Creating Containers

Containers are interesting things. They purposefully hold something in a finite space and protect it. I took my first trip to The Container Store a few weekends ago. I had been wanting to go for quite some time, but I was terrified that I would just want everything in the store and completely lose control of myself. So I took my husband with me and we started up and down the aisles. And I realized anew that I LOVE CONTAINERS!
I love that I can have a lot of little things that I like and when I categorize them and put them in a labeled container it just makes me so happy! Those things have a place. They now belong there. They are protected.
I just finished cleaning out my office at my old job (it feels weird calling it "old"). I went through binders and containers of over six years worth of work and memories. Successful projects that I completely forgot about and failed ones that make me laugh to look at now. Files, binders, shelves of 6 years of life, put into boxes...containers. I sat and looked at my empty office and was just a sad and thought, "I HATE CONTAINERS!"
I hate that 6 years of my life's work can be reduced to ten boxes, taken to my car, and never used (at least not in the same way) or noticed again. It will just be sorted through and put into new containers for new purposes.
The truth is that containers are both lovely and limiting. We create them to feel safe and protected...and for good reason. Containers of success, comfort, easy relationships, operating within our realm of competence and knowledge - they're all lovely, safe, and protected and we need them. They are also so limiting. It's easier for us to see the containers that were created for us as limiting - our family of origin, our life experiences, our socioeconomic status, our gender. But in the end, isn't that all in your perspective as well? What about those things was exclusively limiting? No, for the most part, those are lovely, safe and protected too.
All of this isn't to judge your containers or mine or to say that we should or shouldn't have them. They are. They exist. We do have them. It is to say that we should be at choice about the ones that we create for ourselves and the ones we carry around and want other people to climb in to.
So I don't have a conclusion. Just questions - If you could categorize and label your life containers, what would they say? What does your God container look like? How about your friend container? What is it like to think about getting a new container? What is like thinking about having no containers? Do you love your containers? Do you hate them? Who do you need to be to make your container bigger? What new containers need to be created?

Fully Alive

fully alive

I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing,
a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance;
to live so that which came to me as seed
goes to the next as blossom
and that which came to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.

- dawna markova

Love and Poop

Poop is gross. I feel like I encounter an inordinate amount of it these days, and it's not mine! It smells bad and it's not even a cool color. However, despite my disdain for excrement, I find that I still clean it up...thoroughly. See it wouldn't really work to "kind of" clean up poo. Essentially, I hate the poop but I love the pooper. Which makes me wonder, what if we looked at the crap in our world and absolutely hated it and were determined to thoroughly clean it up, and in the process carried extreme love and compassion for the "poopers" as we did. Have you known anyone that has done that for you? If you have, I would be willing to bet that they changed your life.  So I think I'll keep cleaning up the poop, literally and figuratively, and in so doing I will be changing the world.
Just a quick thought on love and poop!

My Son

Once upon a time, there was a young girl filled with dreams and ambition and concern. She was married to her soulmate and the love of her life. Their life was far from perfect but that was okay, because they learned and grew and suffered and cared together. And they worshiped the one God that delighted in them and quieted them with his love. The one God that understood. The one God that became a servant. The one God who creates something from nothing, created something from them. A young warrior-poet-prince, a child created in His image and likeness.

Just over three years ago, our son Elliot was born. My relationship with him is uniquely treasured and special to me, and I don't think I could fully express what a joy and delight he has been to my soul. 

We were talking in the car today and I was telling him that I loved him and that he was my little warrior-poet-prince. Here's the conversation that followed:

Elliot: What did you say?

"I said that you are my little warrior-poet-prince."

Elliot: Mommy, what is a warrior-poet-prince mean?

"Well, a warrior is someone who fights for what is right and a poet makes beautiful things with words and letters and a prince is a very special boy that is the son of a King. Does that sound like something you would like to be?"

Elliot: (grinning) Oh yes! I WOULD!

Feeling especially grateful for my beautiful son and all the ways he changed my life!

Some Elliot Cuteness...

I realized that I haven't been on here for awhile, because it's been summer and I've just been having so much fun. I also realized that my last few posts seemed a bit...well, out of sorts in some parts. As an addendum to that, I am doing very well and enjoying where God has me and where He's leading me. I am also ever so much more grateful for my husband and his leadership of me and our family.
And NOW, I sit at the computer and type you an Elliot story, because everything else (studying for addictions licensure exam, making salsa, making dinner, folding mounds of laundry, etc.) is a bit too intimidating for the moment.
This morning, Ev had a really bad headache and was nauseated so I drove him to work and on the way we stopped at McDonalds to get him a coke. He's the discussion that transpired with Elliot.
Me: Elliot, we need to use our quiet voice because Daddy's head hurts really bad.
Elliot: But I don't want to use my quiet voice
(Drive up to drive thru at 9:30 AM)
Elliot: OH! Can I get chicken nuggets and french fries?!?
Me: No buddy, we're just getting daddy a drink.
Elliot: OH! Can I get a drink?
Me: Oh sure. What would you like? (thinking the boy will say "apple juice" like he usually does or maybe the less preferred "sprite")
Elliot (if you know how he talks please read this with his little speech impediments in mind): I would like a vanilla ice cream drink WITH SAUCE!

.....really? Yes really!
Elliot enjoyed his little milkshake for quite sometime this morning.

I'm now off to make salsa. If I don't get too scared first.

Not Without Love

I am finding that I love almost everything that this artist writes. I was listening to two of his albums today and in both he had a track that was just spoken word poetry. This was one of those poems. I'd encourage you to read it aloud. It's beautiful, especially as we consider celebrating freedom tomorrow.


Not Without Love (Benediction)
By Jimmy Needham


I tried Lord
I tried Lord
I tried hard to be Your good little boy
Chin up, head high
All zeal and no joy
Thinking all my good deeds could please Jesus
Boy, was I wrong
Though I knew the right songs, all my cymbals and gongs played the melodies wrong
And it wasn’t long ‘til I saw my disease
A life spent wanting to please
On hands and knees
To make right, to appease
God help me please
This can’t be Christianity, it can’t be
The whole thing’s like insanity
Where’s the rest of eternal security?
Where’s the hope of a God big enough to cope with all my hang-ups and insecurities?
Certainly this isn’t breathing
My chest burning and heaving
It’s like my pulse is ceasing
Like my heart quits beating
Yet this I recall to mind and therefore I have hope:
You died, Lord
You died, Lord
Assuredly, like the coming of the dawn, the Father’s love song goes on
Drowning out my bitter songs
And breaking through walls and barriers
Christ swoops in, removes sin, picks up His bride and carries her
So I can sing in agreement with the King this thing:
There’s only one thing that pleases the Father
The God-man on the tree in the midst of the scoffers
Now I finally see that Christ is what Christ offers
And I’m finally free in the love of the Father

Catching Up

My last post was quite awhile ago, because my BROTHER GOT MARRIED!!! :) It was a beautiful God-filled wedding that impacted many lives with the power of truth and love. I am so thankful for my new sister!
I am also refreshed in my own marriage as Ev and I review the last four years, and what God has done in and through us during that time. I LOVE being married! Sometimes, my husband can be a selfish butthead, sometimes I can be the worst person in the world to live with. But most of the time, he is a wonderful reflection of Christ's love for me in the grace he shows me every day.
I have also been TRYING desperately to make my home into an environment that can foster a healthy family lifestyle. I'm about halfway there, but every couple days, I feel like I'm taking one step forward and two steps back.
ALSO, I have been reading Sacred Marriage by Gary Thomas. This is a book that I've heard recommended by many people and started reading probably five or more times, but I just could get past the first chapter. I'm happy to report I am now on Chapter 2!!! Pretty cool, huh? And it is very good! I think that I haven't gotten through it before because I needed to read it now.
I think it's amazing that in our families God has given us such a powerful microcosm of his love for and relationship with us. In a marriage, we can see Christ's undying, pursuing, warrior/poet/kinsman-redeemer LOVE for the church and with our children we are faced on a daily basis with God's love as a father and our curious ridiculousness as His children. It's so amazing to me that regardless of your family's religious beliefs or affiliation, the way you treat each other will forever impact the way that the others in your family view God.
I had a mentor. Her son was about 7, her daughter was about 4. The daughter was being irritating and attention-seeking which annoyed the son, so he responded by calling her a name and storming out. My mentor followed him, looked him square in the eye and told him that he could never do that to his sister again because the way he treated her would impact how she viewed herself, other men, and God for the rest of her life. I thought "WOW! That's quite a burden for a 7 year old to bear!" But then I thought about all the research I had read about attachment and views on God and the like and then I thought, "WOW! I'm so glad she told him that."
I'm still working on courage, gracefulness, and endurance, but it's funny how those mean different things to me now than they did in January when I committed to growing in them.
If you're reading this...thanks! :) I'd like to hear from you and what you're learning this summer, what's challenging you and what is just plain silly. Thanks for bearing with the ramblings!