Changes

Friends…it’s time for a change.  To every thing there is a season, right?

And not just the new look, which I've pared down quite a bit from the fun Valentines theme. My sidebar has been moved to the bottom and now I have this nice large workspace to share from.  Woot!

I think part of the reason I’ve struggled to write anything lately, centers around some pain I’m feeling in my life.  I think we still call them “growing pains” even when we’re pushing forty. (meh)

I’ve been wrestling with some issues for years and they have finally hit the surface with a fierce bang.  So I’ll be blunt:  I’ve got some nastiness I need to purge out of my heart.  I’m seeing a deep need to line up what I believe with how I live out my life.  That includes the life I live out for you to see on this blog.  I struggle tremendously with negativity, a sense of unhappiness, and an overall feeling of discontent in my life.  As someone I am very close to recently put it: I am “perpetually unhappy no matter what goodness is taking place in {my} life”.  And I am here to tell you today, that I, (me…myself…you’re “looking” at her") I am the cause of so much of that – and I am ready to be set free of it.  I am ready to let it go and find peace. 

Part of that process for me is being able to articulate it through my writing.  Part of being able to write about the flawed nature of my heart, and the gunk in my life that needs cleaned up will be coming here and letting it spill out in much the same way I have discussed many things over the years.  Bare.  Honest.  And transparently.  Sometimes not so pretty.  Sometimes, well maybe a little pretty. 

But in order to write from the depths of my heart, I need to address something that has been bothering me and gnawing at me for some time.  Something that you probably would never even notice.  Mostly because I only hint at it here and there in this or that post, and that “hinting” needs to stop.  Maybe because I skirt around it, so as not to offend.  Maybe because it makes me feel vulnerable or exposed.  That also needs to stop.  So from the shadow to the light…

This is my faith:  I don’t want to leave any room for question.  I am a woman saved by the Grace and Love and Compassion of Jesus Christ.  I attend a Bible church.  I attend a weekly Bible study.  I am a sinner.  I love the Lord.  I love to sing worship and praise to my King and Creator!  It’s my favorite part of church – I admit it!  I cherish the HOPE that I have found in my faith in God and Christ’s sacrifice for me (and for you!) I’ve added a tab up on top called “My Faith” that spills out what I believe and why.  I urge you to read it!

My sweet friend Miss A recently told a group of ladies “I’m over what you think of me!  I just don’t care anymore!” Hear!  Hear!  I couldn’t agree more!  Too often we spend so much time trying to avoid stepping on the emotional toes of those around us, that we forget to stand up for what we know is right.  Forget to be who we have been called to be!  We worry so much what people might think of us…say about us…or heaven forbid – abandon us…that we silence ourselves.  Well, I’m over that, too!  I just don’t care anymore.  Or maybe I do…too much...and that’s why I’m ready to learn how to let that go.  For my sake.  And maybe even for yours!

I have been in church my entire life.  But in the core of my soul, I have behaved as if I was waiting for God to transform me into some beautiful swan…waiting for Him to do that good, good work in me…and you know what?  He would love to.  But I’ve laid down on the operating table, as Andrea Wells Miller put it so well, and I’ve got the ether mask on and I’m ready to go to sleep and be painlessly and effortlessly transformed.  Well, it ain’t that simple, honey.  Change requires work.  God would love to use me – but I believe He can’t use me to the potential that I have, because I’ve got too much crud in my heart and I’m not doing any work.  Time to get busy!

I’m so tired of apologizing for my belief system.  Gah.  So tired of it.  So tired about potentially offending the masses.  So tired readers might not want to hear what I have to say anymore if my relationship with my Savior is the focus of it.  I've done it to myself.  It's not you - IT'S ME!  Well, I’m OVER IT. (over myself, apparently!)

I love you guys, but I just don't care what you think about me any more.

I want to be a blessing through my writing.  I want to bless others  and share the Truth for those who want to hear!  I’m tired of living as if I’m still in chains, when I’ve been set FREE in Christ.  I don’t have to walk around unhappy, discontented, or finding the negative in every little thing.  I can release that and find healing – and that’s just what I plan to do.

What does that mean for my blog?  Well a couple things:

Six years after starting this blog, I have hundreds of daily readers.  (Hello! and I love you!!) I’ve built relationships with many of you and some of you lurkers or long-time silent readers.  I appreciate you!  I love that you have reached out to me over the years, just by showing up and hearing what I had to say.  I want you to stick around, but I know some of you will move on.  That’s ok!  I will miss you, but I know full well we sometimes have to agree to disagree. 

I have used this blog first as a place to cry on your shoulders about the long adoption wait, then about becoming a new mother, and then about becoming a new mother again.  About our journeys around the world.  About our children and parenting them.  I have grown and changed over these years…and I can see that reflected as I browse sometimes through my archives.   But as with all things – I’m entering a season of my life that calls for change.  I will still be writing about being a wife, a mother, and about my kids – but I am no longer going to censor myself. 

In order to do that I realize I have to let something go…something that is “anti” blogging, if you will.  I’m letting go of comments, starting with this post.  I think, as much as I love them:

1.  I don’t want to need them.  And sometimes I do.  Sometimes I’m hanging on for your thoughts.  And frankly, sometimes I might have put a lot of effort into a particular post and maybe no one has anything to say about it.  Well, I admit it - that hurts.  (sensitive, I know...I'm working on it)  Other times, I’m so worried about what I say that I hold back.  Sometimes I’m so concerned about offending, that I withhold what I really “mean” and skirt around it - losing my point in the process.  What a lot of work all of that is!  Makes me tired just thinking about it.  I’d rather just write what’s on my heart, have you read it, and let’s leave it there.

2.  I don’t want you to feel obligated to be “nice” or feel you have to be “courteous” and take the trouble to leave a comment when you and I both know we’re too busy most days.  I read over a hundred blogs – probably yours!  But I simply do not have the time to comment.  I love following your lives, but I cannot take the added time to leave words for each of you.  It’s too cumbersome with a house to run, a job, and two little ones.  And I don’t want you to feel that way about my blog either! For heaven’s sake, I want you to receive.  That’s all.  I want you to be able to come here, read what I have to say, and move on with your day.  I don’t want you to be obligated to me.  I want you to be blessed!

3.  I don’t want to publish disparaging comments for the whole of my readers to see.  I don’t want this blog to be argumentative, and I know that often with spiritual sentiment, things can become heated for those who disagree with each other.   If you are my family or my friend – and you were to write a comment that does not line up with my heart – I would still feel obligated to publish it.  And I’m not going to do that to myself.  I don’t want to.  I love you, but this is not the place for that.

4.  I’m not gone completely – I love hearing from you!  So many times I have been so encouraged by your thoughts and kind words.  If you want to contact me or if a post really speaks to your heart or ministers to where you are in your own life, please e-mail me!  

The Bottom Line:  This isn’t about you.  It’s really not.  This blog is not about you.  It’s about me.  It’s about me and my life and a place for me to be the woman God created me to be using the gifts He gave me to use.  So I can’t censor myself anymore (again, doing that to myself!) on what my readers may or may not think.  I just can’t.  It’s too exhausting.  I like to plunge deep and tear up the low ground and pull up the weeds and clear away the mud and wipe away the muck to get to the beauty.  That’s what I want to write about and that’s what I want you to read.  That’s what I hope you’ll stick around for...and that’s what I deeply desire will keep you coming back.

But if not, I’ve so appreciated having you…just by reading, you have blessed me.  And my family.  So thank you for that – really and truly.  This little corner of the web has become so much more than I ever thought it would - back when I started just by talking about my life and my adoptions.  So much more...

I’ll end this post with a perfect summation of my feelings, eloquently stated by the lovely Joanna Weaver in her book “Having a Mary Spirit”…

“My deepest fear is waking up twenty years from now still the same woman I am today.  With the same annoying habits and petty attitudes; with the same besetting sins and false beliefs.  I can’t imagine anything more terrible than getting to the end of my life only to discover God had so much more in mind for me – more freedom, more joy, more peace, more true effectiveness.  And I had missed it all, simply because I refused to change".”

I am moving forward and ready to love better, connect more deeply, live richly and contentedly, see the good, reach out to others, and find peace in my life. 

As my dear pastor says often….and may that make all the difference.

BE BLESSED LADIES!  Be a blessing to others and be blessed…