Compassion Project

This cool project was started about compassion... In an harmonized action, 1000 bloggers will spread the good news of compassion across the globe on Feb 20.

What does compassion mean to you?

When I was in law school, I ran out of money and had to make some hard decisions.  I decided to let my car insurance go.  When I went to the agent, who I didn't know from anyone, to let him know I was canceling my insurance, he asked why, and I was honest.  He took a long look at me and said, "if my daughter ran into trouble and couldn't come to me, for whatever reason, I would hope that someone would help her" and he covered my insurance for six months.  

Although I eventually paid him back, that act of kindness gave me hope that I would get through the hard times, and inspired me more times in my life than he likely ever intended.

I want to be like that insurance agent.  If he judged me for poor financial acumen, he never let on.  He saw a need he could help with, a virtual stranger, and he did.

I want to have that big of a heart.

No Yogi

It should been a clue that things would be different when the wall of heat hit me as I walked into the room, new yoga mat tucked under my arm.  Apparently the class before Yoga Basics is Hot Yoga.

"Great," I thought. "This should be named 'Poses In Hell.'"

I dutifully set up my mat, got my blocks, optimistically threw a towel down over the mat (really, I hate spraying down the mat!) and waited quietly for class to begin.

The teacher, who is adorable, said, "Yeah, this is called Yoga Basics, but we have people who have been coming a while, so this will be pretty challenging."

"Then perhaps a new class name is in order??" I groused silently.  I grumbled to myself a bit then.  It's hot in here. This is gonna suck. I wanna go home and eat some of that pulled pork my crockpot is making for me.

Then I smiled at my grouchy self and said, again, totally in my head, "You're just nervous. It will be fine."

And it was.

No, it didn't fit the web site description.  Yes, I had to do a fair bit of adapting, and again sharing with the teacher that no, my joints don't line up, so yes, that is how my feet go, and sweating so much I began to worry about dehydration. I had to remove the towel from the mat about 10 minutes in because it was too slidey to get a firm grip, so I could see my own body fluid pooling in the grooves.

But once I gave myself permission to be new, to suck, to ask for help, to ACCEPT help, to make the necessary accommodations unashamed, I was able to just be in the moment, be grateful for the experience, smile at the people around me, and even marvel at the amount of dripping sweat my body can produce and yet survive.

I am no yogi, but I may become slightly addicted to this.

Love Never Fails

My niece, Rachel, who is an objectively-speaking badass young woman, has a saying on her Instagram that I stole for my own use. I have no idea where she got it.

FEAR: Forget Everything And Run or Face Everything and Rise. Your choice.

So. True.

I got a call I was sort of expecting to tell me that yet again I was the Number Two candidate for a position I coveted.  I was so sad and disappointed!  Got teary and everything!

So, following Rachel's stellar advice, I decided right then and there to just feel my feelings, be sad and disappointed, but to Trust in God's infinite love for me.  I am right where He wants me.  I can face that challenge, or simply run away and abandon everything I've worked for.

It is always a choice, isn't it?

Even in the midst of my vast disappointment, I was surrounded by love, from the comfort of friends and family to the peace I felt in accepting this situation, in the peace at deciding to stop job hunting and bloom where I'm planted. One of my SILs gave me six months of yoga lessons! I gotta use that up!

I am here for a reason. No clue what that is, but God has had Ample opportunity to move me out this past year, and here I remain.

A few people at my job know, the ones I am using for references.  The comfort it gave me when they said, I am sad for you, but happy for me. I don't want you to go! was immense.

This will be a great year.  No matter what happens, I am not alone, I am surrounded by love and have people in my life who believe in my purpose, even though no one of us know exactly what that is.

And I can continue to work on becoming the kind of person I want to be.

One Thing Remains

I did make a NY resolution: to wear makeup to work.  Day 1 was successful but did throw off my timing a bit.

Everything else has a plan.

On Epiphany Sunday, I had an epiphany.  I felt like 2014 was just marking time.  I accomplished less than I wanted, had relationships blow up, gained some weight, lost the weight, filled the holes in my life with sugar and swung my raw emotions around like a flamethrower.

But it wasn't just marking time.  I got a front row seat to what happens when I let my spiritual life grow cold on a back burner.  I got whelmed by life, then overwhelmed, again and again.  Relying on my own resources does that.

I made a few commitments and shared them with people who need to know so I can be held accountable, but the biggest, most important commitment I made was to spend time with God, every single day, and to hold up every decision, every emotion, every reaction, to His healing love.


My theme song for 2015:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6gKqddEw-Y

Your love never fails, never gives up
Never runs out on me

Higher than the mountains that I face
Stronger than the power of the grave
Constant in the trial and the change
One thing remains

On and on and on and on it goes
It overwhelms and satisfies my soul
And I never, ever, have to be afraid
One thing remains

Your love never fails, never gives up
Never runs out on me

In death, in life
I'm confident and covered by the power of Your great love
My debt is paid
There's nothing that can separate my heart from Your great love

Bloom Where You're Planted

As usual during jail ministry, the lessons we discuss with the inmates turn out to be the ones we most need to hear ourselves.

After sharing the Sunday readings, we ended up discussing the New Testament reading from Colossians the most.  As we discussed with the ladies the choice before them, to use their time in jail as preparation for their life when they get out, or to simply mark time, one of the women said, "whatever brought us here, God wills that we are here, so we kind of have to bloom where we are planted."  We talked about thanking God in all our circumstances, even the ones we don't want and even actively resist.

Boy, was THAT a cold bucket of truth to dunk in.

Wherever we find ourselves, there is a reason.  If we are trying desperately to leave, but still find ourselves there, there is a reason.

It is no secret that I feel the circumstances of my life here have changed to the point I'm practically desperate to leave.  Yet, I am still here.  Many job interviews later, I am still here.

Still.  Here.

I can mark time, or make the most of it. I can be angry and resentful, or I can thank God for having a decent job, dear friends, and many creature comforts.

What I have been doing is mostly complaining, worrying, grasping at straws, winding myself up, and feeling rather wretched rather often. That did not get me relocated any faster.

So, here I am, feeling like all I did this past year was mark time. Probably that really is what I did.  I can't see any area of my life that I improved appreciably.  I haven't gone the extra mile to improve my mind or health or finances. I have not made extra effort to develop relationships.

A year from now, even if everything goes to complete hell, I would like to look back and be able to say I Tried.  Maybe I wasn't successful, but I gave my life everything I had in me.  I did not just watch the year go by.

Bloom where I'm planted.

The Great Wall of Anger

Anger is a wall built by two people.

Everyone knows someone who seems chronically angry.  No matter what adversity they face, the go-to emotion seems to be anger.

I get that.  I was like that for a long time.  Anger made me feel powerful and in charge... unlike sadness, which made me feel pathetic, or hurt, which made me feel weak.

Most negative emotions left unchecked can build walls between people... Sadness can shove people away. The unhappy person builds a wall between herself and others.  Anger not only shoves people away, but causes the shoved person to build their side of the wall.

Let's face it, the Great Wall of China was not built to keep out the chronically depressed northerners.

Anger isn't a primary emotion. Anger is a reactive emotion.  You start with another emotion and it moves to anger.  Shock, sadness, anxiety and shame can all move quickly to anger.

The reality is that anger is no more powerful than any other emotion, but left uncontrolled it can destroy love so much faster than anything else.  I've witnessed this anger drive families apart -children from parents, spouses from each other,  best friends.

Nobody wanted it or intended it, but that is simply what that anger does.

It took some pretty intense work on my part and some divine intervention from Jesus for me to stop using anger as my default mode and just FEEL my feelings.  Learning that Feeling weak, pathetic, sad, frustrated, ashamed, or overwhelmed does not have to lead to me picking a fight or throwing a temper tantrum took a while.

I'm thinking about this today because I had an encounter yesterday with someone who also seems to struggle with anger.  He was disappointed, but what radiated from him was anger.  Since I was the focal point, I was paying attention and silently calling on God to bring calm to the situation, which He did.

But I've been fighting him in my head since then, and working on the foundation for my side of the wall.

Everything I Meant to Say

Nothing drives home the message I am a better writer than speaker than being interviewed.

I was so excited -Shannyn Caldwell from Peter and Shannyn In The Morning on Family Life Radio asked if I would be interested in chatting about my blog, particularly the post "Letter to the Upstart Blogger."  Heck yeah!!

I swear I had all kinds of beautiful thoughts right before my mind froze and I think I likely babbled. I'm not really sure.

BUT, because I am a blogger, I have this opportunity to write what I meant to say.

Our hearts are weird.  I don't mean just single people. This is the human condition.

I wanted to emphasize that as a single person, it is very important to appreciate and value the people who are in our lives.  Sometimes we can look so hard at what we want and don't have (spouse, children) that we don't recognize the love that is right there in front of us.

The people who are present in our lives are the ones we are meant to love and be present for.  No, we won't be a primary relationship for them, but that doesn't mean we aren't important, cared for, loved.  God placed us in this amazing time and place for His purposes.  I think part of that is to learn that we count, too, even if we aren't married, and that those people we have in our lives count, too, even when we aren't married to them.

It can be so hard as a single person to continually be the one reaching out to create community, but that is perhaps the burden, that God granted "that I may not seek so much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved, as to love..."

and the Prayer of St Francis ends thusly, "for it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, it is in dying that we are born to eternal life."

And that is the irony, isn't it?  Just when you are at your most tired and lonely, the person you likely least expect will turn around and remind you that you have a space in their weird little heart.