Turning 40 and Why It’s a Wonderful Life

Turning 40 and Why It’s a Wonderful Life

by | Jun 30, 2016 | Inner Healing, Stories

Turning 40 and Why Its’s a Wonderful Life

How Do I Feel About Turning 40?

Just wanted to share some thoughts that came out the other day when after doing life a-mile-a-minute I stopped to rest and then realized–Hey I turned 40 this week.  How do I feel about turning 40?  A cathartic exercise. I can use this question (How do I feel about ______?) for anything in life, and it will usually give me 1) revelation about myself, and 2) some much needed emotional relief (that I sometimes don’t realize I even need until I get it).

Just to stop and ask my heart how she feels… Ahhhh.  This is really so important. If I don’t ask her, and no one else asks her, then who will she tell? When I don’t take time to stop and do this, I can start to get all kinds of negative stuff going on inside of me.  I can get needy, critical, irritable, depressed, sugar-craving, etc… So lets just do it people! Give your heart some time.  Your life will thank you for it.

I am 40.  I am 40 years old! How do I feel about it?

Think Back to 30 

Well… when I think back to turning 30, I have fond memories of that birthday.  I was living in Australia, and I had my 30-something friends over and we sat around and had adult conversation.  I loved it.  I got flowers and I think there was a cake.  I just remember deciding that night that I liked the grown-up party better than the college parties.

And in the same season (maybe the next year or two) I had a wine and cheese party that I enjoyed even more. An afternoon celebration, conversing and nibbling on antipasto, drinking wine, and enjoying the company of beautiful friends.  I miss those friends.

A New Season

This year I have a 10-month old and a hard-working husband and friends who have jobs and other obligations.  I also have a lot of healing on my side, so although I wanted to feel sorry for myself that I did not have anyone to go to lunch with on the day of my 40th, I knew that: first, I had not planned that with anyone (my fault) and second, that I still had the power to make it a great birthday.  Not just the power– the responsibility.  To my own heart.

Baby and Me Went Shopping

So I packed up the baby gear (and the baby) and we went shopping! We looked at really pretty clothes (something I haven’t really done since getting pregnant almost 2 years ago since my body now is so foreign to me waaa!).

I bought a shirt that I loved.  I mean, I didn’t love it as much as some of the other things I tried on, but it fit, and I felt pretty in it, and thats what I loved.  It was soft and flowy and unique.  And I enjoyed wearing it. Then my hubby came home to pick us up for dinner, which was yummy (and so was the margarita), and then we came home and he set my gift out on the table, all bulky and bumpy in funny wrapping paper.

And to my non-surprise (and great delight), it was a new camera!!! I mean a real camera.  A big girl camera.  An I-need-to-read-the-manuel-before-i-can-actually-take-any-pictures camera.  Oh my heavenly daisies!

Expectation and Disappointment

Even though all of this happened and it was really a pretty wonderful birthday, there had been an expectation that someone else should make it special for me.  So there was disappointment.  And I think its ok to desire to be seen and known and celebrated on my birthday.  But I think it was kind of an important test for me too–as though I were being asked, what will you do when no one else makes a fuss over you?  And I passed.

I Can Lead a Beautiful Life

The truth is, it was my day, and I picked my chin up and took hold of it.  This is what we really need to learn to do with every day.  We have the power to lead brilliantly beautiful lives.  We just need to stop depending on other people and perfect circumstances to make it happen to us.   I am meant to lead a beautiful life.  I am meant to lead a purposeful, rich life. I lead my life.  We were never meant to be spectators, passively watching as life unfolds and happens to us. We are meant to LIVE.  LIVE is a verb.  See?  We are meant to LIVE!!!

Loving Me At 40

So turning 40. I like it better than 30.  I mean, I am still learning to accept certain things–like how my body doesn’t look at all the same now as it did for 38 years (pre-baby).  I miss my thin-ness.  I miss every dang thing looking awesome on me.  I miss wearing my favorite jeans and fitted shirts.

But there are several advantages to flowy.  Flowy is comfy.  Flowy can make a girl feel feminine and lovely.  I have never been brave enough to wear flowy until now.  So there is that.

Beautiful and Worth It

I like 40 better than 30 because I know more who I am than I ever have before.  I love 40 because some of my deepest desires have been met in marrying my  sweet husband and having my baby girl.  I am challenged by it, don’t get me wrong. It is harder than single and free in many ways.  But it is also beautiful and worth it.

There is probably much more to say about turning 40 but I am out of time.  I have responsibilities people! The moral of the story is, there is something good in everything –even turning 40. And also, you can be a really good friend to your own heart–life is better this way!

 

Luke 1: Reflections On the Redeeming of All Things

Luke 1: Reflections On the Redeeming of All Things

by | Dec 24, 2013 | Devotional, Inner Healing, Stories

Luke 1: Reflections On the Redeeming of All Things

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit has rejoiced in God my Savior…For He who is mighty has done great things for me…He has scattered the proud…He has filled the hungry with good things… 

…Blessed is the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people (from Luke 1).

Waking Up to Redemption

It’s Christmas Eve.   I wake to the familiar whirr of my box fan and the dim morning that peaks in past the tops of my tall, plum drapes.  I sleep in a Murphy bed, which means I wake up in my living room every morning to my favorite thing about my apartment: the ceiling.

I spent seven months renovating, living in a construction zone and changing my mind about paint colors almost daily, finally settling on  colors named after foods like shortbread, olive, lemongrass and cafe ole.  And for all the work that was done (and I had help) I still can’t get over how much I love my ceiling.

For me, this is the piece de resistance… a pearl white ceiling with a grid of thick beams painted the color of Espresso Beans. There’s a brand new fan and lighting fixture in the middle of the grid, but it doesn’t work because there is something wrong with the electrical wiring.  None of my overhead lights work.  But I don’t notice it anymore because I use lots of lamps.

Look What the Lord Has Done for Me

Waking up most mornings I feel a deep sense of gratitude for a few reasons.  One, because I get to enjoy waking up slowly, almost every morning.  And two, because look what the Lord has done for me.  The colors on my walls and my beautiful ceiling remind me of where I was three years ago.

It was by far the hardest season of my life, as I was freshly separated and beginning the divorce process.  I felt like I had failed at everything there was to fail at in life.  Scraping—it felt like forever—layers and layers, years of old paint and funk and crud  and other people’s junk off tables, benches, and walls. (Can you tell I don’t like to do things half way?)

It was symbolic, the scraping.  Hours, days, weeks and months of scraping provides plenty of time for reflection. It felt like layers and layers of my life were being scraped at and peeled away and exposed.  It was the worst and best thing that ever happened to me.

Mary’s Magnificat and the Prophecy of Zacharias

Luke 1:46-79

For the last six months I’ve been finding much comfort and clarity in the first chapter of Luke, specifically Mary’s Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55) and the prophetic declaration of Zacharias following the birth of his son John (Luke 1:68-79).   This morning, Christmas Eve, I woke up and decided to read them again.  I love these passages because I am coming to terms so much personally with this:

God redeems everything.

Wonderful News

How good the news of Jesus’ birth really is.  It is big news—wonderful news because it means that however things may look, however ugly or hopeless or upside down things may be in my life, in the media, or across the world, there is a reality that we can’t quite wrap our minds around that DOES trump all of that.

Do you get this? Of all that we see and cringe at and grieve for and worry about and get depressed over, there is not anything about any of it that He does not promise to make right. And we are not only guaranteed to witness this, but are given the privilege of being asked to partner with Him and participate in bringing it to pass—all things will be made right.

There will be peace on earth.

Luke 1:52-53

He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted the lowly.  He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty (Luke 1:52-53). 

The angel told Zacharias that his son, the one who would ‘make ready a people prepared for the Lord’ would be called John which means, Jehovah has been gracious. And Mary was told by the angel to call her firstborn Jesus, which was to call Him Savior, Deliverer.

Redemption in Healing

This “redeeming of all things” has become so close to my heart as I have been healing.  It has been my Awakening.  Until I could see my own inner reality, I did not have eyes to see how truly desperate I am (and the whole world is) for Him. But I believe He desires to wake us up—all of His sons and daughters.  He wants to teach us how to see and hear with our ‘spirit eyes’ and ‘spirit ears’ this reality.

Matthew 13:15

But… their ears are hard of hearing and their eyes they have closed (Matthew 13:15). 

The invitation is that we would come to Him—and ask Lord, Give me eyes to see, give me ears to hear! Whatever that takes.  And the first thing he showed me, when I came to Him with this desire, was the condition of my own heart.

Luke 6:41

Once I started to read Luke this morning, I could not stop until I came to Luke 6:41, And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the plank in your own eye? 

We All Have Planks

Confession time.  I won’t go into detail, but lets just say… there was a time in my life when I was really good at ‘speck-ulating.’ I’m so ashamed! But it’s true. I literally wondered, “but what if I don’t have a plank in my eye?”  And therein lies the issue.  We all have planks.

Hello!! Planks vs. Specks is so perfect because no matter how “good” we think we are, or how many “sins we haven’t committed,” or even how genuinely mature we become, the size and weight of what God wants to reveal and address ABOUT ME TO ME vs. what He wants to reveal and address ABOUT YOU TO ME is of the same proportion as Plank vs. Speck.

The point is, we all have PLENTY of our own issues that needs addressing. So, most of us are walking around with a big ol’ plank in our eye. And don’t even know it.  And we want to help others and teach others and lead others.

The Issues of the Heart

The problem with that is that it’s hard to see anything or even function well at all with a plank in my eye.  Jesus said, first remove the plank from your own eye. Take the time to figure out your own *stuff*. He wants to deal with the plank, but do we? We can spend a lifetime keeping ourselves busy debating, escaping, performing, avoiding, doing good deeds, or “serving” Him.  But to partner with Him in delving into the issues of the heart…this takes great courage.  And true humility. It is worth it.

Redemption: Healing and Change for Others

And then He says you will see clearly to remove the speck that is in your brother’s eye. And this is the most wonderful part of it all.  God redeems all of our brokenness.  His healing and changing me will bear fruit of healing and change for many others.  Friends, families, generations.  It spreads.

As He perfects His Love inside of me, I can become a part of someone else’s healing.  And they can become a part of someone else’s healing. And maybe God will redeem the whole earth one heart at a time. 

Authenticity: Why We Aren’t Being Real and How to Change

Authenticity: Why We Aren’t Being Real and How to Change

by | Nov 20, 2013 | Inner Healing

Authenticity: Why We Aren’t Being Real and How to Change

 

Change On the Inside

We genuinely desire to be authentic, but how do we get there? There is no formula, but there are some ways we can move toward authenticity.

Authenticity is not something we can just “decide” to have. Authenticity is a natural outflow of a change that happens on the inside. Change on the inside happens when we are willing to prioritize our inner life.

Addressing our inner life is often choosing to do the work of inner healing and inner healing often requires being willing to take a look at the past (usually with the help of a counselor or mentor). It involves remembering our childhood, acknowledging wounds, forgiving those who have hurt us, and grieving and processing our losses.

Becoming more authentic is a fruit of this healing. Here are some key ideas that can help us take steps toward  the pursuit of inner healing, in order to experience more  authenticity in our every day.

 5 Keys to Growing Toward Authenticity

1. Recognizing What Happened 

Separation

In the beginning of this season of healing, I read a book called Born to Fly by Pat Stark. In this book, I was introduced to the idea that if we experience any kind of abuse or neglect, anything traumatic, or even receive negative or wounding messages as a child, we cope by separating from our true heart, and we begin to live instead out of a mask, created to suit our environment and designed to keep our world from falling apart.

 Survival

It is about survival.  So it becomes that there are now two parts of me – my true self (my heart, who I was as a little girl) and my mask—the face I wear for the world to see.

I believe that most of us have experienced past wounding to some degree or another, because we live in a broken world.  Even with the most loving and well-meaning parents, we may still receive messages that wound us, whether intentional or otherwise.

 2. The Mask

The Mask.  The mask is different for everyone.  It might look like… people-pleasing, being too cool, being tough, self-protection, judgment, fear-based relating, co-dependent or enabling behaviors, criticism, contempt, needing the approval of others, ‘having it all together,’ needing no-one, passive aggressive behaviors, perfectionism… and of course much more.  As long as I live out of the mask, I continue to choose against my heart.

3. The Inner Child

Children Are Real

I love so many things about children.  They are free to love people and will often express it, showing affection freely, without thinking about it, or even better, they will simply declare it—without fear or agenda.

They are unassuming. They are not self-conscious.  They stop and talk to strangers, and when they do, they bring delight!  They light up faces just by being present, they can light up whole rooms when they walk through!

They don’t wonder what you think of them, they are just themselves.  They laugh easily.  They get excited about things like flowers and butterflies and airplanes and trains.  They are not ashamed to dance.  They bring life wherever they go.

Are We Really Keeping It Real?

We hear a lot of talk about “keeping it real” but I’m not sure we understand that word.  If there is anyone who knows how to be real, it’s children.  Children are REAL.

4. The Revelation That Who I was As a Little Girl Is My Heart

All these things I was as a child–this is my true heart.  And this is the part of me that I want back! Living out of my heart, I am REAL.

Getting the Revelation

It was a huge revelation to discover that I had been living my whole life (from my youth clear into adulthood) wearing a mask, separate from my true heart.

But once I began to take that revelation and look back over my life through this new lens, so many things suddenly made so much sense!  I can’t begin to tell you how much truth and clarity I gained from seeing things from this perspective.  So many things that I struggled with as an adult, so many behaviors patterns, so much pain in relationships was rooted in this.

Reinforcing False Beliefs

I was living not out of my heart, but out of a façade.  And to make it worse, I was continually reinforcing the lies and messages that instigated the separation from my heart to begin with.

Rather than seeing and advocating and fighting for my own heart, I was standing alongside the opposition– rejecting, abandoning, shaming, blaming and betraying my heart. Agreeing with them that she was less than, not enough, too much, not worth fighting for, etc.

 5.  Allowing Holy Spirit to Lead

The tragedy of it was at first overwhelming. But I knew that if I would choose to allow God, by His Spirit to lead me on this journey, facing the lies and messages—one at a time—there would come a day, when I would become whole again.

Pat called it Integration.  What a great word. I would become integrated.  I would be whole! Wholeness means I can be fully and completely myself.  It is possible to live truly out of my heart.

And it is from this place—getting rid of the mask and living truly from the heart, that we are able to live and love like that gorgeous child—freely, without agenda, not worried about what people will think, or how someone will receive me or my love for them.  I am able to just be me.

An Outflow of Authenticity

Out of this new place of freedom comes true Authenticity, an overflow of the integration and wholeness that has happened with the healing that takes place.

If you are interested in further pursuing your own heart through inner healing, you can read about my healing story in my book Return to Real here, or check it out on Amazon. 

 

 

 

The Powerful Inner Child: How Meeting Her Changed My Life

The Powerful Inner Child: How Meeting Her Changed My Life

by | Oct 11, 2013 | Inner Healing

The Powerful Inner Child

Meeting the Little Girl In My Childhood Photos

She has tender green eyes and a sweet, cheeky smile.  She is unsure of herself;  She enjoys her friends, but she also likes to play by herself.  She loves her dolls, she loves to sing,  she loves her mom and dad.  She wishes she could have her very own horse.  And she wonders what she will look like when she grows up.

She is my heart.  She is me.

Looking for Answers

Over the years I have sought counsel in an attempt to gain some semblance of understanding, some answer to the general sense of dissatisfaction I felt with myself and with my life.  My counselors suggested that I to go back to the beginning and remember things about my childhood.

I was told to write down stories that I remembered.  I was encouraged to give myself a break, to get in touch with my desires and needs, to nurture my own heart.  I was shown that I was living by a set of beliefs that included many lies, and needed to change my thinking.

All of this is good.

Meeting My Inner Child

All has even been helpful on my healing journey, and all is incorporated even now into what I am learning about myself.  But none of it has brought the truth home to me—the truth about what really went on inside of me as a child, the truth about what really broke my heart—like meeting her for the first time. Now, seeing a picture of a girl you’ve never met, and meeting a little girl and spending time with her, are two very different experiences.

Shuffling through my childhood pictures, I was looking at pictures of a girl I didn’t know.  Unemotional about her, I found it interesting to think back about things that happened and to talk about how they might have influenced the way that I operate now as an adult– how I think, how I see myself, how I interact with people, etc.

But now it was time to meet her.

Just Because She Existed

Timing was perfect because just the year before, I had welcomed my niece into the world, and had immediately fallen madly in love—unconditionally, she was a delight just because she existed and boy was I ever the doting aunt!

When I set out to meet my inner child– the little girl that was me–all I had to do was to picture my precious niece and my eyes would fill up with tears—this was the little girl in the pictures—an innocent, vulnerable little girl, big eyes, full of questions.  This was me!

How did I feel about her?  How did it make me feel to see her smile?  To see her laughing?  To see tears streaming down her face?

 She Was Beautiful

When I finally truly met this sweet girl, I wanted more than anything else to find out who she was.  I wanted to really know her.  I was on a mission.  And you know what? The more I got to know her, the more I began to discover how great she was—how beautiful she really was.

Psalm 139:16

Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed (Psalm 139:16).

Somewhere in the beginning, I lost sight of her.  Yet God has always had her in His sight.

He Has Loved Her

All the years I have rejected my own heart, He has not.  Where I have judged her and called her unacceptable, He has called her acceptable.  Where I have hated and shamed her for being needy and messy, He has loved her just for being.

She is Needy, and That’s Ok

And what else are children if not needy and messy? How much freedom came just from getting this one thing:  she (my heart) is needy, and that’s ok. She is messy, and that’s ok. After a lifetime of being not ok, this revelation was such a gift to me!

Giving My Heart a Voice

From the moment I began to give my heart a voice, I knew that something was happening… Out of my darkest hour had come a desperate cry to God—Lord, help!! Something has to change!  And when I truly connected with her for the first time (this little girl in the pictures), I knew that somehow she was a key to this change—whatever it would be.  She is who God originally made me to be—who I was Before…

She was delightful.  She was vulnerable.  She was uninhibited.  She trusted.  She was easy to love.  She still is.  She is lovely.  She is sweet.  She is honest.  She loves people.  She is ok just being herself.  She is fearless.  She is wise, and strong, and good.

And she changes everything.