You're Stronger Than You Think You Are

I've mentioned running on occasion. If someone says that I'm a runner I make them do air quotes around the word and call me a "runner." It doesn't come naturally to me. I didn't start really running until my 30's. I am slow. My running plans never go how I want because there are few plans out there for 40-something beginners that are turtle-slow.

My last 5k. I finished before they cleared the course. 

Photo courtesy Celebrated Images

If you are a Facebook friend or follow me on Twitter you know that I run in the morning, sometimes horrifically early. I'm not necessarily a morning person, but that is when the running must be done if it is to get done.

My legs don't work well and my brain doesn't work well at still-too-dark hours of the morning. Thankfully, my brain only has to figure out to put one foot in front of the other and stay out of traffic. That much I can usually manage.

My legs take a while to get going on these runs. I give myself a few minutes to warm up and then begin to wonder why I didn't stay in bed.

Lately, though, a sentence has been echoing in my head. A sentence that has propelled me further and faster (relatively speaking, of course) than any training program or motivational thought.

Less than ten words spoken to me over a year ago keep my legs in motion.

When we first moved here (almost 2 years ago) God almost immediately brought me a running partner knowing that I needed the running to keep me sane and the partner to keep me faithful.

She is a much stronger runner than I am but is eternally patient and helped me get on track. I was discussing some training I wanted to do or something I hoped to accomplish but bemoaning my lack of ability.

And there it was:

"You're a stronger runner than you think you are."

I don't know if she was just filling the air -- though she isn't one to say something she doesn't mean -- or if she really believed that.

It doesn't matter.

What matters is that I believed it. Okay -- I didn't believe it at first. But I considered it as a possibility. So I somewhat tested it. Maybe I can run a little longer before a walk break. Maybe this isn't as fast as these legs will go.

My running partner has moved away. I am left to train on my own. It's been a tumultuous winter of illness and injury for me. But out the door I go, starting over again and again. My legs complain. My lungs burn. But I hear it.

"You're a stronger runner than you think you are."

So I keep at it. And run just a little more and a little more.

Turns out -- I really am a stronger runner than I thought I was.

It took just a few words of encouragement from someone for me to find that out. Someone else had to believe in me before I could believe in myself.

The power of encouragement. You are probably stronger -- physically and emotionally -- than you think you are. And you probably need to tell someone close to you that they are, too.

Great video about the power of one person believing in another:

Can't We All Just Get Along?

A rare occurrence has been taking place at my house.

Like... "call the Smithsonian" kind of rare.

My kids have been getting along. Working together, asking each other's advice -- then actually listening to the advice offered.

It is a beautiful thing.

To hear your children getting along warms the cockles of  my heart (I love to toss out the word "cockles" -- you just don't get to use that every day) and ranks right up there with their decision to accept Christ in baptism, as well as watching them use one of the many gifts God has given them.

I wonder.

I wonder how God feels about his own children getting along.

How He feels when I can't see past the fact that my brother in Christ chooses to tell God he loves Him and worship a different way than I do, so dismiss my brother altogether.

... or how He feels when I can't see past which lever my sister in Christ pulls on election day or the sign she has in her yard so speak venomous words about her to others.

I wonder how He feels when I judge my sister who was raised in an abusive home, or by a single parent who worked 3 jobs to make ends meet, so she shows up at worship dressed inappropriately and doesn't speak to her husband or children the way I think she should. I wonder if He wishes that I would come alongside her and love her instead of judge, and show her a better way... since no one ever has.

I wonder how He feels about us getting along? I'm pretty sure He told us:

"I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another. By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

John 13:34,35

P.S. The littles are not my adorable doodlebugs. But they appear to be getting along. The bigs are mine on the first day of school. This is how we do "first day" pics.

Doing Great Things For God

Hello there. It's been a while. A very loooong while.

I finally have a thought. Would love to hear your thoughts on it, too. But, the reality is... no one is probably out there. It may have just been too long.

And this thought launches from another blog post I read almost a year ago. I would encourage you to read that one, because it says it way better than I will here.

 The general idea is that in the Christian culture/ lingo, many of us are encouraged/ told/ have the idea that we will/ need to "do great things for God." Of course, in our minds, "great things" can only mean either giving up your whole life to start an orphanage in a third world country, or becoming a well-known speaker and/or author so that your words touch thousands.

The deal is, God has a vastly different definition of "great things" than we do. My friend who will take someone to dinner when they ask her for money on the street -- and give them not only the gift of a full belly, but her attention and time, too, is doing great things for God, I believe. My friends who consistently and unselfishly care for their neighbors and family are doing great things for God. My friend who ministers to those on the fringes to let them know they are loved and not forgotten is doing great things for God.

You don't know any of these people's names, and likely never will, but surely you know people just like them, doing great things for God.

An enthusiastic, well-meaning gentleman tells me EVERY. TIME. he sees me, "I can't wait to see what great things God is going to do in your life. I just know God is going to do great things through you!" Sweet, I guess, but I just think, "What has He been doing in my life? Is raising babies not enough for God? Changing diapers in the nursery at church doesn't count for anything? Those HOURS that I have spent on youth trips -- praying and laughing and losing sleep with teens -- nada?"

I know people are doing more than me and other things --- but not all of us will do great things in the eyes of the world -- though lives will no doubt be changed by those things, as well. But all of us can do God's great things. I say this because I've been feeling the "woe is me" lie again -- the lie that I don't matter, that God isn't using me, that my years on this earth are amounting to nothing, and "everyone" is getting a book contract/ awesome job/ the right degree. I finally had to claim that as the lie that was. Sure, I have let many opportunities slip by me and I have learned beyond my fair share of lessons from mistakes.

But just because I am not doing things that thousands can see, it doesn't mean it isn't great in God's eyes. And I continue to pray that He is the only one I aim to please and impress -- and THAT is a whole other struggle unto itself.

May you do something great for God today -- one of God's great things.

"The greatest among you will be your servant"Matthew 23:11

Invited Into the Junk Closet

This is the last pondering/ rambling about us being a house, I promise!

Part 1: You are a House is here.

Part 2: Discernment (alternate title -- I can see in  your windows!) is here.

However, this is what started this whole thought process. I had to find a way to put words/ imagery to this experience.

I mentioned that we all have a junk closet in our house. Okay -- Jennifer only has a junk drawer. And it probably has labeled dividers in it. Whatev. (I actually don't have a junk closet in my physical house because I have exactly 3 closets in my house -- one in each bedroom -- but my laundry room gets an honorary nod as a junk closet. And the bottom of my pantry. And my attic. You get the idea...).

I have a dear friend whose figurative junk closet contained not only stuff that she crammed in there, but a WHOLE load of pain and garbage that life and other people piled in. I'll call her Hoarder of Other People's Junk. Several years ago, partly due to her choosing, and partly because life threw her yet another wrench, HOPJ finally cried "mercy" and said, "ENOUGH!!"

She dusted off her scraped and bruised knees, stood on her shaky feet, and proceeded to clean out that junk closet.

Ever been through a box of painful memories? Yeah -- that's cleaning out the junk closet. One photograph and memento at a time. Remembering the pain and heartache and tossing them out. In cleaning out the figurative junk closet, you come across habits and behaviors that you have created as coping/ comforting mechanisms to deal with the pain -- and depending on how healthy or unhealthy THOSE are, you may have to get rid of something that has been very comfortable for you.

In short, it's a pain to clean out the junk closet. Literally. It's an ugly process.

HOPJ has spent years getting healthy, uncovering those coping mechanisms, tossing out the unhealthy, forging a better life for herself. She is no longer HOPJ -- now she is Standing on Her Own Two Feet.

Not too long ago, Standing invited me into her former junk closet. There is one last order of business that needs taking care of on her road to a complete closet re-do -- and she would like my help.

Realizing that this closet has held some of her deepest pain and biggest hurts, I had to confess my hesitation. Hesitation not only to simply be there, but to say anything once I came in:

"I'm... I'm not sure what I can say and can't say about this last pile of junk."

"You can say anything."

Very thoughtfully, she explained: "You have enough deposits in my love bank. I know that anything you say is out of love and wanting my closet to be clean. ThisOne can't say anything. I just got through shoveling fifty pounds of manure that ThisOne dumped in my junk closet, so ThisOne can't say a word without it upsetting me. It's just bringing the junk back into the closet. But you? You can say anything."

At that moment in time, I felt the urge to remove my shoes.

I realized that I was standing on Holy Ground.

To be invited into the deepest recesses of another's soul -- the place where the biggest hurts and fears, and even the biggest Dreams, live-- is a hallowed, sacred place.

I realized the level of trust it took for Standing to invite me in, lay bare her hurts and fears, and let us sit in the middle of her junk closet together and find a way to clean that sucker out.

I wondered how often someone has allowed me -- without me having full awareness -- a toe, a glimpse, a part of his/ her junk closet... and I treated it flippantly, casually, a wave of the hand, a smile, a half of an ear.

And when I didn't understand the gravity of that situation, not only did I pile more into the junk closet, but that person put one more nail in the door, vowing never to let anyone else peek inside again.

It is a beautiful, sacred experience when we offer pieces of our lives and selves to each other. When  trust is established and we know it is a safe place to be. It goes so far beyond fellowship, yet must start there.

And... truth be told. You have to go first. You have to be willing to trust someone first. And at some point someone will breech that trust and you'll get hurt (you can forgive, but you don't have to be an idiot and trust them twice...). That's what makes us all tick and connect. The ability to reach out and say: "I think you're worth taking a risk on. I like you. I trust you with my junk."

And? Follow Standing's example. Get your junk cleaned out. Get a professional junk cleaner if necessary. Find a friend/ spouse who will go through your junk with you. Because life is constantly piling on new junk. No need to keep dragging around the old junk.

Discernment

I don't know if I'm a slow learner or if it takes all of us well into our adulthood to know and figure out our spiritual gifts.

I'm trying to prevent this in my children -- and verbalize what spiritual gifts I see in them. I'm not much of a visionary, so it's up to them to hear how God wants to use it in their lives, but I do think identifying your own gifts is the first step.

Partly because some vague gifts we don't realize that other people don't have.

So it is with my own gift of discernment.

That's one of the reasons that I started pondering us -- our beings, our souls, the part that makes us who we are -- as a house. I was trying to put words to my gift of discernment -- and why so few people appreciate it in me. :-)

As I stated, I think most people spend most of their relationships on their front porch. I'm learning that a few people don't ever go into their own homes at all -- too painful, perhaps, too disorderly... but they simply can't walk in there at all. Not even in the quiet of their own thoughts.

So there they are on the porch. I stroll by, seeing how our relationship is going.

This is where my discernment has gotten me in trouble more times than I care to think about.

Discernment allows me to see in your windows. Not necessarily all the way to your junk closet -- but I can tell if you have a junk closet or not, and if it's bulging at the hinges or if you clean it out periodically. I can peek into parts of your house you may already know but don't want to talk about... or you may have no idea because you don't want to know.

Being helpful, I think you should know:
"Um... your couch is on fire... would you like some help putting that out? I'll go with you to get water, call the fire department... I'll even help you pick out a new couch!"

"What??" you reply. "I don't have a couch! Don't be ridiculous! Hey, did you see the new flip flops I got? Did you hear about the awesome award my kid got? What about that new TV series? Aren't you watching it?"

"Uh... yeah... all those things are great. But, seriously. Your couch? Totally ablaze in there. Can I help you with that?"

And now I have crossed the line. Because people who don't go inside their own houses don't want to hear about what's going on in there. And they give me all kinds of reasons that I may THINK their couch may be on fire, but it actually isn't. And our relationship is quite icy from there on out.

Just as we have to teach children it's rude to look into other people's windows, so we must teach those with discernment to play the game and pretend not to see... until the person is ready to see. It's rude to look into other people's windows. Not everyone is ready for what is in there.

Angels Unaware

I have written for a magazine called "Christian Chronicle" so occasionally the editor will send out a call for news, pictures, or thoughts or ideas.

Most recently (that I remember) he relayed his experience (that he VERY eloquently wrote about here) of visiting a congregation and not being greeted very warmly and was curious if we had ever experienced the same thing.

Oh, dear.

I am ALWAYS happy to give my opinion about something, and if it's something that I feel strongly about? Well, you just better make yourself comfortable, because I have got a THING or two to say!

Ten years ago, when our family moved to SmallTown (but with gazillion churches) we encountered the same thing to a degree: no one really speaks to you unless a member forces them to: "HEY! Have you met the Stirmans??? They are moving here! They are looking for a church home!" THEN the light bulb goes off and the friendly switch comes on. We got a little bit of that since my husband was working at one of the largest places in town and we knew a few people in town already.

Ironically, we honestly ended up placing membership at the least friendly church we encountered. But we knew a few people, and knew that we would eventually know more. But, BOY, did we have to WORK to know more!

At one point, very early in our time there, our lives were beyond stressful -- moving to SmallTown was a fiasco in and of itself -- and I sat through one entire Wednesday evening service with tears running down my face and occasionally sobbing. I was in the middle of enough people (and next to Troy) that it was pretty impossible to miss my emotional state.  Not one person inquired to my well being or even offered me a tissue. I began to question our decision to make that our church home -- and I definitely vowed to change how I viewed and treated people I didn't know within the walls of a church building.

Not long after my crying incident, I finally wearied of sitting in a Sunday school class FULL of people -- and none of them talking to me or my husband -- so we offered to help with the college students. That availed us to some people who were willing to get to know us: both the college students and the lovely people who worked with them.

And I began to methodically meet my church family in a very simple, straightforward manner:
"Hi! My name is Sarah. I'm not sure we've met...?" (extending my hand to be shaken by person I don't recognize).

"Are you a member here?"

Sometimes I would meet a member. Sometimes I would meet a visitor. I was still doing that the Sunday before we moved away -- 10 years later -- and when that particular member said her name, I knew who she was, and who she was friends with, but we had never met. I also knew where she sat in first service (due to my previous sign language interpreting) and since I mainly attended second service, we didn't really cross paths.

Yay! I finally met someone that I had been worshiping with for 10 years! That's not embarrassing. That's knowing my church family!

So when we had to up and move to Suburbia -- oye with the starting over looking for churches! It's just so hard.

Here is the article that came from my rant about that.

In short, my portion says that of course, NOW we have "shake and bake" (a term not original to me, but my friend LOVES it that her moniker for the forced time of greeting in church made it into the Christian Chronicle) and people will slap a smile on their face THEN and greet you -- but I can think of several churches we visited where our family very awkwardly stood and chatted with each other while the people around us heartily greeted the people they already knew... and said nothing to us.

People... it isn't hard: do you recognize that face? No? Then introduce yourself!

I had someone say to me: "But that's just in your and Troy's nature..."

Uh, NO! It is not! My nature is to sit and study my cuticles and the pattern on the carpet. I am the definition of an introvert and am really good sitting there. However, my nature IS compassionate, and I know what it feels like to walk into a church and feel like NO ONE cares that you came or went. And it feels really crappy. And heaven forbid anyone feel that way with me sitting looking at my cuticles.

So I reach beyond my nature, extend my hand, and say: "Hi! I'm Sarah! I'm not sure we've met...?"

Now, time for true confessions:

A guy at church was kidding me about that article... yes the one where I complained that no one talked to us at church. As he's talking to me, I'm finding my way to my seat, stepping over a lady I don't recognize. He and I chat about our various experiences with such churches right up until church starts. At the end of church, several of us went up to pray with a family that was leaving to do mission work. I stepped over lady again to get out. At the end of the prayer, I turned and tried to get to her... but she and her daughter were hurrying out the door.

I am fairly certain not one person in that room spoke to her. While I sat next to her talking about that article where I complained about unfriendly churches.

That, boys and girls, is what is known as irony...

And I feel horrible.

However, I have to remind myself: there were 200 people in that room. SOMEONE could have stuck out a hand and said, "Hello! My name is...." But I'm fairly certain no one did. And I doubt we will get a second chance to say hello to her.

“Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing.” Hebrews 13:2

A House?

You are a house.

Nope. Not as BIG AS a house.

You are a house.

Your being, your soul, the part that makes you you -- that is your house.

If you know me the least little bit, you know that I am prone to pick apart a thought and over think and WAY over talk it, and lately I’ve been pondering us as a house. So now I shall over talk/ write it.

I think of our selves -- our real, true selves -- as our houses.

The thing is, most of our relationships in life are front porch relationships. And not in the “sit on the front porch and rock” good kind of way. In the “I don’t really want you in my house, so let’s stand on the porch and talk about the weather, my landscaping, good movies, other people, and how awesome my kids are” kind of way.

Every once in a great little while we will have a true and honest friend -- and, hopefully our spouses-- that we invite into our houses. We don't mind if they help us "fix up" a little, even. What one might call "holding us accountable" to some public goal we have.

But there is generally the junk closet. C’mon you have one. You know you do.

In your house and in your soul there is a junk closet -- full of pain and mess and crup that you want to keep the door locked and sealed forever on... like Monica’s closet on Friends.

It’s the rare friend that we invite into our houses. Rarer still, the friend that we ask to help us clean out our junk closet.

It's a dangerous prospect, the cleaning of the junk closet. For one, you have to dig back out the pain you purposefully crammed in there. And if you have someone cleaning with you, there is always the possibility of being hurt further. Because, let's be honest, every relationship is the potential for hurt. However... I've found that the majority are worth the risk. Especially junk closet friends.

Praying that you have friends in your life that you would invite into your junk closet -- your literal and figurative junk closet.