Posts: Change
Small Doses of Replenishment
Learning how to create sustainable renewal
Feb 19, 2024
Spring is less than a month away. I can feel it in the air. The temperature rising into the upper 50s. The sound of birds preparing to look for the perfect tree to call home. Walking by a small lake in our neighborhood, I see the ducks and geese have returned to the thawed water. It was still frozen not more than a week ago. The tiniest of buds have begun appearing on the trees in our backyard.
Saving Us from Madness
Harmonizing our need for change and routine
Jan 30, 2024
Wake up, eat breakfast, go to work, take a lunch break, finish work, eat dinner, work out, shower, go to sleep. Sprinkle in chores, cleaning, and running errands every other day. We all have our own versions of daily routines. And let’s be honest, they don’t change all that much. There are those rare special-occasion days, or those tragic-news days, or the travel days, but everything in-between is fairly ordinary.
Purpose Behind Every Limitation
The freedom found in obedience to God’s commands
Jan 18, 2024
Walking out of my orthopedic appointment, I felt immediate relief in my left shoulder. The injection was kicking in and I almost cried from joy. I went home and immediately scheduled my prescribed physical therapy for the next six weeks. This was a familiar scenario. Only six years ago I was doing the same thing for my right shoulder. The diagnosis? Bursitis in both cases.
Places That Increase Our Holiness
Learning to put away childish things
Sep 04, 2023
I’ve been reflecting on this verse for some time now, especially as I’m nearing my 40s. The instruction is simple enough. But can I be honest? This is something I struggle with. Have for my entire adult life. I have always thought of myself as a child at heart, viewing the world with a childlike naiveté. I’d like to think it’s how God made me.
The Serenity We Seek
Our inherent desire for transformation
May 28, 2023
My latest TV show obsession is flipping shows—houses, flea market finds, clothing. On a Canadian show called “Hoarder House Flippers,” three teams of house flippers buy abandoned hoarder houses for a low price and turn them into desirable homes to resell for profit. On another show, “Flea Market Flip,” contestants in each episode are given a budget of $500 to hunt for three pieces at a flea market that they then refurbish in the hopes of reselling them for a profit at the same flea market.
Blossoming Beyond Our Crutches
Tending to our Achilles heels and overcoming fears
May 07, 2023
I watch her as she struggles to wrap the overstuffed burrito, smiling awkwardly. She motions for her coworker to come to her rescue. I’m guessing she’s new, hasn’t gotten the hang of the wrapping part yet. I’m sure it takes a while. This one looks impossible to me, personally, no matter how much training you’ve had, based on the amount of the ingredients. It’s not rocket science.
What Comes to the Surface
God’s refining work in our lives
Apr 10, 2023
I left the laser and skin spa holding an ice pack against my left cheekbone to reduce the burning. It was about to thunderstorm, so I rushed to my car. The lead aesthetician told me it might sting more than last time since she cranked up the heat on my IPL service. I wasn’t seeing the results I wanted after two treatments, so she suggested we try a more intense level.
What No Longer Serves Us
Facing our shortcomings through the art of letter writing
Jan 18, 2023
There are many ways to ring in the new year. From old traditions passed down over time to new ones created for ourselves, we all have ways to welcome the beginning of a new 12-month cycle. One ritual that I have very recently begun implementing is writing a letter. To whom? A letter to anything that no longer serves me and that I want to let go of moving forward.
The One Thing (among others) that Makes Us Uniquely Human
Sep 24, 2018
What sets us humans apart from other species? Scholars from numerous and diverse fields have attempted to answer this question. The ability to plan for the future, many might say. Developing meaning out of nothing, still others will say. I think something that seems to be fundamentally human is the desire for and work toward personal growth.
It Takes What It Takes
Thoughts on change
Mar 13, 2018
There is no other way around it. Change. Is. Hard. Perhaps the most trying change of all is attempting to change something about ourselves — a character trait, a habit, a pattern, old beliefs and behaviors that no longer serve us. Why even bother? Because staying the same, a same that no longer feels good, is so much more painful.
Musings on the New Year
Jan 10, 2017
Of course I wanted this post to be extra special, meticulously polished, and deeply interesting. After all, it’s the first post of 2017. But I’m working on letting go of perfection. Such pressure a new year brings — a redo, a fresh start, a chance to begin again, or begin at all. Could it be that we humans invented the concept of time — days, months, years — because we needed a motivation to start over?
A Mindset Shift that Transformed My Life
Oct 24, 2016
It was only the second week into the year-long women’s bible study. We were going to study Job. I had been looking forward to it for a while. It was a new church and I didn’t know any of the women. I saw it as a fresh start, a leap of faith. But only two weeks in and I was ready to call it quits. I wasn’t “feeling” it nor the group I was in; I have my HSP-ness to thank for that.
What a Cracked Tree Limb Taught Me About Change
Aug 23, 2016
When it’s 11:23 pm and you are listening to a bible study sermon online, taking notes about how sin grieves the heart of God, and a tree limb outside your 3rd-floor apartment window cracks and splits off the trunk onto the roof of a car port in the parking lot, you begin to pay attention. I’m a believer in signs, in symbolism and metaphors, in the universe sending us messages that we desperately need to hear.