simply thankful.

• elisabeth and ulf levin - their kindness and christ-likeness is exemplary
• EGM - elementary greek mythology - the creativity and fun is beautiful
• donovan's leadership and ability to speak the truth in love (and the great quotes he shares)

• cheese omelette from michelle
• plate o' cake 
• this guy.  i love him. 

• peaceful time at hotel du lac 
• AFM library - always another good book to read
• best use of whiskey bottles (totally worth a dash across the road)

•  jonah's work on our light and the way he organized our cords
• youversion app scripture picture making tool
• shared conversation and chocolate (both swiss)

• love and friendship in a box from shea (complete with apple butter)
• successful community connect event
• sadie's willingness to make hundreds of muffins on her day off

•  the way the tents went back up
• learning and growth (even if it doesn't feel so good)
• playing in the container on the dock

so much.

• "all the way to the airport and back" run
• home....and how it's so much more than a place.
• different angles of familiar views

• cookie dough. 
• the life and kindness that exude from nick and suzanne 
• paper airplane contests in mid-ships

• caroline's kindness to emma when she was getting ready for dinner
• time with jordan and katie
• the phenomenal package caroline received from sarah

• the couch didn't break my toe
• big stack of notebooks/workbooks willingly sent to the trash (without even having to ask!)
• sunday afternoon nerf war/capture the flag

• sharing a devo with the OR team...always a sacred privilege
• the good kind of sore (push ups....where it's at.)
• marks & spencer chocolate discs during our team meeting

• laughing about silly stories and fully recognizing God's grace
• the chance to miss beloved friends...reminds me that the frienship is real.
• donovan's words about the code of conduct...it's just a starting point. 

daring greatly - quotes

Just finished a remarkable book...

Admission:  I actually finished it about 2 months ago...and typed up the quotes and started finding pictures of quotes to include...but then got sidetracked and never went back to finish this post.  Today's the day!  A little light reading for your Monday morning...

So many good quotes....here are some of my favorites (all are from Brene Brown unless otherwise noted):

Preface (you know it's going to be a good book when you underline things in the preface to the introduction....)

• Vulnerability is not knowing victory or defeat, it's understanding the necessity of both; it's engaging.  It's being all in.

Introduction

• Vulnerability is...an exquisite emotion
• We are hardwired to connect with others, it's what gives purpose and meaning to our lives, and without it there is suffering. 
• Wholehearted living is about engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness.
• No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough.
• Yes I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid but that doesn't change the truth that I am also brave and worthy of love and belonging.
• ...living a life defined by courage, compassion and connection.

• We are taught that a cool distance and inaccessibility contributes to prestige, and that if you're too relateable, your credentials come into question.
• (in regards to parenting) Are you engaged?  Are you paying attention? Imperfect parenting moments turn into gifts as our children watch us try to figure out what went wrong and how we can do better next time. 
• Perfection doesn't exist...and what makes children happy doesn't always prepare them to be courageous, engaged adults.

• Being rather than knowing requires showing up and letting ourselves be seen.

 Chapter 1 - Scarcity

• It is often helpful to recognize patterns of behaviors and to understand what those patterns may indicate...
• Look at the patterns of behaviors through the lens of vulnerability.
• Sometimes the simple act of humanizing problems sheds important light on them...
• I see the cultural messaging everywhere that says that an ordinary life is a meaningless life.
• What makes this constant assessing and comparing so self-defeating is that we are often comparing our lives, our marriage, our families, our communities to unattainable, media-driven versions of perfection, or we're holding up our reality against our own fictional account of how great someone else has it. 
• We're called to "dare greatly" every time we make choices that challenge the social climate of scarcity.
• The opposite of scarcity is enough, or wholeheartedness.

Chapter 2 - Debunking the Vulnerability Myths

• There is no equation where taking risks, braving uncertainty, and opening ourselves up to emotional exposure equals weakness. 
• to feel is to be vulnerable.

• The willingness to show up changes us.  It makes us a little braver each time.
• Vulnerability is life's great dare. 
• Often the result of daring greatly isn't a victory march as much as it is a quiet sense of freedom mixed with a little battle fatique.
• We need to feel trust to be vulnerable and we need to be vulnerable in order to trust.
• Until we can receive with an open heart, are are never really giving with an open heart. 
• The people who love me, the people I really depend on, were never the critics who were pointing at me while I stumbled. They weren't in the bleachers at all  They were with me in the arena.
• It's a waste of time to evaluate my worthiness by weighing the reaction of the people in the stands.
• I want our home to be a place where we can be our bravest selves and our most fearful selves.  

Chapter 3 - Understanding and Combating Shame

• Getting past shame is necessary for getting to vulnerability
• A sense of worthiness inspires us to be vulnerable, share openly and persevere.
• That deep fear we all have of being wrong, of being belittled and feeling less than is what stops us taking the very risks required to move us forward - Pete Sheahan
• What are the gremlins saying? (effective way to ask about the shame tapes)
• Shame resilience is the ability to say "this hurts.  This is disappointing, maybe even devastating.  But success and recognition and approval are not the values that drive me.  My value is courage and i was just courageous.  You can move on, shame."
• The most connected and compassionate people of those I've interviewed set and respect boundaries.
• We are hard on others because we're hard on ourselves.  That's exactly how judgement works.  Finding someone to put down, judge or criticize becomes a way to get out of the web or call attention away from our box.
• ...move from "turning on each other" to "turning toward each other."
• worthiness has the power to set us free. 
• We have to be able to able to talk about how we feel, what we need and desire, and we have to be able to listen with an open heart and an open mind. 
• ...shame free fighting and blame free living
• We have to question the intentions of any group that insists on disdain toward other people as membership requirement.  It may be disguised as belonging, but real belonging doesn't necessitate disdain. 
• To set down those lists of what we are supposed to be is brave.
• Once you are Real, you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand.- Skin Horse

Chapter 4 - The Vulnerability Armory

• Vulnerability is the last thing I want you to see in me, but the first thing I look for in you.
• Believing that we're "enough" is the way out of the armor
• Acknowledge how truly grateful we are for the person, the beauty, the connection or simply the moment before us.
• Joy comes to us in moments - ordinary moments.  We risk missing out on joy when we get too busy chasing down the extraordinary.
• We have to make the long journey from "what will people think?" to "I am enough."

• Numb the dark and you numb the light
• They explained that reducing anxiety meant paying attention to how much they could do and how much was too much, and learning how to say "enough."
• ...address anxiety at the root and align their lives with their values and setting boundaries...
• If we want to fully experience love and belonging, we must believe that we are worthy of love and belonging. 
• "It's not what you do; it's why you do it that makes the difference." - Jennifer Louden
• "When two people relate to each other authentically and humanly, God is the electricity that surges between them." -Martin Buber
• I only share when I have no unmet needs that I'm trying to fill. 
• Someone else's daring provides an uncomfortable mirror that reflects back our own fears about showing up, creating, and letting ourselves be seen. 

Chapter 5 - Mind the Gap

• Pay attention to the space between where we're standing and where we want to go.
• We don't have to be perfect, just engaged and committed to aligning values with actions. 
• The gremlins will be out in full force, as they love to sneak up just when we're about to step into the arena, be vulnerable, and take some chances. 

Chapter 6 - Disruptive Engagement

• A leader is anyone who holds her - or himself - accountable for finding potential in people and processes.
• No corporation or school can thrive in the absence of creativity, innovation, and learning, and the greatest threat to all three of these is disengagement.
• Shame breeds fear.  It crushes our tolerance for vulnerability, therby killing engagement, innovation, creativity, productivity and trust.
• Shaming someone who's using shame is not helpful.
• If blame is driving, shame is riding shotgun.

• In an organizational culture where respect and the dignity of individuals are held as the highest values, shame and blame don't work as management styles.
• Talk to the people you're leading about their strengths and their opportunities for growth.
• If an organization makes the creation of feedback culture a priority and a practice, rather than an aspirational value, it can happen.  People are desperate for feedback - we all want to grow.  We just need to learn how to give feedback in a way that inspires growth and engagement.
• If you're comfortable, I'm not teaching and you're not learning.  It's going to get uncomfortable in here and that's ok.  It's normal and it's part of the process.
• Cultivate the courage to be uncomfortable and to teach the people around us how to accept discomfort as a part of growth.

Chapter 7 - Wholehearted Parenting

• We rarely engage in self-righteous judgement when we feel confident about our decisions.
• ...terrifying truth that there is no such thing as perfect parenting and there are no guarantees.
• Who we are and how we engage with the world are much stronger predictors of how our children will do than what we know about parenting.

• What we want for our children is what we want for ourselves - we want to raise children who live and love with their whole hearts.
• Wholehearted parenting is not having it all figured out and passing it down - it's learning and exploring together.
• Perfectionism is teaching them to value what other people think over what they think or how they feel.
• "Let your face speak what's in your heart.  When they walk in the room my face says I'm glad to see them.  It's just as small as that, you see?" -Toni Morrison

• We need to separate our children from their behaviors.  There's a significant difference between "you are bad" and "you did something bad."  And, no, it's not just semantics.
• Shame is so painful for children because it is inextricably linked ot the fear of being unlovable.
• We can't shameproof our children.  Our task instead is teaching and modeling shame resilience. 
• When other parents make different choices than we're making, it's not necessarily criticism.  Daring greatly means finding our own path and respecting what that search looks like for other folks.
• Make sure our children know they belong in our families.
• I'm not perfect and I'm not always right, but I'm here, open, paying attention, loving you, and fully engaged.

more and more

• "...all other gods, they are the works of men...you are the Most High God.  there is none like You."
• "His unwavering light restores our wavering confidence." - Rend Collective
• a full day of prayers for Benin

• doodling prayers.  it just works for me.
• Briana + Sugar Cakes + Cafe au lait
• Truth in song form to stand on

• missionaries at work all over the world.
• hundreds of procedures happening on this vessel at this very moment in jesus' name 
• reminder to offer grace/hugs to my children in frustrating moments

• facetime with shea
• the hymn "Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus"
• getting a blog post written that's been in my head for quite a while

Messy Rooms and Trusting Him

Sometimes it feels like life's problems and issues and hurts are tumbling out of the closet much like all of Brother & Sister Bear's toys did in one of my all time favorite books, "The Berenstain Bears and The Messy Room"

I feel an avalanche of questions and hurt and sadness and confusion that covers me over until I feel I can hardly breathe and the tears just keep coming.  

• God, they just want to be pregnant...it's been more than a year of trying. 
• My incredible friends are having to walk through so many unknowns with their sweet baby girl...
• I don't understand your timing.
• It feels like you are withholding good from people who love You very much.
• Cancer?  Really?  
• A miscarriage? Please, no.  
• Why so much hurt and violence and selfishness?
• I'm here and (insert family member) is there dealing with (insert a myriad of heart wrenching circumstances)
• I didn't think it would be this way...
• Why is it so hard?

And on and on and on...

And God reminds me of the picture He has given me.  The one of the organized closet at the end of the book.  

I like things to have their place, and I certainly like labels.  So there in the closet of my mind and heart I have boxes of various sizes labeled with various questions and puzzles...

All of the above and then some...

• Refugees
• Human trafficking
• Why are some people killing and abusing children when others are longing to have children in their home?
• Why can't we just be nice to one another?
• Poverty
• Lack of access to education
• Racial tension and awful treatment of our brothers and sisters.
• Patients that we cannot help
• People who plan evil

And on and on and on...

And God graciously invites me to take down a box and rifle through the contents with Him.  Sometimes He gives a new piece of the puzzle.  Sometimes a fresh insight.  Sometimes He just lets me get my hands messy with the play-doh of trying to figure out why things are (or are not) the way they are.

Some boxes are bigger than others.

Some get pulled out more often than others.

Some make me angry.  Others sad.  With some boxes I am not even sure how I feel.

And after a nice session of wrestling or rearranging or researching, He'll prompt me to put the top back on and put the box back - not to be forgotten or ignored...just to be entrusted safely back where it all belongs - with Him.

Because Colossians 1:17 is true.  He is before all things and in Him all things hold together.  

Ultimately I trust Him.  I trust that He is good.  I trust that He is faithful.  I trust that He is present.  I trust that He cares far more for the people I care for than I do.  I trust in His never failing, never ending, always available, perfectly enough LOVE.

And this song...this. song. Lauren Daigle's "I Will Trust In You" it's my anthem right now for all of the questions that don't have answers (yet) and all the problems I want to solve.

A few of my favorite lyrics:  

• When You don't give the answers as I cry out to You, I will trust...I will trust in You.
• So, in all things be my life and breath.  I want what You want Lord and nothing less.
• Your plans are always higher.  Your plans are always good.  

I'm thankful that He lets me ask the questions and wrestle...thankful that He never leaves me - not even for a second - and He's not threatened or put off in any way by my lack of understanding.  I'm thankful for His patience.

...Oh, for grace to trust Him more.

choosing joy.

• youversion bible app and reading plans
• "choose joy in defiance of sadness and lift up your trust as a song and an offering." - rend collective devo
• creative cards and beautiful gifts from lovely friends

• a much better start to 2017 than 2016
• conversations that happen at the cafe counter on sunday mornings 
• successful walk to and from ci gusta (with icecream in the middle)

• "little santa" new year's cherry coke from jenelle
• noelle's light up smile 
• kids at the hope center

• the hope center facilitators - they work hard and love well. 
• getting to see so many of the crew "in their element" during the hospital experience tour
• delicious dinner at hotel du loc

• eli's african outfit and how much he likes to wear it
• nick and eli watching chelsea football together
• sweet little girls who work together to get things done (they are carrying down all of their stuff from the pool)

• jalapeno poppers (definitely poppers, not peppers)(or poopers)
• freshly squeezed orange juice 
• this guy and the friendship we share

• christmas cards!  it's kind of fun to get them in january...
• edith's hard work in the laundry room to get it so clean
• playing on deck 7 with emma