over was based on the fear that if I made the wrong one their lives would be forever off-track, the perfect track, God’s track.  School was a big one for me.  I knew early on that homeschooling was not for us, but I didn’t feel public school was ‘safe’, so at great financial cost I insisted my kids go to Christian school for several years.  That way they would be in the right environment, with the right friends, learning the right Christian things to keep their lives on the right track.

It finally became financially obvious that we could no longer continue in Christian school, so we enrolled them in public school.  You know what?  In the beginning I felt very defeated by this, like I had failed and because of that the enemy had really gotten a victory.  However, it turned out to be the best thing we could have done for them (one more instance of lacking perspective).  Has it been perfect? No, but honestly the things we’ve faced in public school were not really any different from Christian school.  People are people wherever you go.

I am not advocating thoughtless, careless parenting, but at some point don’t you just have to trust that God is bigger than your mistakes?  I can’t protect them from every possible danger that can potentially come their way, but I can place my trust in the One who can.

While mothering has been a very pronounced example of how I’ve lived in fear, the truth is I’ve lived afraid of a lot of things.  Afraid that if I didn’t pray and read my Bible every day that I wouldn’t have God’s favor.  Afraid that if I made a mistake God wouldn’t love me, bless me, use me (fill in the blank).  Afraid that as a Christian I wasn’t representing God very well if my life wasn’t perfect (talk about carrying a huge weight – it’s a miracle I can even stand up straight any more).  Afraid that if I wasn’t doing enough for the Lord He might get angry.

What was I afraid would happen?  The absolute worst, whatever that was.

The apostle John had this to say about fear:

1 John 4:18 (NASB) – “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love.”

John was exactly right.  I had met Perfect Love, but I didn’t really trust Him to be Lord.  I walked around waiting for the other shoe to drop, expecting the punishment I was sure I deserved for all the mistakes I was sure I was making.

But you know how the Lord handles our mistakes?  He confronts them with His love, not His wrath.  Two of the biggest mistake makers in the New Testament, Paul and Peter, prove this.  Paul was actually murdering followers of Christ and was on his way to kill even more when he met Jesus on the road to Damascus and you know what Jesus said to him?

Acts 9:4-6 (NASB) – “… and he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?”  And he said, “Who are You, Lord?” And He said, “I am
Jesus whom you are persecuting, but get up and enter the
city, and it will be told you what you must do.”

Paul wasn’t even a believer at that point, but Jesus simply confronted him with a question.  A question that immediately revealed to Paul (then Saul) what was in his own heart and who Jesus was.  And then He told Paul what to do.

Then there is Peter.  The disciple who swore his willingness to die for Jesus (John 13) and then turned around and denied even knowing Him that same night (John 18).  Talk about a mistake!  How did Jesus handle it?

John 21:15-17 (NASB) – “So when they had finished breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me more than these?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Tend My lambs.” He said to him again a second time, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Shepherd My sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love Me?” Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, “Do you love Me?” And he said to Him, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.” Jesus said to him, “Tend My sheep.”

Jesus dealt with his mistake by asking him questions that caused Peter to think and then He gave him instructions.  Just like He did with Paul.  Their mistakes were confronted by Perfect Love, not punishment.

So, all that to say, living in fear is NOT reigning in life, but apparently living loved IS.

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Unmasked

Every time I sit to write there are a couple of nagging questions in the back of my mind: 1) what if this time I have nothing to say?  2) what if what’s in my heart doesn’t make sense on the screen?  Sometimes trying to articulate in the natural what God is doing in the Spirit can be challenging and overwhelming.  And let’s just face it, it’s never going to come out perfectly anyway.

For the past couple of weeks, really beginning with All. Is. Grace., moving to the woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her hair and tears and then particularly walking out of darkness like Lazarus and being angry with God, the content of my posts has been written to share more of the real me.  I am intentionally removing the masks I’ve worn for many years, the masks I’ve hidden behind (even from myself) and sharing Kim.

Increasingly, each post has become more and more like giving birth – painful, tearful, at some point I am not sure if it’s ever going to happen, but then joyful and life-giving when it finally arrives.  From the reader’s perspective I am not sure if anyone would be able to see a discernible difference, but writing has become more of a working out my faith in fear and trembling, than a systematic process.

In fact, as I write each post God has often been doing a deep work on this side of my computer.  As He gives me words to articulate my life there is a growing depth to our relationship because I really am depending on Him every step of the way.  Sometimes I am even having revelation as I type or as I share with friends thoughts and ideas that eventually get published.

So, if this journey is so awesome (and it is), you might be shocked to learn that as I’ve shared without the masks so to speak I have been battling a growing anxiety.  When I first started the blog the Publish button was bullying me around.  I have come to terms with the fact that the Publish button works for me, not me for it.  It is not going to do anything that doesn’t serve my purposes (except for the time I accidentally hit Publish instead of Preview and my post left the Draft folder before I was ready).  In other words, I have made peace with it and we are now friends.

The growing anxiety has come AFTER I hit Publish and my humble offerings have gone out to the world.  As friends read their posts via email, or come to my site or click the link on Facebook, or however they arrive to my online home and partake of my inner most thoughts, my pulse starts to race, my breathing gets faster and knots form in my stomach.  As my site meter climbs and the number of visitors and views grows I actually get nauseous.

For about the last two weeks my stomach has hurt almost constantly.  It’s hurt in spite of the fact that I am getting positive feedback and encouragement regularly (and yes even from people who don’t know and love me).  It’s hurt in spite of the profound closeness I’ve experienced with the Lord in the writing of each post.

While I have shared this with a couple of very close friends, I have for the most part kept this between me and the Lord.  Finally He showed me some of what’s been going on in my heart.  When I hit Publish I am not looking for approval from people or way more importantly from Him, I am actually EXPECTING REJECTION, particularly from Him.  The anxiety is in the waiting and anticipation of the rejection to manifest itself.  Let’s be honest, expecting rejection has been the whole reason behind wearing the masks all these years.  As they come off, there’s nothing between me and you, between me and God.  The potential for intimacy is great, but the potential for pain is huge too.

Instead of resting in His UNCONDITIONAL Love, His TOTAL acceptance of me, the high value He places on me (did you know Believers in Christ are worth as much to God as Jesus Christ Himself?), and trusting I am secure in Him, I have been waiting for Him to say, “No, that post isn’t right,” or “No, you are not cut out for this,” or, “Is that the best you can do?”

I think God moves us out of our comfort zones to take us to new places of relationship with Him.  Not only am I learning to depend on Him for the writing itself, but I am learning that the outcome is completely up to Him too.  Yes, I might get hurt in this process.  Yes, I will make mistakes.  Yes, it is possible that no one may ever “get me”, except God.  But to know Him in a more intimate and revealing way and to experience life lived out of relationship with Him, it’s so worth the risk.

And no matter where this writing adventure (or anything else in my life) goes or where it doesn’t, God is pleased with me.  He is pleased with me simply because I am His daughter.  And if I may be so bold, I think He’s actually excited for me and about me.

As I wrap up this post, this is the song the Lord put on my heart, What Joy.  Enjoy! (Sarah Emerson does a beautiful job, but this Mama LOVES to hear her babies sing this song! It’s my blog, I can be partial if I want. :))

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A New Adventure

The week before New Year’s my husband and I went out to dinner one night.  I talked to him about writing and how I have always wanted to write a book.  I don’t remember exactly how the conversation went, but I am sure I shared all the reasons I have come up with not to write (e.g. Do I have anything worth saying?  Do I have anything to say that someone else hasn’t already said or said better? I don’t know what I am doing.  Would anyone read it?).  Finally, he said, “Well, why don’t you just go ahead and write the book?”

That one question was all I needed to propel me to start this blog a few days later (a special thank you to my husband).  A blog seemed a natural first step.  It gives me the opportunity to practice the discipline of writing on a regular basis.  Knowing that even a few others will actually read what I publish adds an extra layer of tension, good tension, that makes me work harder at it.

Early on in this leg of my journey I shared here how writing has been a life long dream for me (see Living the Dream).  While writing in this space is definitely part of a fulfillment of that dream, if I really get down to it, writing a book has been the heart of my dream.

Last weekend as I was perusing some posts by other bloggers that I follow, I came across an intriguing piece of information.  A writing conference in October (that I haven’t even decided to attend or even talked to my husband about come to think of it…hhhmmmm) is hosting a contest for aspiring non-fiction authors.  The winner will receive a contract with a well-known publisher.  A light went on in the back of my mind.  Even if my idea doesn’t win the contest, having a specific deadline and knowing professionals would read my work really piqued my interest.

But then I thought, “I don’t know about this, maybe it’s just my flesh.”  So I said what all good Christian women say when asking themselves if it’s the Holy Spirit or their flesh, “I’ll take it to the Lord.”  So I took it to Him and walked away with more questions than answers, like, “Lord, when would I even have time to write a book proposal? ” and “Lord, where would I start?”  In other words, I tried to tell God why it’s not really a great idea.

Fast forward to Monday morning…I woke up with a lot on my heart, but nothing on my computer screen ready to publish  (I am trying to post on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays so that I get into a regular rhythm of writing).  So I poured out my heart on my laptop (no kidding, I really cried writing that entire post about the woman with the hair and the tears and I still have more to say about that) and then I hit Publish.  Immediately my heart dropped to my stomach because I had published without giving it a title.  I made a MISTAKE!!!!

The next evening, Tuesday, I decided to write my post for Wednesday.  I tried to prevent another hasty title-less posting accident by writing it in advance and scheduling it to publish at a pre-determined day and time.  However, when I went to Preview it I hit Publish instead (they both have P’s, right???).  My second MISTAKE in two days!  It was immediately confirmed, I have no idea what I am doing.  By the end of the week I was really asking myself why on earth I thought I could possibly write a book if I can’t even manage to publish a blog the right way?

But God…on Wednesday, while blow drying my hair and talking to Him (that’s about the extent of my multitasking abilities), He gave me my starting point, the basic layout of the book.  I could clearly see it in my mind’s eye.  On Friday, He answered my other big question, “When would I have time to write?” by freeing up a couple of blocks of time in my weekly schedule.  But then the lies started to creep in and the insecurities of my mistakes that week rose up and began to taunt me.

So I did the next thing Christian women sometimes do when they are feeling overwhelmed, insecure and lost…I hopped online and looked for a conference where I could go and gather with others who already know what they are doing and learn how they did it!  I could learn from them how to do it the right way, with no mistakes.  Two particular conferences (they shall remain nameless to protect the innocent) seemed ideal in terms of content and speakers, but the more I read about them the more anxious I became.  I heard the Lord whisper to me, “If I gave you the idea, the outline and the time, don’t you think I can give you the whole thing?”

He let me know right then and there this journey is about me and Him.  It’s about our relationship, not about a finished product.  My journey is unique and to try to do it the same way as anyone else would be fraudulent, fake, without substance.  It wouldn’t be a true representation of what He is doing in my life.

The bottom line is the Lord and I will be spending the next month working on a book proposal.  I don’t like not knowing what I am doing.  I don’t like being uncertain of the outcome.  But I love this journey of learning to depend on God; of pursuing a relationship without worrying about producing content; of  learning to abide in Him and bear fruit instead of being independent and trying to manufacture my own.

John 15:4-5 – “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.”