Tag: change (Page 2 of 2)

4 Ideas for Navigating Change

August 23, 2016 /

“It’s coming. I can feel it.” That’s the refrain I hear too often these August days as the light mellows earlier in the evening and green things have lost their luster. Everything looks a little dry and tired. A little droopy. Long shadows seem shadowier.

I want to yell “NOOOOO!” and stamp my foot like a toddler fighting bedtime.

Instead I breathe deep and stay outside as long as possible, trying to ward off the inevitable, and the deep feeling of loss that accompanies it.

“Seasons change and so did I.” as the song says.

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I have friends going away to college, those who are moving from single into married life; some who are expecting babies, one who just got fired, others who are sending their kids off to school for the first time, and those who will become empty-nesters.

Thirty years ago my husband John and I moved from our home and families in the Chicago area to serve at a church in Washington D.C.  It was a huge seasonal change for us.  John was required to attend a seminar on transitions and while he was there he had to take an assessment that assigned points to the the different changes in your life.

POINTS???!  We love points!  We’re a tad competitive :).

We were moving away from family for the first time, expecting a new baby (I was 8 months pregnant with our second when we moved), buying our first house, starting a new job in a new church culture.  Each of these got points assigned to them indicating the amount of pressure in our life.

John came home and said, “Honey, I have good news and bad news.  The good news is, we WON!   We had more points than anyone there!  The bad news is they said we should have been in counseling 50 points ago!”

Change, even good change brings stress. There’s an article I’ve saved for years that documents the effects of moving. Even a short move across town causes a level of anxiety because it’s fruit basket upset for relational patterns. All of a sudden there’s a new dry cleaner and mail person, and supermarket checkout person – the people you interact with daily. For students it’s new teachers, for others it’s new bosses or a new gaggle of moms to get to know.

Holy buckets! I hate change like most people do. These are just a few things that seem to help me:

  • Phone a friend. We are relational beings, and it’s community that seems to take the hardest hit when we’re going through seasonal change. So when you’re low, call an old friend, but also reach out. Be brave and call someone new. Remember, if you’re feeling lonely, others are too.
  • Be aware of the impact of change.  Give yourself and your family extra grace during times of transition.  (John had perpetually wet shoulders from absorbing all my tears the first year in D.C.)
  • As much as possible, continue the spiritual rhythms you have put in place.  We feel more out of control during these times.  As I look back on our years living in D.C., the one thing that kept me going was a weekly community Bible study I attended where my kids were taken care of.  What are the positive choices you can make that will be nurturing to your mind, heart and soul?
  • Anchor your life in the one thing that is unchanging – God and His character.  Make a practice of voicing the many things you’re grateful for.  Specifically thank God for who He is, not just what He does.  In our family we have a “Twelve Stones Book” taken from the biblical examples where God commands the Israelites to build visible memorials so they’ll remember His power (Joshua 4).  In our book we record instances of God’s faithfulness in our family since we seem to have spiritual ADD.

So here’s to strolling through crunchy leaves, pumpkin spice lattes, and “bouquets of freshly sharpened pencils”.

Three Things You Can do When You’re in Transition

September 25, 2013 /

photo-53Twenty-seven years ago my husband John and I moved from our home and families in the Chicago area to serve at a church in Washington D.C.  It was a huge change for us.  John was required to attend a seminar on transitions and while he was there he had to take an assessment that assigned points to the the different changes in your life.

POINTS???!  We love points!  We’re a tad competitive :).

For example, we were moving away from family for the first time, expecting a new baby (I was 8 months pregnant when we moved), buying our first house, starting a new job in a new church culture.  Each of these got points assigned to them indicating the amount of pressure in our life.

John came home and said, “Honey, I have good news and bad news.  The good news is, we WON!   We had more points than anyone there!  The bad news is they said we should have been in counseling 50 points ago!” Continue reading

First Days

September 4, 2013 /

Today (Tuesday) is the first day of school in my neighborhood.  The leaves are sounding a little different – a little drier as the breeze ruffles through, and already they’re giving up their valiant effort to hang on.  The green of summer is surrendering to autumnal shades.

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Change.  Sometimes we fight it.  Sometimes we embrace it, like these two little girls ready for school.

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As I jogged past the kids and parents gathered on each street corner, I paused to wave and yell “Happy first day of school!”

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I thought back to all our first days as a family.  Sure, the marking first days of school when we had “adopted” family members, Sue and Heather over for dinner (always homemade chicken pot pie) to hear a recap of every high and low, every “he said, she said” of K and M’s six hours at school.  But there have also been first days of new jobs, first days of marriage, first days of grad school, first days in a new home or apartment for each of us.  New seasons.

And each first day means there’s been a last day.  A last day of summer.  A last day of being single.  The last day in a familiar city that’s been home.

As I jogged and reflected, I was reminded of two things.

Continue reading

When You Feel Like You’re Losing Yourself

April 10, 2013 /

“We are all so ruined, so loved, and in charge of so little.” Anne Lamott

Our daughter Maggie is getting married in 46 days.

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When she got engaged in November many people asked with concern in their voices “How are you doing?”

“Great!” I responded.  “Austin (her fiancé) is terrific and I’m excited for them!”

And then, last week, driving down highway 100 at 4:00 in the afternoon, thinking of the possibility that Maggie and Austin may move to California (you know, like, at the opposite end of the world, and a continent away from daughter Katy), I found myself sobbing and thinking “I’m NOT ok!  I’m losing my baby!  I’m losing my family!  I’m losing my identity! I hate change!”

I. Am. Out. Of. Control.

Yes, I was a tad over-dramatic, but give me my moment.

Everything feels like it’s slipping, slipping, slipping out of my hands, out of my control, like the gooey “gak” I used to make with the kids when they were little.

Change.  Loss.  New beginnings.

I’m not the only one.  I have young friends who are graduating, some going back to school, and others who are moving, some taking big new risks.  My sister-in-law after much prayer, just resigned from a job she’s loved for years.

Continue reading

Three Challenges of Authenticity and Grace

February 27, 2012 /

The other day I made a confession here on the blog and then wrote, “There, now you know what a truly horrible, small-minded person I am.”  I meant it.  It was something I was embarrassed to admit.  And I truly want to change…but not always.

Authenticity.  It’s a high value these days.  It’s one of the core values of this blog.  And that’s a good thing mostly, I think.  For awhile, we as Christians were trained to pretend to “Look like Jesus” no matter how much we weren’t.  But then came a rash of young leaders who called us on it and it became cool to be authentic.  To be honest and specific about the ways we are a broken hot mess.

That in itself is a good thing, right?  But there are also some challenges at the intersection of grace and authenticity I think.

1.  Authenticity.  For some of us it’s hard to get to the starting line.  The challenge is finding relationships…community, if you will, where we can truly be honest about who we are…the good, the bad, the ugly.  It’s the risky challenge of just being willing to say, “Here’s my mess.”

2.  Grace.  For others, we can be brutally honest about our weaknesses, our failures, but the challenge is really knowing God’s grace to the core of our being…Knowing that nothing we do can ever make God love us more or less than He does right now.  The hard thing is owning our sin, but not wallowing in our worminess.

3.  Change.  This is one that I fear I have to be aware of.  It’s wearing our authenticity as a badge of honor and stopping there.  Awhile ago I heard a preacher speak and he was very vulnerable.  You could almost hear the inaudible admiration from the people listening…”Oooh he’s so authentic!“  But here’s the thing…He didn’t go any further.  He expressed mild embarrassment, but is that repentance?  He told us what he had done, but not what he was doing to change.  

It was like what he was doing was what I often do: image management.  “Confess” something safe, but make it so common that it falls in the category of “acceptable sin” that no one would really expect us to change.

Yesterday morning in church we did a spiritual inventory that we take every year, kind of like a physical check up but you don’t have to get into one of those white paper gowns and no one gets to see your weight (or the answers on your inventory).

At the end there were two areas where I was noticeably weaker than the others.   The thing is, I looked at these two areas and it didn’t bother me all that much.  Is it possible to be too comfortable with being honest, and too secure in God’s love of me?

Psalm 52:1 says, “Why do you boast of evil…?  Why do you boast all day long, you who are a disgrace in the eyes of God?”  The other day, I read this verse and I thought “Aha!  Is this what we’re doing sometimes?”

Our righteousness IS as filthy rags, BUT God throws our sins as far as the east is from the west when we come to Him AND calls us to be holy as He is holy.  All of this in the same Bible!  How can we get this straight?  That we are both broken and beloved at the same time.  And God loves us too much to want us to remain the way we are.

I believe we are to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep, but not just over things like our dog dying or our mother-in-law’s car wreck.  I think we’re to be truly honest about the darkness in our lives, but truly sorry too, and truly committed to doing better and finding ways to help each other together.

The good news, as always, is that we’re not in it alone and we can’t do it alone.  “He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it.”

Which of the three challenges above do you struggle with the most? Authenticity, grace, change?  Or other thoughts? 

God of Inconvenience

November 21, 2011 /

Don’t you just hate it when God shows up and inconveniences you?

Yesterday I gave out my last McDonald’s gift card to a homeless person begging at a traffic light.  I’ve wrestled with this before.  (That’s not the inconvenient part)

As I gave out my last card and asked the man his name I thought, “Wow, it seems like there are more homeless people than ever.  Lord, what else can be done?  Better go get some more gift cards.”

And then I opened my email (this is the inconvenient part).  In the past I’ve volunteered at an event called Project Homeless Connect. It’s a one-stop shop for delivering services to people experiencing homelessness.  They gather housing providers, employment specialists, doctors, nurses, mental health care providers, optomitrists, barbers, people providing transportation assistance, food and clothing…  All under one roof.  The Minneapolis convention center.  And then they round up all the homeless people they can find and bring them in for a day of receiving, being cared for, getting assistance…

So I get this email.  They need more volunteers for December 12th.

Here’s the deal.  I asked.  God answered.  I don’t want to do it.  Not only is it a hassle, but I have something else planned that day that I was looking forward to and can’t be moved.  But… There’s a need.  There’s an invitation.  There’s an answer from God to the question I asked.  

You ever encounter situations like this?  We say we want to change the world.  God gives an opening.  But it’s…inconvenient.  Uncomfortable.  Doesn’t fit with our plans for the day.  It made me think of this powerful video made by my friends John Hoel and Max Fitzgerald.

So we have to decide.  Are we fools to think we can change the world or is it just too inconvenient?  What do you think?

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