In response to all your lovely comments on my first post....

Thanks girls for all your feed back, encouragement, and support. It is nice to now you ladies are walking beside me as I try to find what is right for me.

I totally love what Shauna had to say about sharing our stories at the Catalyst breakfast. I think that is the last chapter in her book too? And I loved what Jamie VK's friend said; something like: it is always more beautiful to be who we are in the light rather then the darkness. I feel like "my story" has become the theme of this year for me. That concept keeps coming back to me.

I was also deeply challenged by Donald Millers book, which was about telling a story as well. What I loved about his book was that it showed me that we are in control of our story. I feel like my challenge is to write the story and not let the story write me. I (along with God) am the author. I create the story and I have the power to edit the story and write a character that is worth reading about, worth investing in. A life worth living.

So this journey for me is about, yes living in the light and being truthful but also the art of editing and letting my life tell the story I want to tell.

"It is tempting to carve out our identity as victims and recruit a team of supporters to affirm our status. But if we are honest with ourselves we would see the ongoing injustice and oppression doesn't lie within the event, but in the belief that we are powerless to move on." Mike Foster

Gracenomics is still speaking my language and helping me stay grounded, which is REALLY needed these days. I feel a little in danger of losing myself and am so thankful for Grace. Glad to have it glad to give it....it's like a soft blanket, I want to wrap myself up in. It is often tempting to stop fighting for what *is* right and just let whatever *feels* right prevail. It all goes back to my first post about learning how to edit our stories to what is appropriate. I think our culture is teaching us to be selfish but cleverly disguising it as "keeping it real" . Maybe it's time to stop keeping it real and start keeping it God honoring. Whatever happened to holiness... for real? How often have you heard someone say lately, "Im just trying to be Holy or Righteous?" no we hear people say,"I'm just trying to be honest, authentic, real, vulnerable." They are not actually the same thing.

Let me tell you if I stopped perusing holiness and started just just keeping it real, I would be creating little disasters everywhere I went. Because I am not Jesus, I am fully human, fully flawed, I have selfish desires, I have unfair expectations, I have inappropriate (and very much appropriate) anger, I have consuming self pity. It's all in there and I am very much capable of letting those feeling make a mess of my life and infecting everyone around me.

But I am fighting, I am fighting for something greater for my family, for my friends, for me. I'm fighting for holiness and sometimes it completely wipes me out. But I will not become a victim. I am not powerless. I am blessed beyond measure. I think it is actually possible that I am one of the luckiest girls in the world, and on a good day I know it.

Gracenomics

I recently started reading Mike Foster's new short book, Gracenomics. It is awesome. Not particularly written in a style that is my first choice but it is easy to read, simple and too the point. It is also full of all the thoughts that have been bouncing around in my head for the past several years making me feel restless and sometimes full of an agitating bubbling anger towards other Christ followers. (and yes I am aware of the irony in that)

I'm only on chapter 2 but I already feel excited that I have found something that resonates so completely with the thoughts in my head right now.

So far one of my favorite quotes that is very much in the same tune of my first blog post on here is," I worry that in our rush to champion *authenticity* our generation has mistaken transparency for character."

Born of Frustration!

I feel frustrated today. I don't want to imply I am nicer than I really am or more generous than I really am, because I'm nothing special on either account. I'm sure the people close to me can give a long list of my many faults. However, I do tend to *desire* to show more compassion and generosity when it is an option. I'm not really a fan of the whole tough love, don't enable people train of thought. I think there is a place for that but I have seen too often people use that attitude as an excuse to withhold grace. That is one of my triggers when people withhold grace and somehow word it in a way that they are doing it in the name of Christ.

The trouble is I am starting to feel a little like a door mat, I know balance is the key. I have never been good at balance. Lately I feel a little lost because the traits that seem to define me are sometimes making me unhappy. I'm still figuring it out.

Blogging?

I have not written in my old blog since 2 Easters ago. I love writing and getting my thoughts out but I am well aware that I tend to over share, I can not help it. Because of that I stoped writing, I felt too exposed, I wasn't sure what my motives were? All my life I have been this way, if I feel it more often then not I write it or say it, unfortunately even when it was not mine to share. I recall in elementary school the neighbors called my Mother to tell her that I would come over and share every personal conversation we had in our family that week. The thought never crossed my mind that that could be inappropriate. I remember the first time I visited Kim at college I told her room-mates all the updates about things there were going on back at home. And then Kim asked me to go for a walk and told me that she had not shared those things with her room-mates yet and would appreciate it if I respected her privacy a little more. At the time, I understood but I thought that was more her problem not mine, after all I was just being honest.

The problem is the older I get the more and more I am aware of the flaw in that, for me. I went through this stage where I felt that in order to be real, honest, authentic, and intimate with people then I had to share the good, the bad, and the ugly. I was proud of how easy it was for me to be open about my problems, I thought I was secure,a truth speaker, and more vulnerable then others. Ironically I thought my comfort in sharing my flaws made me somehow more humble than others.

For me, what I see more and more now is that sometimes my hurt, is just that *my* hurt and by sharing it I am not always being humble and vulnerable I am just causing more un-neccesary hurt in others . In what I was telling myself was an effort to be authentic and real I lost the desire to be disciplined and responsible. I would take my problems and make them others problems. Because once I shared there was expectation for whom I was sharing with to respond in a way that meet my need, or even if I did not have that expectation I know there are people, like me, in the world who feel that expectation regardless. So it started to look less humble and more self absorbed to me. Even if neither of those were true, there were still plenty of times that my sharing was just plain inapropriate.

Please know that I am not implying this is the case for anyone other then me. I don't think when other people share there feelings it is inappropriate or undisciplined. I am well aware that there are many people out there who are on the opposite journey. They have lived their whole life hiding and just desire to finally be seen and heard and it is scary for them to expose their hurts and be vulnerable. I am aware of that and I encourage those people to continue on their journey and to try to bring light into the dark places of their hearts. And I am eager to be a supportive player in their journey.

These thoughts are about me, and my journey, what I am learning about myself. The challenge then with the blog is that when I feel like writing and journaling it is usually because I have some sort if inner struggle that I am trying to resolve. So almost all of my blog post end up being me "over sharing". That is why I stopped blogging, I felt like people thought all I did was complain and I was embarassed and ashamed.

So I think where I am at in this moment is I will write and I will expect those who would feel annoyed and burdened by my sharing my struggles not to read it. I won't connect it to my facebook and advertise it. I will keep it private and if those close to me want to read it they can. And even in my inner struggles I will do my best to seek discipline in what I do say(which I have none) because Gods word tells me, "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about these things." and while I have the true part down the rest of it is still challenging for me. If I don't start being disciplined now in what I say and think then when?