a place for your soul to breathe
May your weekend be filled with blooming trees, budding tulips, and the rain to make them healthy. Whether you are in the city, on the coast, or off backroads in between, may you know love deep, good sleep, and friends to share a meal with. Let the worries of today fade fast into the arms of God, and may you find a good reason to eat popcorn mixed with M&Ms. Enjoy your weekend, friends.
Sometimes other people’s art – their plays, their food, their books, their beautifully inspired work – walks next to me like a comfortable friend. I am open to his influence, small in her presence, and happy to be so. When I am free and in good places, I trust her art and look to her to learn more of myself.
But there are those other times when their plays, their food, their books, and all that beautifully inspired work stands heavy on my chest. And just when I find a way to breathe shallow under the weight of it, when I squeeze out an extra hour of work, when I think I’ve got a crazy wide-eyed plan to catch up, they start to jump on my rib cage with all their successes.
Instead of a friend, their art becomes the enemy and I’m certain their good work guarantees I will never work again. The more I think of how much they are shipping and launching and producing and unveiling, the less I’m able to breathe.
When the art others make begins to terrify rather than motivate, it means you are normal. But if you want to create art that matters, something has to change. And the number one thing that works for me is to stop.
The art has become too important.
It seems counter-intuitive to stop just when you’ve convinced yourself you are already so very far behind. But stopping is really the only answer, because to carry on is to become a maniac work-aholic. To carry on is to worship the art rather than the Artist with a capital A. To carry on is to be pushed around by fear.
Fear drives out the love. When you work from fear, there is no love in your work. And we don’t want your loveless art.
So give the world and yourself a gift, and stop.
You are the beloved. So take some time to be the loved.
The fact that you need time to be the loved means you are human. And we want art that comes from human hands inspired by a capable God. Otherwise you will make mediocre art at best. If mediocre art is your goal, you can most definitely achieve it. Along with maybe a heart attack.
Here are 14 ways to make mediocre art – I wrote these last year but they came to mind again yesterday and I thought they were worth repeating. Be the loved, friend. It really is the most important thing.
He said he wanted to plant a tree in the center of our cul-de-sac. He talked about it for weeks, stared into the nothing with only his imagination to advise him. But then one day, he pulled into the cozy circle where we do life with a small tree in the back of a pick up truck. When my brother-in-law gets an idea, there is rarely much time before action.
He worked hard to dig a hole, not even to his knees if he stood straight in it. Then he hoisted that small tree onto his shoulder and dropped it strong into that hole in the ground. We all watered, watched, wished for it to grow.
We spread blankets around her skinny trunk in the heat of that first summer, wishing she were big enough to offer leafy arms for shade and relief. She watched hot days roll by as kids played around her – lemonade stands, Barbies in the grass, not-quite-cartwheels turning her upside down.
My father-in-law was still living that summer, and even though he didn’t easily say the deeper things out loud, he seemed pleased that his son chose to plant a tree. He’d mosey slow through the yard, across the street, and with fingers touching around her small trunk, he’d say, “Take a picture with it every year at the same time. You won’t believe how fast it grows.”
She has blush white buds now, four years later. And those flowers will turn to leaves in no time, leaves that will hold on ’til October, leaves that promise picnics. Shade. Life. I think that’s why he planted it, why anyone would ever plant anything that will last. We look at that young tree and know it will long out-live us. But not before it bears witness to our lives, our living.
It will watch as the brothers stand near and remember, as the girls play sing-song hand-clap games, as the fathers play ball with their sons and the sisters-in-law cross lawns to trade sorrows and stories of their daughters driving off with their friends. It will watch, long into the night as the neighbors lay sleeping and the dogs bark at nothing and the families live our family lives one day at a time. That tree will grow silently and watch our lives spin by. And the seasons will move around her, shape her, change her.
She will surrender her leaves again, but she will still stand tall. And after that, the blushing buds that burst forth green will come whether or not we’re here to see it.
She is a gift because she reminds us of our lives past and our lives to come. She reminds us that God is and that he will be.
She reminds us that we are small.
And that is how it should be.
For the past thirteen years, I’ve been working, in some capacity, with high school students. Before that I pretty much was a high school student. Give or take a few years. I really like them. They laugh easily. They eat freely. They do random things that don’t really seem to have a purpose. They’re fun.
They also, for the most part, are just like adults. They are needy, broken, smart, and lonely. They just aren’t always as polished and polite about it. But they’re learning to be, and that’s what scares me the most.
In the winter of 2009, I started work on a book for high school girls, a book I wished I had in high school, a book that said more to me as a believer than, Don’t have sex with your boyfriend or, Just think about what Jesus would do. I was a good girl with good intentions, and I wanted a book that gave me hope more than just be good. I was already doing okay with that, and it had me miserable.
When I pitched that book idea to an editor that summer at a writing conference, she liked the idea and took it back to her editorial team. It went through all the necessary channels and passed all the necessary people until one day in early November of that same year, I got The Phone Call That Changed Everything.
She said they liked my book idea.
She said they wanted to publish it.
But first, she said they wanted me to write it for adults, not kids.
Adults? Like, grown ups and junk?
I can’t do that. “Sure!” I can’t write for adults. “Great idea!” Adults scare me. ”Let’s write it for adults!” Now that word is starting to sound funny…adult…adult…adult.
I can’t do this.
But I did do it, and I’m so glad. Because what I have learned through writing the book for grown ups (the book that you now know as Grace for the Good Girl) is that grown ups are just older teenagers. We are all in this mess together.
We all need to know life is about more than trying hard to be good, it’s about trusting God to be graceful.
The first book has been out for six months, and many who have read it didn’t know it was meant to be for high school girls from the beginning. Some of you have even emailed, telling me you wished you had the book for high school girls. Well, now it is my great and humble pleasure to introduce to you what was supposed to be my only book but has now become my second book: Graceful {For Young Women}: Letting go of Your Try-Hard Life.
Now, let me just answer a few questions you might have.
Why didn’t you just call it Grace for the Good Girl for Young Women?
Right. Did you see that title? For the good girl for young women? Could that be any more confusing? (said in my best Chandler Bing.) No, we wanted this book to stand on her own two feet. She is different from the first book.
So that basically just means you cut and pasted Grace for the Good Girl and then added a few ‘totallys’ and ‘TTYL’s thrown in, right?
Wrong. Graceful is new book with new chapters and new words. And I promise I don’t try to be cool in it. As I said before, writing for a teen audience is the same as writing for a non-teen audience. We are all people.
There are some ways in which it was harder to write this book just because I would get stuck inside my own head of insecurity: They are going to roll their eyes about me. They don’t think like this. They, they, they. Me, me, me. But when I stopped thinking about high school girls as they and remembered they are just people, it was much easier.
There are some of the same stories because you know, it’s still me. And women who resonated with the message of Grace for the Good Girl will perhaps recognize a younger version of themselves in this book. If you read the first book and wanted it for your daughter but wished it was shorter and maybe more relevant to her life stage, now you can give her Graceful.
I would like to use this with my small group. Is there a guide for leaders in the back?
No, but there will be a free one available online for small group leaders. I may also put together some videos to go along with it. Would that be helpful? Stay tuned for that.
So when does this book come out?
I’m so glad you asked that. Graceful is available NOW for pre-order.
Why would I want to pre-order? Shouldn’t I just wait?
It is entirely up to you. But here is how pre-orders help authors – when the book is finally available, Amazon (for example) will fill all pre-orders at once. When lots of sales are filled at once, there is a surge in stats, attention is drawn to the book and, hopefully, more people will know about it. And the main reason we write books is so people will read them. If you think you may want to buy a copy for your niece or your babysitter or your small group girls, pre-ordering is a lovely way to both help the book do better and give your future self a present.
Okay, but when will the book COME OUT?
September. So kind of forever. But it will be in bookstores just in time for fall semester small groups. Several groups at my church are already planning to read it in the fall.
Last week, I offered a sneak peek of Graceful to my newsletter subscribers. Go here to preview the first newsletter from Chatting at the Sky. Want to receive similar updates in your inbox once a month-ish? Subscribe to the newsletter here. What a relief to finally share this book with you. It kind of feels like I’m telling you the name of my next baby. It’s nice. And terrifying. But mostly nice. I tried to answer any questions you may have here, but what did I miss? Can you think of a girl you would like to give Graceful to?
May your weekend be filled with slow movement and deep breaths. May you lose track of time, get lost in the story, listen long and linger free. Give yourself permission to feel what you feel, be it joy, anxiety, happiness or loss. Let it all finally rise up to the surface without all your usual explanations. Be free where you are right now and refuse the pressure to be anything different. And let truth be your anchor in the midst of it. Enjoy your weekend, friends.
About a year ago, I finally accepted the fact that I have a job. It is a flexible job that I can mostly do from home, but it is still a job with work and money and deadlines. Even for those of you who work away from home, there is always email to check or papers to grade long after work hours have passed. Work has the potential to buzz at our fingertips no matter where we are. As my work load has increased since the book came out in the fall, I have been forced to re-think the way I do things. How can we create space for our souls to breathe in the midst of lives that are so full?
1. Open your Sabbath gift. One of the many shortcomings that haunt people who have grown up living the try-hard, good girl life is that we tend to roll our eyes at anyone who implies there is any limitation to our humanness. Tell the self-sufficient they need to practice Sabbath and they don’t see the point. What a waste of a good, productive day.
Over the past several years as I’ve learned to release my tight hold on that try-hard life and see it for what it really is – an ugly, gross attempt to be my own god – and as a result I’ve become increasingly more open to practicing an intentional Sabbath. It feels less like a discipline, more like a gift.
“If we do not allow for a rhythm of rest in our overly busy lives, illness becomes our Sabbath — our pneumonia, our cancer, our heart attack, our accidents create Sabbath for us.”
Wayne Muller, Sabbath
From Sunday morning when I wake up until Sunday night after my small group leaves, I don’t check email, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. I don’t try to tap out one more chapter. I don’t mop the floors. Once a week, I’m completely cut off from the internet and if I can, from anything that doesn’t bring life into our home.
We go to church together. When we come home, I cook slowly. I read fiction. I watch the kids play outside. I close my eyes on the couch. I drink coffee after lunch. It is saving my life. Because my husband is a pastor, he practices Sabbath on his day off, Mondays. It isn’t perfect; ideally I want our whole family to benefit from resting on the same day. But we’re taking small steps. He even has a Sabbath phone. Every Monday, he leaves his iPhone in the drawer and instead he carries around an old phone circa 2002, complete with the rad flip.
Find a day, or even a few hours in your week where you can sit and slowly unwrap your Sabbath gift. Don’t wait until sickness or fatigue force it upon you – embrace the gentleness of the gift while you are healthy and can enjoy it.
2. Wear blinders. One of the most difficult parts of working from home for me is all the things there are to do. I sit down to write, to finish a chapter or an article or an email, and all I can see is the sink filled with dishes. I walk by the kids rooms on my way to grab a power cord and my heart nearly stops beating for all the Legos and Barbies on the floor. It is ever so tempting for two things to happen. (1) I think to myself, I’ll just step in here for 5 minutes and clean the stuff up off their floor. Before I know it, an hour has passed and I’ve color coded the Legos and filled two garbage bags with every toy they’ve broken since the last time I did this. Or (2) I walk right past, but feel guilty that I’m writing instead of organizing the Barbie house or sorting out their summer clothes.
I don’t write a productivity blog, but I know there are practical things about being productive that can encourage us in our work – keep a clutter free work space, set a timer, things like that. Here’s something I’ve noticed – the more I open my Sabbath gift and rest when it’s time to rest, the easier it is for me to wear blinders to anything that distracts me from my work when it’s time to work. I would prefer to work at my table in a spotless kitchen, but if that is not possible, I clean the table off and face the window.
Cleaning up around the house is something I can do with the kids. Writing is something I must do alone. When you have alone time to work and can’t leave the house, embrace it as work time and don’t look back.
3. Make bread. Maybe it’s crazy, but there’s something about making bread from flour and water and yeast and salt that keeps me grounded. Settled. Connected to home. Even if the day has been filled to overflowing in both good and difficult ways, pulling a loaf of bread out of the oven gives my soul space to breathe in a way I never expected. I use the simple recipe from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. It works, it’s delicious, and I feel like I’ve accomplished something important even though it’s just bread. Because it’s not just bread.
4. Grocery shop online. When the twins were babies, I struggled through taking two babies into the grocery store and tried it every way imaginable : wear one, push the other, cram both car seats into one cart and pull the grocery cart, get a sitter. Then one day, as I left the grocery with two babies in tears, spit up on my shoulder and a cart filled with only half of the groceries we needed, I saw the sign: Food To Go. Because I shopped there regularly, I had enough points to cover the small fee to online shop and so the next week, I sat on my sofa and shopped from my list. I don’t always shop for my groceries this way, but during the weeks with deadlines or a lot going on, it has been an amazing gift.
5. Rhythm over schedule. Just changing terminology can help to lighten the load. Instead of labeling his calendar a weekly schedule, my husband has established a habit of calling it a weekly rhythm. I’m starting to copy him. Schedule implies strict lines and boundaries while rhythm gives a little room to breathe. I have goals to I want to accomplish, but I’m learning that making a schedule for myself often leaves me discouraged with all the disappointments and unmet expectations. But when I look at my work as more of a rhythm, then interruptions from family and friends are more gentle and welcome. Work is more part of a bigger picture of this life we’re making rather than This Really Important Thing I Have To Do.
What about you? What are some things that help your soul to breathe in the midst of your work?
“When is Annie coming back?” My five year old son asked me that last week as we played cars on the floor. Annie hasn’t been here in over a year. In his mind, too long. He wants her to come back.
I get it. Annie is one of the coolest girls I know. She has this unique ability to make everyone, from toddler to teenager to bonafide grown up, feel important. She knows how to stay present in the moment. She also has legit phrasing skills, once calling the green pepper a flavor hoarder. Or maybe it was flavor hog. Flavor thief? Either way, now I can’t eat salsa without tasting that pushy green pepper.
During one of her visits, my sister, Dad and I shared a meal with Annie. It was good conversation, both lots of talking and lots of listening. Dad later said, “That Annie, she’s something special.” Agreed.
Annie, teaching then-sophomore girls in our youth group.
Maybe you think Annie is amazing too – she blogs at Annie Blogs, she got brave and wrote about singleness for (in)courage, she moved to Scotland because she sensed God was calling her there for a time, and she self-published her own book, From Head to Foot. It was so awesome that Zondervan bought it, re-edited, re-vised and re-covered it and now we get a new book, Perfectly Unique. It releases in September.
Seriously, my high school girls small group read From Head to Foot last semester and it was a huge hit. The content was relevant and Biblical. Mostly though, it was Annie. We got to know her, could hear her voice, understand her perspective. We trusted her as a group.
But before the book, before Zondervan, before Scotland, she was already amazing. I trusted her as a friend. Still do.
Sometimes in this business of book writing, it can be lonely. You look at what other people are doing and compare yourself, for better or worse. You know it isn’t good for you, you know it won’t help, but there you go, doing it. And Monday morning before your day has even started, you feel discouraged and you can’t place why.
I have never felt that way with Annie. And I don’t think that’s because of me, I think it’s because of her.
Today I’m joining in the chorus of voices celebrating the women in our lives who are already amazing in honor of our friend, Holley Gerth’s beautiful new book, You’re Already Amazing. I endorsed that book, yes I did. And I didn’t do so half-heartedly. It’s a lovely book, filled with wisdom and encouragement and it would make a really great small group study.
Is there someone in your life who is amazing? Would you be willing to share her with us today? You can write a post and link up over at Holley’s place, or you can simply send out a tweet using the hashtag #AlreadyAmazing. Let’s be generous with our support of other women. I don’t believe we’ll ever regret it.
