Grant GRACE

I will hold myself and others to a standard of grace, not perfection. Repeat that. Let it sink in.

I will hold myself and others to a standard of grace. Not perfection.

Ballerinas are graceful. Eagles cut through the air above the trees with an enormous amount of grace. Mitch Albom gracefully wrote beautiful stories. As I sit here in my ragged sweats, attempting to hold off anxiety over the upcoming busy week, with my mind and heart full of thoughts, doubts, uncertainties, baggage… the last thing I feel is graceful. Or grace-filled.

But maybe I’m looking at it the wrong way. In fact, maybe these so-called downfalls are just the key to experiencing grace.

This is a topic I really love. My sanity sometimes hangs from the thread that is grace. I am a flawed creature. I make mistakes, as I have said before, on a professional level. I struggle with guilt. I feel guilty that I pawn my children off on my husband so that I can study for an exam. I feel guilty that my bathroom is a mess and that I still haven’t put the duvet back on the comforter after washing it a few days ago. I feel guilty that I am not the perfect wife, friend, daughter, mother. I feel guilty that sometimes, all I want is to drive up into the mountains where nobody can reach me or find me, find a rock to sit back against, then spend an entire day reading a completely brainless book and watching clouds move from one side of the horizon to the other. I feel guilty because I am incapable of meeting everyone’s expectations of me. …or is it, perhaps, that I am incapable of meeting my own expectations and, as such, feel like I’m letting people down?

Let’s back up.

What is grace anyway? And I am no longer talking about the beauty in an elegant song or a flawlessly executed dance performance. A photo of a fairly adorable painted board of plywood posted on Pinterest defines grace as the exercise of love, kindness, mercy, or favor… a disposition to benefit or serve another.

Consider this story… a father has a kid. A son in his early 20s. The boy is disrespectful, disloyal, lazy, unkind, and selfish. One day, dad gives him a large sum of money… a family inheritance that’s been socked away for him. The young man ungratefully takes his money and runs. He spends the next few years partying like crazy, gambling, sleeping around with various women, doing drugs and drinking himself into oblivion. He doesn’t even call home to check in from time to time. One day, he wakes up and finds himself broke, broken, and alone. With nowhere else to go, he makes a very long and humbling trip home to his father’s house. As he approaches the home where he was raised, he felt like a failure… ashamed, guilty… incapable of meeting anyone’s expectations of him. He is ready to accept any punishment and ridicule that his father would likely dish out. In fact, he is ready to accept the cold shoulder – the possibility that his father would throw him off his land and tell him to leave forever. He had just blown a huge chunk of their family money, thrown the good reputation of their family name down the toilet, and caused pain and humiliation to his father for the past few years. His heart is heavy as he takes that first step onto the long driveway of their home, and he feels like he’s going to be sick when he sees a face, his dad’s, appearing from the opening front door. The next few moments are a blur of confusion… the next thing he knows, his father’s arms are around him. Tears of sincere and absolute joy are pouring from his dad’s eyes. The terrible awful things that the son has done are dust in the wind to his father, in the past, nearly forgotten already. Any parent knows that losing a child would be the worst, most horrid thing in the world that could ever happen. His son was gone. And has now returned. All the world has just been made right for this dad. The father orders one of the house employees to run and get the softest robe and the most brilliant jewelry for his son. He makes orders for a huge celebration to occur that night to show the city his joy over his returning son.

This is the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke, chapter 15 of the Bible.

There is a great line in a song by a great band, Mumford and Sons. “Its not the long walk home that will change this heart. But the welcome I receive with the restart.” The Prodigal Son. Grace exemplified.

Grace… love, kindness, mercy, favor. Nothing else matters… only love, kindness, mercy, favor. Forget the junk. Forget the guilt. Forget the pain. Forget the unmet expectation. Live in the now with love, kindness, mercy, and favor. Understand that grace does not exist without the crap. The crap is necessary… and, I might add, unavoidable. I don’t know about you, but I often feel like my days and weeks and months consist of figuring how to deal more efficiently and effectively with whatever crap I have in my life. Its all about our outlook and attitude. So why not take advantage of this tool… this grace thing that God shows us and gives us the capability to show to others and ourselves?

Do this for others. Forgive and let the past be in the past so that you can move forward with optimism and hope. Learn… then live. Understand that every person you encounter in a day (whether its your spouse, parent, colleague, ex-spouse, child, a stranger) is in his/her own place with his/her own junk. Be willing to love them where they are at in that moment… meet them there, and grant them grace. You might be the antagonist for an optimistic change in their day… in their life.

Do this for yourself. Oh baby, do I ever need to take my own advice here on those days when I feel like I’m not living up to the high expectations of other people or, even higher, my own. Say to yourself, “I will grant myself grace.” Say it every morning, and a hundred times per day if you need to. You are in this place at this time for a reason… and it is perfect, even when it includes flaws, pain, grief, stress, and sometimes failure. Grace gives us a way to move past bad times.

Be a blessing. Love unconditionally. And to yourself and others, grant grace.
Peace out.

 

Let Go.

The truth is that we are not in control of our lives. If you are like me, that statement offends our minds a little bit. It stings. But lets get real for a second… do you truly believe that you can control every element of your life? If so, you are greatly mistaken.

The reason that we get upset about something, anything, is because we find some person, place, thing, or situation – some fact in our life – unacceptable to us. Our perception is that someone, something, or some place or time is messed up and, because it inconveniences us or hurts our feelings or jars our ego, we get pissed off. Maybe those feelings of angst manifest themselves by causing rage, bitterness, resentment. Maybe you don’t sleep well because you can’t shut your brain off. All those things that you want to control, but can’t, spin in vicious circles in your mind as you lie there worrying about things that cannot be helped at that moment. Maybe you take your anxiety and stress out on your spouse. I know I do that. I don’t mean to, but it happens.

What a waste of time. What a waste of the God-given precious moments that we’ve been given. What a cruddy way of expending the energy that seems so hard to hang on to in the first place.

Why does this happen? In my mind, I see it as an ego trip. A good friend recently told me, “confidence breeds the thought that control is something capable of being had.” We think we’ve got it all figured out. My plans, my spreadsheets, my past success, my experience, my preparation, my training…. then WHAM. The rug gets swept straight out from under me and I’m left on my back with the wind knocked from my lungs. That hurts. I hate not knowing. I detest uncertainty. Why? …Because it is too scary to let go. It is too hard to submit to acceptance. It feels unnatural to hand your life over to a higher power (God, fate, however you perceive it).

A very insightful section in the Alcohol Anonymous “Big Book” says, “I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake.”

It is delusional to think that we can grasp and hang on to control. It is not something that is ours to be had. Control is not a thing that can be possessed.

The solution?…

Acceptance

and Faith.

Focus not so much on what needs to change in the world as what needs to be changed in yourself and your attitudes. Get real. You are one person… one teeny tiny little person in a big freakin’ world full of uncertainty, spontaneity, natural disasters, unpredictable human behavior, and inconsistency. The sooner you accept the fact that you are not all-powerful, the better. Work on acceptance. Realize that it is okay to let go. And learn to become more efficient and effective at dealing with the cards that you are dealt in a positive and optimistic way.

Have faith that everything will be okay. I believe in God. And I believe He is good. In my heart, I know that He has our back, and if we allow Him to lead our lives in the way that He sees best fit, we will be amazed. That’s why I pray, every day, for His will… not mine. Sometimes, those are the only words that I even know to pray. Then I ask Him to give me the peace of heart and mind that only He can provide so that I will be able to deal with the uncertainty of the next day.

A few months ago, I listened to Shawn Johnson talk about letting go of control. Below is a video that I would like you to watch. Save it for a time when you are able to commit your full attention to it because he says some things that will change your life. I was sitting about 30 feet to Shawn’s left side as he was speaking, behind a dividing wall that separated me from about 1,000 other people… thank goodness because at (what in this video is) about minute 19, I started crying. I hate crying. I’m the type of person who will do anything in my power to swallow that painful knot that forms in your throat when you are watching Biggest Loser (don’t even try to lie, I know you all cry at that damn show). I wipe my teary cheeks in my children’s hair as they sit in my lap, so that my husband won’t make fun of me (even though he’s a few feet away from me doing the same thing!). But on that day, listening to Shawn, the tears could not be stopped. I sobbed because I knew that I needed to let go of the control that I have been desperately clinging to for so many years. This one area of my life was something that I was unwilling to budge on. I’m not going to tell you the details of my own struggle… you’ll have to take me out for coffee to hear that story. But I will tell you this… once I laid down my pride, gave up control, and handed it over to God… my life changed. Things started happening… things nothing short of miracles. Unexplainable things. Within the past 3 months, very big things have started happening to me and my family. Things that, I am very certain, would not have happened if I had continued to be stubborn and hang on so tightly to the control that was causing me so much stress and heartache. So… watch this video. It will be time well spent, I give you my word.

Then, make this promise to yourself…

I WILL ACCEPT LIFE ON LIFE’S TERMS. AND I REFUSE TO LET MYSELF BE CONSUMED BY THINGS I CANNOT CONTROL.

WELCOME BOWLERS | LETTING GO OF CONTROL from Red Rocks Church on Vimeo.

 

Embrace the Pain

Have you ever felt pain?  Physically?  Emotionally?  Are you hurting right now?  Keep reading…

Recently, I have discovered a new obsession.  After giving birth to two children, I have finally gotten back down to my pre-baby weight.  Much to my dismay, I have none of the muscle tone that I used to take such pride in.  On a mission to get my guns back, I attended a Pure Barre class.  Three of my dear friends own local Pure Barre studios and many more of my girlfriends are instructors.  The workout is 1-hour long, and it consists of using ballet and pilates-type movements to isolate and work the muscles to exhaustion, then lengthen them back out with stretches.  After one class, I was hooked.  After 3 weeks and 6 classes, my flexibility is increased and I am starting to see my muscle tone come back… YES!  Here’s the hitch… the workout hurts like an SOB.  Imagine holding a 30 pound bucket of water by the handle with your arms outstretched straight in front of you.  When you reach the point of cramping when it feels like you have rocks in your biceps, you are asked to life the bucket up an inch about 30 times, pulsing that rock-hard muscle until you think you’re going to drop everything.  There are no buckets of water involved at the Pure Barre studio, but that’s a pretty good mental image of how it makes your muscles feel.  About the time that you’ve decided the instructor is doing this simply to torture you, she calls out that you have 10 seconds left and something snaps, every time, in my mind.  For those last 10 seconds, I push myself harder than hard, to the absolute limit of my body.  Embracing the pain.

What if we did this during the painful parts of our life?  Now, I’m not encouraging you to run off and tell your friend who has recently lost a loved one, “hey, you really should just embrace this hurt right now”.  That’s just dumb.  But when you are processing the devastation of a breakup or divorce, or when your ego is smashed after getting laid off from a job, instead of trying to brush it off and pretend it isn’t cutting you to the core, try wrapping your heart, mind, and soul around the pain.  Eat the whole carton of ice cream.  Watch The Notebook 6 times in a row (I neither confirm nor deny that I’ve done that).  If you’re a guy, call your boys and set up a night of beer drinking, poker playing, and Tosh.O reruns while eating an entire bag of cheese poofs and (if you are feeling super depressed) don’t brush your teeth afterwards!  Cry.  Unashamedly.  Allow yourself to feel the sadness and to accept it for what it is… pain.

My perceived benefit of this concept is two fold – First of all, if you try to ignore it or disguise the pain you feel, you will be locking undealt-with emotions inside your mind and heart, and I promise you, they will return.  You have to get it out.  Deal with your junk.  The number one reason people don’t seek counseling is because they don’t think they have issues.  Wake up.  We all have issues.  You have issues.  Perhaps you’ve gotten good at ignoring them or covering them up, but they’ll come back to bite you in the ass some day.  They always do… at real inconvenient times, I might add.

The second of these benefits is that by acknowledging the hurt and embracing the painful emotions, you are opening yourself up to the wholeness of joy that comes with future positive experiences.  You can’t know real happiness unless you know real pain.  Skeptics of Christianity often ask the age-old question, “If God is real and if God is merciful, then why does He let terrible things happen to good people?”  Tsunamis, earthquakes, murder, rape, cancer, infidelity, SIDS, untimely death.  My answer is always this… Damn that old Fall of Man back in the Garden of Eden.  Here enters that stupid snake, Adam and Eve.  Hence, here enters really crappy things in the world.  Plus, if terrible things didn’t happen in this world, the meaning of the word FAITH is lost, right?  Because doesn’t faith mean believing in something that we cannot necessarily see, feel, or prove?  Well if all was good and perfectly right in the world, goodness and perfection would be known.  It would be proven.  God doesn’t want us to believe in something because it is proven fact.  He wants us to CHOOSE Him, even against human sensibility and rationale.  The bad is necessary to define the good. The more sincerely you accept and feel the pain, the more significantly you will appreciate the joy.  And have patience, the joy will come.

If you are hurting right now, my heart is with you.  I don’t know what you are going through.  But I know the world is going to keep rotating and the moon will still set each night… allowing the sun to push its way into the sky a few hours later, whether we want it to or not.  Push through the pain.  Embrace it.  And know that good things are to come.  Then…

… enjoy the stretch.

P.S.   If you live in the Denver area, there is an awesome Living Social deal today.  Three Pure Barre classes at the Greenwood Village studio (owned by Brigit Steckler-Russomano) for $25.  Do it!  https://www.livingsocial.com/deals/234056?ref=conf-jp&rpi=45367648

 

Bonswa – 2 Years

January 12, 2010 is a date no Haitian will ever forget. It is a day that I will never forget. My emails and phone calls to our friend, Raguel, went unanswered for days. It was 48 hours before we knew whether or not he was alive, and another 10 days before I got to hear his voice. Life for hundreds of thousands of people changed forever in the “tremblement de terre” that lasted only 30 seconds, killing nearly 300,000 people. It registered 7.0 on the Richter Scale, devastating hospitals, orphanages, churches, businesses, schools, and the National Palace. Our friend, Pastor Ronald, lived in a home that was damaged to the point that it was unsafe. So he and his family have been living in a tent for the past two years. Can you imagine living (not just sleeping, but living) in a tent?

My husband, Sean, and I travelled to Haiti just weeks before the earthquake hit. During our time there, we spent a day at an infant hospital. Pictures were not allowed because the 204 children being treated (all of whom were under the age of 5) were not physically in any condition to be photographed. My heart has never in my life hurt as severely for another human being as it did on that day. I was completely broken by what I saw… the tears just would not stop. These babies, most of which had been abandoned, lay in broken cribs on torn sheets in dirty diapers crying because there were only two women running the hospital… for more than 200 babies!!! These children wanted to be held, more than anything. So I sat rocking one, then another, then another while they wrapped their fingers in my hair and laid their heads on my chest… until it was time to put that baby down and listen to their gut wrenching sobs as I moved away from his/her crib. God broke my heart for these babies that day. And in the January 12 earthquake, I would bet my last dollar that the hospital did not survive. I hope God took everyone of those babies to Heaven that day, to escape the terrible conditions and life that would have otherwise been in store for them.

I find myself falling back into a mentality that existed within me before our Haiti experience. I wanted Uggs for Christmas this year. Not the knock off kind, but the real ones… the cost of which would cover medical expenses for about 25 sick people, or a meal for 500 Haitians. I vow to get back to the humble mentality that I returned to the United States with in 2009. Maybe its time for another trip to Port Au Prince.

Even aside from the financial extravagancies in my life, and maybe more importantly, I need to get back to the point where I am taking sincere appreciation to heart in regards for every blessing. You may have seen the photograph Gratitude Journal that I keep on Facebook. Since the earthquake, that has been my way of consciously reminding myself to be thankful for all things, big and small. Even things such as the health of my children, that I take for granted every single day. I taped this picture into my day planner the week after the disaster. This man is holding his lifeless baby in his arms. Besides the color of her skin, I was struck by how much this little girl’s face looked like my Marley. I look at this picture every single day.

It may sound selfish, but the one prayer that consistently brings me to my knees is that my children will remain healthy and that nothing terrible will ever happen to them. Marley and Beckham are the most important things in my world. I don’t know how I would continue to breathe if something happened to them… only by the grace of God. And to think, the country of Haiti lost thousands upon thousands of her children that day. And many of those who survived became orphans… in the matter of 30 seconds.

The good news is that progress is happening… slowly but surely. The construction on our orphanage, My Father’s House, was completed and the walls stood strong through the earthquake. It took months for the kids to sleep in the building after January 12^th because aftershocks continued for a long time and they were scared another quake would happen. But now they are completely moved into the building… 52 children! Here’s a picture of the Christmas card I got from them. I miss their hugs.

I don’t mean to be a downer with today’s blog entry. I do, however, think the majority of us need a shock to our system every once in a while. Wake up. Be gratefully present in this moment. You are alive and you are blessed. As you give thanks in prayer this Thursday, throw one up for the people of Haiti. It will be a sad day for them. But I promise you this… many many many people in Haiti will be lifting their hearts and eyes and hands in praise that day. Because that’s what they do. In ALL things, they are thankful.

To read my Haiti journal and see lots and lots of pictures and video, see my blog at www.redrockschurchhaiti09.blogspot.com.

 

RAOK… Join Me

Altruism: unselfish regard for the welfare of others.

Dude.

Think about that for a minute.  When was the last time I did something with the complete benefit of someone else, over my own, in mind?  That thought is a little more humbling than I like to admit.

I have been blessed in this life, so I feel called to give of my own resources… my time, my energy, my money.  But somehow, I still fall short every single day.  I sometimes pretend to be really interested in something on the opposite side of the street from the homeless man holding his hand out outside my car window.  I have skipped the opportunity to donate $10 to a charity when one of my friends is raising money in conjunction with the half-marathon they are running.  I look straight ahead and keep walking past a young woman sitting on a bench on 16th Street Mall because she is obviously crying and it would be uncomfortable to ask if she is okay… after all, she’s a complete stranger.  UGH!!!  I am cringing at myself as I write those words.  That is not the person I want to be!

In the words of Pink, “why do we do that?”… “why do I do that?”  I think the shortcomings I have in giving myself away result from my own insecurities, selfishness, and judgements.  My mind says “it would be too embarrassing”… “what if someone saw me do it?”  …”what if that person rejects my effort?”… “I might need that $10 for myself”.

I can’t believe I’m admitting all this on a public blog.

Moving forward, I want to give myself away.  I will do better.  And I challenge you to join me.

…Starting tomorrow, January 5, 2012, I am going to post a new album on my Facebook page.  It will be called RAOK (Random Acts Of Kindness).  It will be a tool of encouragement.  Get creative.  Tape quarters to a soda vending machine and leave a note for the next person who comes along.  Have your kids color pictures, then take them down to a local retirement home to deliver them.  Pay for the next person’s coffee in the drive thru line at Starbucks.  Feed the parking meters for every car on the block who’s time has expired.  Take your neighbor’s garbage can back up to their garage after the trash trucks finish collecting… especially on the next cold snowy day.  Write a letter (an old fashioned pen and paper letter) to a friend and put it in the mail… with a really real stamp and everything.   Take a picture of your RAOK and post it to my Facebook wall.  In the photo caption, tell me what you did.  I’ll move them all to the RAOK photo album.  Or leave me a comment here on my blog telling me about your ROAK.  Wouldn’t it be incredible to collect 50 responses by the end of January???

Giving makes people happy.  Happy people tend to give more.  Create the vicious cycle… I challenge you.

 

Gratefully Present in This Moment

Some people amaze me.  Scratch that.  I have a strong distaste for the word “amaze” because I think it is significantly overused and de-sincerity-ized.  (what?!)  Feel free to leave me a comment back handing me when I use the word “amaze”, okay.

Let’s start again.

Some people astonish me.  Generally, I suppose I do not expect exceptionalness from the people around me.  For the most part, how can we expect people to contribute the resources to be anything more than average?  Who has that kind of time, money, energy… humility?  Aren’t most of us just trying to get through each day while making an inch of progress towards our next life goal?  …The promotion at work, getting pregnant, finding a soul mate, buying a bigger house, paying this month’s mortgage.

…And then there are these people who, by the way, have all the same daily responsibilities that the rest of us do.  But they somehow have a vision of the bigger picture, something I feel like I skip over much of the time.  These people seem to have their heads wrapped around the importance of priceless commodities that the human soul desires; love, hope, forgiveness, affection, peace, kindness, joy, contentment.  A handful of these people exist in my life, and I value the minutes that I get to spend with them.  It never seems like enough time.  So while I’m with them, I soak up every word they say.

A dancer in New York City who has opened her heart and devoted her life to encouraging and promoting optimism, diversity, artwork, and united kindness.  Wanna be inspired?  Check out www.prolovemovement.com.

A mother who spent months watching the health her new baby boy decrease until his sweet little body couldn’t function against the elements of this world anymore.  During these struggles and after his death (just 8 short months after his birth), this momma taught me more about unapologetic conviction of faith in God than I had ever known in my prior 30 years.  She is hard core, in the most incredible and loving way imaginable.  Read her story and never ending wisdom at www.noahsteven.blogspot.com.

A gorgeous, talented, hilarious girl my own age who, to the outside world, appeared to have it all figured out.  But her heart was hurting more than any of us knew for a long, long time.  Somehow, she dug herself out of the black out pain just enough to admit herself into inpatient rehabilitation for addictions.  Right now, at the beginning of a new year, she is finding a strength that she didn’t know she had.  A new perspective is preparing her to take a fresh sober start.

Incredible.  Inspiring.  I want to be this kind of person.  I want to encourage people the way these people have encouraged me.  They, along with some other friends, provide me with daily perspective on what is important between September 17, 1978 and the day when I take my last breath.

I worry.  Its what I do.  On a professional level.  I have spent (wasted) countless hours of my life feeling anxiety over things which I have no control of.  Then I heard the wise words of a gentleman who graduated from the University of Kansas (KU graduates do tend to be brilliant, you know).  ”Be gratefully present in this moment”.  GRATEFUL because when you are grateful, you are not obsessing about what you don’t have. PRESENT because when your attention is focused on the current moment, you are not thinking about what might happen tomorrow.  In THIS MOMENT… I’m not talking about tonight or in another hour.  Right this very moment, take a deep breath then release it and feel contentment and peace in your heart as you take a few quiet minutes, to yourself, to read a blog entry that might leave you with a slightly renewed sense of optimism.  Relax, look around you, enjoy this minute, and be thankful for the blessings in your life.  Gratefully present in this moment.  I have adopted that as my new motto.  I wrote it on a chalkboard in NYC a few weeks ago… totally gotta find somewhere on my body to tattoo it.  Those people who inspire and astonish me, they get it.  They embraced this motto long before I ever heard it.

Happy new year friends and family.  Bless YOU!!!!

 

Nothing Endures But Change

In 2 days, we say goodbye to 2011.  I’ll spend the next three months accidentally writing the wrong year on every check.  I remember when a year like 2012 sounded futuristic.  Damn, where does time go?

My life is chaos… absolute and complete chaos.  I kind of like it that way.  If I stop moving, stop experiencing, and stop learning, I get bored real quick.  2012 is going to be a year of change for me.  I am teetering on the edge of completing my Master’s degree, which means I start from scratch with a new career in T-minus 6 months.  When I applied for the program at Colorado Christian University in 2009, I knew I was being called for a higher purpose.  Without a clue in the world about what I was doing or how to do it, I kept praying and kept putting one foot in front of the other… now here I am, and holy crap it’s terrifying.  After 8 years of dumb luck and gradual progress in an advertising career, I’m saying goodbye to media kits, ad files, and web analytics.  Saying goodbye to all that I’m familiar with.  And jumping, head first, into the unknown. 

Before midnight this Saturday, I plan to author my bucket list.  Among the things to check off, I plan to include skydiving, writing and publishing a book, and learning to play the guitar.  I’ve battled with doubt many times in my life.  I doubt myself, my abilities, my motives, my plan.  But right now, on the brink of a new year, I feel strong.  Ever have those days?  …You wake up in a great mood.  Your husband looks especially cute crawling out from under the covers.  All the best music plays on the radio during your commute.  You get about 20 things marked off your checklist of things to do.  The sunset throws pinks and purples and blues across your windshield as you drive home.  And you have a relaxing evening free of extra curricular committments ahead of you.  I’ve long since blown the speakers out in my truck because of days like this.  I’m pumped for the adventures to come in the upcoming year.  2012, bring it.