The Annual Review

During the years I was married I sent out Christmas cards and included a letter about our year. I haven't done this in several years but as 2011 is coming to a close I keep thinking over this past year. So, I've decided to do an annual review of the past year and share a bit of what it has included.

This year started out pretty poorly, I won't lie. I was in a very low place coming off of last year's worst-ever holiday season. However, I must admit having come to the end of the year I must say this has been a pretty great year for me all and all.

 This year, I did my first and probably only diet, losing 10 pounds and then quickly finding them again. I hadn't planned to diet at all but since everyone else in my family was doing the same diet, I jumped on the band wagon. I won't do it again, but am glad for the experience. I also quit my part time job, started a new full time job where I lasted approximately 3 months before quitting that job and going back to my part-time job. I've decided I'm not cut out for a full time job and am trying to figure out how to live on a part time job in a full time world. I made a couple of trips to Tulsa to visit my adopted home town and friends as well as some short weekend trips to Dallas. I went on a canoe trip with the family where we saw a girl drown and die only to watch my uncle rescusitate her and have her make a full and miraculous recovery. Also, this was the year of the summer from hell, where temps ran in the triple digits for almost three months straight. Not only was it hell-hot, but we were in a drought so we had many fire scares as they burned down homes and neighborhoods all around our county and neighboring counties. I've learned the art of being thankful in all things as I managed to survive this summer without air conditioning in my car and also in my bedroom as the a/c unit went out in June. I had a great girls trip with some college friends to Chicago (my first visit) and have decided I must go back as soon as possible. It is a beautiful city. This year I also found myself sucked into the time devourer that is geneology research. Several times the entire day would go by as I researched my ancestors and it would be bedtime and I had eaten nothing the entire day. I discovered I descend from a long line of pioneering German farmers on both sides. Although I do have one rogue line of English ancestors, one of whom fought in the Revolutionary War which is pretty cool. I am really enjoying the whole process and have run across a couple of surprising details. It's been a lot of fun. This year also seems to be the year for catching up with old friends. I have been able to meet with friends I haven't seen in years and years, college, high school and even grade school friends. It's been nice to see friendly faces I haven't seen in a while. And of course I made the annual trip with a good friend to the Dallas Cowboys game, which they lost. I'm still mad and am not sure when I will be able to forgive them. I'm hoping they don't even make the playoffs as they don't deserve it.

That is what I've done this year, but here is how I am. I've been pondering the idea of being rather than doing. There is nothing wrong with doing, but many times it feels we measure our life by what we have done rather than by who we have become. God and I have been on a long and crazy journey this year. As I already said this year started out from a bad place for me. The first two months I had myself a faith crisis and it was no fun and rather depressing. But God pulled me out of it into a place of joy. Joy despite circumstances. Since then He's been pushing me, pulling me, GROWING me, and I feel like I am starting to become the person that He sees in me. For the first time in many years, I can say that I actually like myself again and that I like my life, even though my circumstances aren't ideal.

Throughout this year God has been teaching me how to relate to Him as Husband. I've always known God as Father (although even that was challenged this past 18 months.) But, He called me to a deeper understanding and relationship with Him. It's been difficult at times, because my only experience and knowledge of a husband didn't really translate to the kind of understanding and relationship God wanted between He and I. I've had to un-learn alot of what I knew about marriage and learn what God means by the word Husband. This also demanded something of me. A father-child relationship doesn't require as much of the child, but a husband-wife relationship requires 100% of both people. It requires intimacy, something I've struggled with and had a great fear of with God. I feel like I've been pulled entirely apart piece by piece only to have God build me back with the pieces in the right place until I became whole. I've learned that God as Husband God is a true provider. I lack nothing. I've learned how to wallow in His love for me. I've re-learned how to love myself, because He constantly encouraged and edified me until I began to believe His words over me and became what He called me. I've regained my identity. (Although I'm still looking for purpose. Hopefully that's next on the agenda.) I've learned to rest and be content, how to quit striving to earn love and attention. Sometimes I think He is so firmly entrenched in my heart that there will never be room for anyone else but Him. We will see.

So I'm ending this year many, many times better than it started. The last couple years have been terrible and difficult, trench warfare. But I've seen the light at the end. The irony is that my circumstances have not changed all that much, but I have. I am learning to be. To be me, to be who He sees. I am enjoying life again and ready to tackle 2012 head on.

Beautiful

Beauty is a subject I've been thinking a lot of lately. It's a hard one for me to talk about. I am complimented quite often on the way I look. Many times people use the word beautiful. This is something that makes me very uncomfortable. I am not being modest when I say I don't think of myself as beautiful. Pretty or attractive I can humbly admit to. I'm aware that the way I look appeals to certain people. But anything beautiful about me is all God.

Do you want to know what I think when someone pays me a compliment on my appearance? "Yes, but that is not who I am." How I look has nothing to do with who I am. It has nothing to do with me at all.

Unfortunately in our world appearance matters. Alot. People form perceptions of us just by looking at us. Tall, short, fat, skinny, black, white, ugly, beautiful. People react to others based on their appearance. It is a sad truth.

Sometimes I think being thought beautiful can be a handicap. Beautiful people have the opportunity to slide by in life on their looks. It is a tool that can be abused. Things come a bit easier when you are attractive to others. People don't expect as much from you, because being beautiful is usually enough. Others are inclined to like you, to want to please you, to make things easy for you. But when you abuse beauty it then becomes all you are. All people see. They don't dig deeper to get to know the real you. Beauty is actually a great responsibility, but like power, it can easily corrupt.

Outward beauty is fleeting, as the Bible says. It doesn't last. Weight fluctuates, age sets in and trying hard to maintain that outward shell can become exhausting. And if you are only beautiful on the outside, then you are not beautiful at all.  I would much rather have someone say I was kind or thoughtful or generous then to compliment me on how I look. I have worked very hard to develop inward beauty, because that is the kind that matters. It is the beauty that lasts. I wonder what the world would be like if we saw each other's hearts instead of our faces?

When I was married and would ask my husband to pay me a compliment, do you know what he would say? You are beautiful. Do you know how I felt? Invisible. I didn't want an obvious or easy compliment. I wanted him to know me so intimately that he could look deeper and notice things about me that others might not see. Instead, every time he called me beautiful, it broke my heart.

Do you know who I most want to call me beautiful? God. And not because He created me that way, but because I have allowed Him to develop it in me. I want Him to find me beautiful because I have learned to love Him by choice, because I chase after Him with all my heart and because my greatest goal in life is to make Him proud.

 I believe that love makes us beautiful. Being loved and giving love. Love sees beyond the beauty that is obvious and sees the beauty hidden in our hearts. It creates a safe place for the beauty to be uncovered and to flourish. It allows us to be fully ourselves. Learning to love and accept ourselves and to do the same for others is what makes us truly beautiful. And that kind of beauty doesn't just transform us, but begins to transform others too. When we have a beautiful heart and a beautiful spirit then we don't just have a beauty that lasts, but also a beauty that impacts the world. If you don't believe me, ask Mother Theresa. Ask thousands around the world who make small sacrifices in their monthly budgets to sponsor a child in need. Ask those who fight injustice in our government or those who rescue people from slavery and sex trafficking. This is the kind of beauty that isn't just for our own pleasure but the beauty that sees beyond itself and rescues, beauty that isn't afraid to reach into filth and darkness. Beauty that does the hard, redeeming work of love.

Grown up Christmas

I'm not sure what has happened to me over the years. I think I've become a bit of a Scrooge. Don't get me wrong I have always loved Christmas, I still do. But life has sucked some of the joy out of it in the last several years.

I find myself looking forward to it and then stressing out once it arrives.  I no longer view Christmas through the eyes of a child, full of wonder, excitement and joy, but through the eyes of an adult who focuses on all the work that goes into the celebration.

Particularly this year, I found myself anxious and stressed about the gift giving. I've come to the point where I would rather not give gifts at all. When I was creating the requested gift list of what I want for Christmas I realized that although I could USE the things on my list and I would certainly like to HAVE them, I don't really NEED anything.  I don't need anything. All my needs are met, maybe not extravagantly or abundantly, but I am blessed. Which is more than the majority of the world can say.

And then it really hit me. I have everything I need and I have everything that matters. I receive this gift of lacking nothing every single day.

Here is where I go all soft and mushy on you. When I ponder on the gifts God has placed in my life I always come back to you. To all of you. I look at the people He has surrounded me with and I know He loves me. Some times just thinking of all of your precious faces, your gift of friendship to me almost makes me weep. I have friends who are like family to me and family who are my close friends. Whether we talk once a day, once a month or every couple of years, I treasure my relationships with every one of you.

The older I get the more I realize how very rich I am. I may not have all the material possessions wealth buys, but I am learning to value the things in life that are priceless. You are God's gift to me every day, not just at Christmas.

And so this Christmas I just want to say thank you and I love you. The gift of your selves is enough to make me childlike with wonder and joy. You make my grown up Christmases exceed even those of my childhood memories. You are the wonder of the season.