Compassion. Love. Hope.
My fingers press against the words lettered in the journal in my lap.
Why is it so much easier to heap condemnation, critique, and criticism on my heart, my mind, myself?
And in so doing, really, I’m mired in myself. I may not admire myself, but self-absorption shows up in a myriad of ways.
I sigh a bit. Brush highlighted hair strands behind my ear.
My pen waits. My thoughts jumble.
Day to day, as I endeavor to delight in the daily details, what grounds me? What shapes me? What holds steady when life gets shaky?
My pen writes out the thoughts tumbling in my brain.
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Dear Me: Lifelines When Life is Listing
Perhaps I would like to be witty and pretty, yet rather hold to the loveliness of wisdom.
It may feel affirming to be seen as graceful and charming, yet let kindness and compassion carry the day.
Points and gold stars if found eloquent and winsome, yet real winning is in baring brokenness and seeing beauty in the scars.
I ponder what adds depth of value to my life.
More words pour from my pen.
Seek creativity.
Notice what brings happiness. What I anticipate. What causes stirring in my soul.
Laugh often, long and loud. Balm for the weary. Good medicine for all.
Comparison kills creativity.
I underline this one three times in red ink.
Soul growth is soul widening.
Seeing room for my few words, my wobbly art, my duller photo next to those who really have done it longer, do it better. Room for me too.
Wide-open expanse to create for the love of creating itself.
Power and position are known to pull one away from actual locations that matter.
Love the process not the praising.
We like heroes. The laud. The largeness.
Yet, most of life is carried by unsung heroes.
The day in, day out steady.
They feed people and haul loads and write prescriptions.
They rock babies and get up at night. Go out in the cold and do the endless tasks on repeat.
They are the doers and the givers and the helpers.
The ones Mr. Rogers says to look for.
And strength of character and integrity are built one unsung act at a time.
Always, always boomerang kind words right back to the bestower.
The very breath of grace to come alongside comrades.
Read. Grow. Learn.
Book stacks are friends and mentors and teachers.
They traverse county lines and country borders and distance barriers.
Prayer and praise and penning the Word. Pursuing each with intention.
Life will not always be as it is today. A comfort in hardship. A reminder in joy-soaked days.
Note favorites. Notice favorites. Incorporate them into my life in all the little ways.
Upgrade the everyday. Pizzazz in pizza. Linger over lattes. Let music drift on repeat.
Conversations over coffee and comrades to link arms with.
Delight Daily.
Chase beauty. Push back against the darkness.
Bask in evening light.
Capture sunset on Instagram. Write out gratitude. Snip hydrangeas.
Wrap a gift. Poof the pillows. Wear happy colors.
Chase beauty. Push back against the darkness.
Listen. Learn. Listen more. Listen again.
Consider long. Life doesn’t have to happen instantaneously.
Phone face down.
Face turned up to heaven, to family, to home, to sky, to sunshine, to raindrops, to beauty, to delight.
Admit change. Admit growth. Admit mistakes.
Admit misunderstanding. Admit faulty teaching.
In admittance is shaping.
A forming.
A cultivating of humility.
In this loamy soil, kindness and compassion and love will sprout, begin to grow up strong, scatter seeds.
I pause, pondering.
And why, why? Easy to jot it down. See the inked black and white pages.
But the living of it, the living of it.
It requires humility in itself.
I quietly sit down in Paul’s camp.
I can name what I want to be, but the living of it is not without extreme pain and endurance.
Perhaps it is in the practicing, again and again, practicing, that I am formed.
My former me begins to slowly become the person I envision.
The me I press on to possess. I have not taken hold of her yet.
But Jesus took hold of me many years ago and He will never let me go.
Philippians 4:12-14
I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.
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