A New Year, A New Door, A Renewed Focus

You know how they say “When one door closes, another one opens?” Am I the only one who heard that and pictured a swinging door on the other side that automatically flung open? They really should have gone on to say that the open door doesn’t always happen immediately.

I closed the door on another season of life today. As we embark on a new year, on new beginnings and fresh starts…I find myself moving out of one of the best living situations I’ve had as a single adult to one that is temporary and not ideal. I know I’ll be moving again. Although necessary, I was kind of hoping another door would open immediately that would make this door stay open. It didn’t.

I have opened and closed more doors than I’d like to think about in the past year. Some of them were actually closed for me. Some of them I worked hard to close. Thankfully I’m learning to not pry them open and walk through them prematurely.

I’ve actually walked through a couple doors in my lifetime. I mean physically walked through them. One of these times was at a friend’s bridal shower. It was at this amazing house overlooking the ocean. I was walking from the kitchen to the outside terrace with a tray, talking to someone behind me while trying to walk forward and walked right through their very expensive screen door!

I learned a valuable lesson that day – it’s really hard to move forward while looking backward. Especially through a closed door!

So as I walk through the door of a new year, I feel that God is telling me to focus. Focus on where I’m going, not where I’ve been. Focus on health goals. Focus on spiritual maturity. Focus on relationships. Focus on the things that really matter and not the things or voices that try to distract me.

“…I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward...” Philippians 3:13-14

"Who Do You Serve?" ~ God

“Who do you serve?” That simple question, I’m sure, changed my life the day I heard it. Or maybe it’s the fact that I actually heard it…I mean, really heard it.

While I was visiting my parent’s rental house recently (aka the-rental-house-from-down-under-and-I-don’t-mean-Australia), I heard a sound coming through the walls that sounded like running water. I wouldn’t have thought twice about it, but it’s the same sound I heard the last time I was there…and it never stopped…for hours! I brought my parents in the room, “You hear it?” They did. “It’s probably the washing machine.” Washing machine’s not on. “It’s probably the sprinkler.” Sprinkler’s not on. I found myself turning everything off, closing the door, shoving my ear to the wall…whatever it took to hear the source of this sound. I could hear the sound. I just couldn’t hear it clearly because of all the distractions.

There have been times in my life I just didn’t feel like serving. The timing wasn’t right for me. The “ask” was just not from the person I felt like serving. The situation was just so out of order, I didn’t want to enable anyone through codependency. There were times I didn’t want to serve just to prove a point.

I found myself asking many questions when faced with the opportunity to serve the day He asked the question. I was getting caught up in the “who” and the “what” and the “when” of it all. And then God asked, “Who do you serve?”

When I turned off all the outside “noise” I had to ask myself:

• If I serve God, does it matter who asks me to do it?


• If I serve God, does it matter what I get from it?


• If I serve God, does it matter when “a point” is proven?

It’s like I had my ear to the wall and could clearly hear my God remind me that these questions in my head (aka noise) were not about serving Him. These questions were about serving myself and/or others. And that’s not how I want to lead my life. I want to serve God.

When I choose to serve God by serving others, I know:

• If I serve God, I’m serving Him, and not the person asking me to do it. It doesn't matter how the person responds to the service.


• If I serve God, I already know His promise is to abundantly bless those who bless others. It doesn’t matter what the person I’m serving does, or does not, do for me.


• If I serve God, I’m serving Him, not trying to prove a point by withholding service. That's manipulation over a person and/or not trusting God in the situation. I can leave justice to Him.

It really is that easy. Next time you are put in a position to serve someone, put your ear to the wall. Once you shut out the noise, the answer is pretty clear to the question God is asking.

Freedom From Want

I put another national holiday behind me. They seem to sneak up with no warning sometimes. I’m not sure why I don’t see them coming. That moment I realize I didn’t make plans that involved any type of human interaction. That moment I realize I wasn’t invited to a table to just ‘be’ with others. I was productive. But I was without community. And it left me feeling…yeah…I’d say it had left me just “feeling."

In an attempt to figure out what I was “feeling” I came across a Norman Rockwell picture entitled “Freedom From Want” (pictured above). If you don’t know the name Norman Rockwell, you probably just don’t realize you do. He was a very popular American artist whose work has graced many magazine covers, has probably been replicated a bazillion times and is best known for his depiction of American culture. His piece “Freedom from Want” was done after US President Franklin Roosevelt delivered his state of the union address known as the “Four Freedoms” speech. Freedom from want was described as the basic right to an adequate standard of living including food, clothing, housing and healthcare.

However the freedom I found myself seeking from seemed so small when you figure that I have all the 'wants’ President Roosevelt spoke about. At this time of my life, I have food, clothing, housing and healthcare. And not only am I grateful for that, I realize I have those things mostly because of where I was born and who I was born too. But I still found I had a ‘want’ – a want that I see in Norman Rockwell’s picture. I wanted to be wanted. I wanted to be around the table. I wanted to be gathered around a community of people, or at least invited to the table.

I have been blessed to be the confidant to many. But there are some days I believe the lie that I'm a friend to few. I convince myself that I’m fully content to be alone until I see all the fun people had doing stuff together. And it’s at this point that I realize I’m walking down a road I don’t want to be. If I don’t stop now, I could find myself in the land of self pity (poor me, why wasn’t I considered? I don’t have what I want) and near the river of envy (they have what I want). What do you do when you realize you need freedom from the “want”?

Well, I’ll tell you what I do…I run to Jesus!

The spirit of self pity wants me to believe that I have the short hand of the stick. It wants me to believe the lies of “poor me” so I’ll wallow and get stuck in a moment of emotion. Self pity makes ‘me’ the focus. Self pity makes my wants all that matter. The spirit of envy seems to go hand in hand with self pity, especially in this day and age. Forget the times in which you didn’t know you weren’t invited to the table…now you get to see pictures updated every minute in color and waiting for you to “like” it. The spirit of envy opens the door to offense because now you want what they have.

Once you recognize you are entertaining these spirits, the next step is to speak against them. If you are in Christ, you have the authority to speak to them and tell them to leave. I then speak and proclaim the truth of His word over my life. By doing this, I shift the focus off of me and onto Jesus. By doing this, I seek first His kingdom and His righteousness. By doing this I put into practice the things I have learned and the God of peace is with me. By doing this, I make His wants my wants.

I hope you don’t find yourself needing freedom from the wants today. But if you do, know that you have a Heavenly Father who loves you, and that you are always welcome at His table.

Life is a Mix tape

I introduce the mix tape.

If the only playlist you know of is on iTunes, this all may be hard to understand. A mix tape was so different.

It was the 80’s way of recording songs onto one device so you could listen back to the songs later. Often times, you’d make a tape for someone else…usually your best friend or your secret admirer. You’d wait up all night with bated breath for the radio DJ to play that song. You had to know the first few chords of the song. You would wait for that magic moment that the dj stopped talking so you could hit record. Then you sat back, with a smile on your face and a bob in your head. Until the next magic moment: the end of the song just before the commercial began. Sometimes, if you hit it on just the right night, you’d get a second song mixed into it…and if it was a song you would have chosen anyway…bonus track! (however, you hoped and prayed the radio station wouldn’t SAY bonus track with an echo effect as the song mixed in). And unlike the playlists of today, deleting a mix tape was not simple. Sure, you could record over it…but you would most likely hear your old track playing under your new track at some point. There was no completely deleting a mix tape: unless you set it on fire...I may know this from experience.

If you were a child of the 80s…you totally know what I’m talking about.

I saw the picture above on Pinterest and it got me thinking: If life is a mix tape, I need to choose my playlist wisely.

There are days we don’t get to choose what happens to us or to what we are exposed. There are days where we wish we could delete by just pushing a button. But much like a mix tape, we are sometimes left with little remnants of the tune we’d like to get out of our head, playing in the background muffled by the new song we so long to hear.

In the last couple of months, I’ve been learning a new way to tackle the negative tunes in my head. I’m learning that although I don’t have control of some of the circumstances in my life, I do have control of the thoughts that I’ll let repeat. I do get to choose the playlist.

I get to choose a playlist of words of life or death…and I choose life. I choose truth. I choose faith. I choose love.

Happy Mother's Day...to Me

It’s not what you think.

It’s the eve of another Mother’s Day and I’m trying to figure out a way to celebrate the woman who has made the biggest difference in my life.

She loves me.

She teaches me.

She dreams with me.

She sees the best in me even when I’m not able to see it.

She is my biggest fan and encourager.

She prays for me.

And I thank God for her. I’ll take her to dinner and give her a card that, I hope, expresses how much I love and appreciate her.

But as I’ve gotten older, Mother’s Day has meant something else to me. I’m single and have no children of my own. And I’m over 40. You see where this is going…

I love and adore the women in my life who have become mothers. I’ve went with them to buy the test and have celebrated alongside them when the stick said yes. I’ve thrown baby showers (really cute ones, if I do say so myself). I’ve been one of the first aunties to welcome their little humans into the world at the hospital (it’s a miracle, for sure…but WHOA!). I’ve encouraged them to keep being the awesome mom’s that they are when they’ve only had 2 hours sleep and their nipples are bleeding (It’s probably TMI, but the struggle is real y’all). However, in the past few years, my heart has sunk just a little when I can’t stand during ‘that’ part of the Mother’s day service at church.

So why is it a happy Mother’s day to me this year?

No, I’m not pregnant. But I am expecting.

I’m expecting that God is going to continue to work this thing called motherhood out through me.

I can love.

I can dream.

I can see the best in others when they don’t see it in themselves.

I can be the biggest fan and the loudest encourager.

And I can definitely pray.

I’m expecting that I’m going to begin to see that, although I have not bore a child of my own, I can still be a mother.

So happy Mother’s day to every one of you wonderful and fabulous women who are teaching me how it’s done.

Happy Mother’s day to the one I call Mom (or Ma, most the time).

And, happy Mother’s day to me.

Good Grief

God has a way of bringing me right back to a place I left at just the right time to remind me of how much He wants me to get it right. 

I just came across this journal entry I never posted.

His timing is perfect!

Good Grief

April 13, 2013

I think I’ve watched it a million times. The scene that Charlie Brown is running full force to kick the football, and then that evil Lucy moves it and he goes flying in the air. Charlie Brown, a young man who seemed to have such a heavy heart as he often worried about everything, spent much of his time slapping his forehead and proclaiming over his life: “Good grief!” But there really never seemed to be anything good about his grief.

I felt that way this week. After over a month of my Aunt Dody fighting for her life, after several miracles of seeing her go from near death to life…I got the call that she passed away. I had decided I was going to believe that another miracle could happen. I believed that she could be healed. I knew that if her healing did happen, it would speak volumes to my family. I was also praying for God’s will. He knew every hair on her head and every minute of her life. And I also had a sense of feeling more prepared if she didn’t make it because of a grief and loss recovery class I took at my church.

But nothing prepared me for what actually happened.

One might think that I felt like the football got swiped from under me because she died. But that’s not the case. I felt like it got swiped because of the aftermath. Tempers flared. Accusations got thrown. Feelings were hurt. I even spoke to Jocelyn who led the class and asked if there was a chapter in the book about when families go wild! And it was then that I realized that there is such a thing as “good” grief. And what I was seeing happen was certainly not it! I was ready to tackle all the feelings we talked about in group, but I wasn’t ready to see my family fall to pieces.

However while in my Charlie Brown stance, lying on the floor feeling like the wind had been knocked out of me, I began to remember the things that I learned in grief recovery:  the “good” grief stuff. The first thing was that not everyone grieves the same way. And while I didn’t agree with a lot of things that were going on and being said, I needed to understand that it wasn’t my place to make anyone else feel anything differently. And although my natural inclination is to grieve alone, I made sure I talked about it to people I knew could support me. I also made sure I didn’t get up and get “back in the game” too soon. Make quick decisions or “plays” on how I would deal with certain family members. Another natural inclination was to keep busy…keep working. I gave myself some down time. I took some time to read God’s “playbook” aka the Bible.

Grieving is a part of the game of life. But we have a choice on how we choose to grieve. We have a choice to be bitter. We have a choice to forgive. We have a choice to take ourselves out of the game, or just stay on the sidelines for a few plays. And we have the choice to get back up and in the game.

And because of what Jesus did on the cross…in the end…I will come out victorious no matter who or what swipes the ball from me.

Play ball!

Forgetting the Former Things

A simple question: “Gena, do you have any family Christmas traditions?”

Ummm…I used to.

I imagine I felt a little like a quarterback getting tackled from his blindside. I didn’t see it coming and it stung a little at first.

I had never actually thought about it, but a lot of my family Christmas traditions have passed away. That’s the thing about being the youngest of four, entering the 4^th decade of my life with no husband or children. My siblings have all started their own traditions. My parents have lost their immediate family. Gone are the days of the Christmas Eve dinner at our favorite Mexican restaurant. We all haven’t lived in the same house for over 25 years. But I remember lining up at the end of the hallway patiently waiting for the door to swing open so we could race down the long hallway to our gifts Christmas morning. Santa stopped leaving that one gift wrapped in a different and specific way with our names written in gold sparkle on it a long, long time ago. The only tradition I could think of is that our family sometimes doesn’t even get together in one place for Christmas.

There was a quick twinge of sadness in the realization that I may have lost all my family Christmas traditions. However, just like the quarterback lying on his back at the 20-yard line, the wind came back into my lungs. I got up, brushed myself off, and decided that I would return the huddle and make a new play.

I decided I’m not going to let myself off the hook – if I wanted to restore some Christmas tradition in my life, I could start some now. My life may not look the way I thought it would, but it could still include some things to look forward to during this season. I thought about Isaiah 43:18-19

Forget the former things;

do not dwell on the past.

See, I am doing a new thing!

Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?

If I wasn't careful, I would have kept my eyes on the past. All the things that used to happen that aren't happening now. Or, I'd focus on all the things I couldn't do, instead of what I could. I want to see the new thing God is doing in my life. And from those new things, I could create some new family traditions.

Tradition #1: Dinner and church with my parents on Christmas Eve. I can’t even tell you how awesome it was to have family with me at church at the candlelight services. I have gone to so many holiday services sad that I didn’t have family sitting next to me. What was different this year? I asked! I made it clear it was important to me and I didn’t say their no for them.

Tradition #2: Scheduled phone calls with good friends across the world. There are some very important people in my life who are not a car drive away; but they are a phone call away. I hadn’t spoken to 2 of my dearest friends, and had the chance Christmas week. We laughed. We cried. We were reminded of the special bond we have. After hanging up the phone, it was EXACTLY what I needed. Next year I will make sure that we speak to each other at least once during Christmas week.

Tradition #3: Crafting before and after Christmas. I love to do this. It fills my cup. I’m going to schedule crafting time before Christmas with friends who can make it to work on projects for the season, or to begin some I’ve been putting off. I’m also going to budget a certain amount to take advantage of the before and after Christmas sales. In fact, that’s where I’m off to next.

The thing is, traditions only happen if you start them. I thought back to a recent staff meeting that I was reminded what Lou Ludwig said: “Intention without action is useless.” I had the choice to sit around and be sad about the things that aren’t happening now, or get up and see a new thing happen.

I choose to see the new things. Put me in, Coach!

What Ever Happened to Jake Ryan?

It was Friday night, and I was unpacking for the 17^thtime in my life. As I sorted through old photos, miscellaneous papers and an insane amount of mismatched socks (did I ever have a matching pair?!), Sixteen Candles came on the television. Of course, I stopped everything and watched it.

Sixteen Candles follows the sixteenth birthday of one Samantha Baker. Unfortunately, because Samantha’s older sister is getting married later in the week, the entire family forgets her birthday. Madness ensues and the angst ridden teen starts the day being stalked by the freshman class nerd (aka “The Geek”), but is later pursued by her all-time crush, Jake Ryan. The movie ends with the classic scene of Samantha getting her wish…a birthday cake and a kiss from Jake. And the audience goes wild.

I really wish there would have been a Seventeen Candles. What happened to Samantha and Jake after that kiss? As a bright-eyed pre-teen watching that movie…I just assumed they lived happily ever after. They probably went to the prom, went to college together, got jobs, got married and had little Samantha and Jake Ryans. But now…now as an adult I wonder…what really happened to Jake Ryan?

You see, I was Samantha Baker. I was constantly in love with the guy I could never have. I was the last of my friends to hold hands, last to be kissed, and last to get a boyfriend. And then it happened. After a note was passed to the guy I had secretly been fawning over from afar, he actually asked me out. I couldn’t believe it! No, really…I couldn’t believe it! I’d spend the next 8 years of my life not believing that someone like that could love someone like me. Even when my Jake Ryan told me he wanted to marry me, I never believed it was actually going to happen.

Unfortunately, I proved me right. He left. With no explanation he decided that I wasn’t the one for him. No blowing out the candles and kissing. No driving off in his red Porsche…just years of wondering why I wasn’t good enough for my Jake Ryan.

It’s different now. I’ve got way more than 16 candles on my cake. Way more years of knowing that I am good enough, rather than not knowing I’m good enough. And unlike the young girl of yesteryear who went through that tremendous loss alone, I now have plenty of great people in my life who remind me I am good enough when I forget.

So whatever happened to Jake Ryan? Who cares. I’m more interested in “The Geek” who will pursue me without question.

A Year Without Facebook

Over a year ago, I deleted my Facebook account.

You read that right.

Other than my mom, I don’t know anyone without a Facebook account. There were many reasons for the decision, but mostly I just felt overexposed. I felt overexposed not just for myself, but for some of my “friends” on my timeline. I couldn’t wrap my mind around why someone who hadn’t spoken to me in years, and wouldn’t know me if they crossed my path on the street, was now my “friend” and telling me what they ate for breakfast and the last time they passed gas. Okay, maybe no one actually posted the last observation on their wall…but it was just a matter of time as I had “friended” all my teenage nephews.

The original reason I signed up was because a good friend was moving far away, and we both needed to feel like a day hadn’t passed that we didn’t see one another. Once she had a baby, we really needed Facebook to keep in touch…until she couldn’t post pictures because someone got creepy. This didn’t help my desire to stay “plugged in.”

But now that a year has passed by, I have seen how deciding to not be a part of the social network has kept me from staying in touch with some very important people in my life. I was missing “I’m pregnant” tagged to a sonogram picture. “I said yes!” with the important change of the “single” to “engaged” relationship status. I wasn’t invited to parties and I missed some good deals at some of my favorite places. I also missed the news of the loss of loved ones to people who I really love. And probably the biggest thing I missed was getting an encouraging word or sending one…I loved that about Facebook. It was like the “warm fuzzy wall” we had at camp when I was growing up.

So why join now? It’s going to sound a bit like “Christianese,” but I’m learning that I can be in the world but not of the world. I don’t need to be absorbed by it…I can make decisions that limit how much I’m exposed and I can definitely limit what I want to be exposed to. The reality is I want to see my friend who lives on the other side of the country share her favorite memory of her mom on mother’s day. I want to be included as someone celebrates their birthday or the purchase of their first home. I want to pray for someone when they can’t convey their need in any other way than a status update. And I want to “like” it when they post that the prayers were answered. And although I prefer a hallmark card via snail mail or a catch up over coffee, I realize that a lot of people don’t use a stamp anymore and time or distance is not always on our side.

So I’m back on board. Or should I say, “I’m back on the wall.” Feel free to “friend,” pin, poke, tag or post on my page if I can call you friend without the quotation marks.

 

A Weed By Any Other Name

There is a flowerbed at our house that has been the subject of so many blog posts. And once again, I learned a lesson from a plant growing in my backyard.

For a reason not known to any person living in our household, the gardener took it upon himself to tear out all the plants in one particular flowerbed. I was so mad. Granted, the flowers had come and gone, the season had passed, and there was some gardening “cosmetic surgery” that needed to take place. But I didn’t believe it was time to completely mow down what took hours for me to plant.

He got everything but this one strange green thing sticking up in the back.

“Oh, sure…he left the weed,” my mom proclaimed in an equal amount of disgust. As she bent over to pull it out, she realized why it hadn’t been pulled, “Boy, that sucker is really in there!”

I gave it a quick tug, but to be honest, it was the only form of life left in the flowerbed, and I felt it deserved to stay (I was also tired and it was getting dark). The “weed” lived to see another day.

Every time I passed that flowerbed, I noticed that it grew a little taller. At one point, it looked like a bulb was growing. “Mom, I think that actually might be growing something!” My mom said “No, that’s a weed…I’m pretty sure that’s a weed.”

Neither one of us pulled it again or cut it down. It continued to grow. Somewhere between August and December…that “weed” turned into a beautiful flowering tree!

It didn’t matter what we called it – this tree growing in our yard was going to be a tree whether we called it a tree or not! Whether we watered it, or not! That’s just its nature. It planted itself. It got the nourishment it needed. It survived tugs on its roots. It stayed planted and it grew. And now it is flourishing. I even see that it has purple flowers waiting to spring out of its pods!

God has showed me so many times in the past 6 years how incredibly important it was to stay planted in the local church. When I was first making the decision to join a church, there were many reasons and rationales that came up to distract me from staying planted: It’s too far. I don’t know anyone. Once I knew someone, they left. I’m not sure the leaders handled that situation right. I don’t know enough. I’m serving too little. I’m serving too much. Most of the time, the only thing pulling at my roots was me!

But I stayed. I believed that this was my home church. I stopped getting distracted from the people and the thoughts that really had nothing to do with MY relationship with JESUS. Once I made the decision not to be distracted, I pledged to go all in. I called myself a member. I remained planted. I grew. And now I am flourishing. The local church has been instrumental in helping me heal the hurts in my heart, grow in my relationship with Jesus, and find my purpose in life.

And I’m so excited to see what continues to grow!

The [uncompromisingly] righteous shall flourish like the palm tree [be long-lived, stately, upright, useful, and fruitful]; they shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon[majestic, stable, durable, and incorruptible].

Planted in the house of the Lord, they shall flourish in the courts of our God.

[Growing in grace] they shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be full of sap [of spiritual vitality] and [rich in the] verdure [of trust, love, and contentment].

[They are living memorials] to show that the Lord is upright and faithful to His promises; He is my Rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.  (Psalm 92:12-15 AMP)

My Baptism

I found my blog the year I got baptized! So neat for me to read again as so many people are taking that important step at Oasis Church this weekend! 

A New Creation written 9:08 p.m. - Monday, Dec. 04, 2006

As the end of the service neared last night, I could feel the lump in my throat return. It would happen soon. In front of all these people I would take the next step I had waited for 10 years to happen. Even though the room was filled with people, it was just me and Him up there. A nervous, calm…I can’t explain it any better than the feeling I get in the movies when the star-crossed lovers end up bumping into each other again on the street and I know that it’s not by coincidence… they come back together at just the right time, the steps they had taken up to that point in the plot bring them to just where they needed to be…and the feeling is of excitement and comfort of where their relationship is about to go.

That was me last night. Although there had been some anxiety at the thought of taking the next step in front of people…I knew my steps had been ordered and it was time. I had prayed that two things would happen this year… in the plot twists of my life; I was minutes away from having both happen only weeks before the end of the year.

As the time got closer, I slowly felt the calm enter every ounce of my being…much like that night I first believed my life had changed forever. As I ascended the stairs up, and then down into the warm water, I felt like life was in slow motion…the heart beat slowed down, I took my last breath and down I went under. Even though someone was holding me, it was just me and Him. As I was raised - that insecure, scared, betrayed girl was left in the water.