Don't Fear The Dream. . .

You have to be brutally realistic about your present circumstances and wildly unrealistic about your future circumstances (pg 35). 

Riding down the streets of Savannah Friday evening, Brian says to me, "You know, baby, you don't have to write your whole book in one day." I laughed because this man knows me all too well.  I am "all or nothing" to the core.  If I can't do it all at once or if it seems too big to fit in my box of a life, I shut down and do nothing at all.  Here is just a little example.  For right at two years, I have wanted to redecorate my house.  I want new paint, new furniture, new bedding, new pictures on the walls.  The problem is, up until recently, it has seemed unfathomable to shell out the cash to do that all at once.  The solutions to this predicament seem quite obvious to the sensible person.  You either A. put aside money into a specific savings account until you can do it all at once or B. you focus on one thing at a time.  Seems pretty doable, right? Well, not for me.  Why? Because I want it all, and I want it all now.  Setting up a plan to attack it step by step sends my brain into some kind of shutdown mode similar to when I ask my iphone to perform too many tasks at once.  Maybe I have decorating Attention Deficit Disorder.  Even now, we have made a plan to make all this stuff happen, and things keep working against me so I just get frustrated and want to say, "Forget it!  I will sit on this stupid red couch, and I will pout about this carpet forever."  I then go into a default grumpy mode forgetting some things just take time and things go wrong.  My friend told me when I finally get my new couch, we are having a "couch party." You know when your friend says something like this, they are tired of hearing about your couch predicaments, but hey, even though I am unsure what one does at a couch party,  all I need is an excuse to party.  

Today, riding home from church, I said to him, "I want to write.  I just need a story." to which he replied, "I think you already have the story." I knew what he was referring to.  The book I trashed... He thinks I can take that story and make it what it was meant to be.  Maybe I can.  I am just not sure I am ready to resurrect it yet.  I have a lot of ideas swirling in my head with a lot of excuses not to write.  A lot of excuses and insecurities standing in the way of my dream.  I will always be the first person to do what is needed for someone else, but I will make an excuse in a minute as to why I cannot do something for myself.  

Fear is a suffocating thing.  I let it bind my hands from the keyboard and take all the breath out of the words I put on paper.  I let it take over and lie to me.  I hear the voice of fear saying, "Your dream will always be on the tip of your fingers because while you are close, you really just aren't good enough." I ride down the road, alone, and the words flow through my mind, but then, I sit, lap top open...I tell myself, "ready. . .set. . .go." I stare at the blank page, and hear that nasty voice of fear, "Might as well stop now.  All those ideas you had in the car.  Yeah, they just weren't that good." 

We had dinner with friends tonight.  The wife of this couple is someone who always challenges me with my writing.  She is always honest and pushes me to achieve MY goals.  Whenever anyone asks about my life, I usually defer to answering based on what is going on with Brian or the kids.  While that is great and important, I think sometimes my dreams get lost in every day life.  So, at dinner, she asked me, "What are your goals for 2013? Your PERSONAL goals.  Not your family's goals." It stumped me for a minute, but I told her I want to have a good portion of another book written, and I want to run the Kiawah half marathon in November.  To accomplish either of these things, I must move step-by-step, and I must drown out the voice of fear.  

There will be no short cuts to finishing a second novel.  There will be no short cuts to training to run a half marathon.  There are no short cuts from average to awesome!

Today, Cinco de Mayo twenty-thirteen, I started my second book.  Reminding myself if Kathryn Stockett's had given up after being rejected from publishers sixty times, the world would have missed out on a best-selling novel turned movie, "The Help." I may never have the success of Stockett.  But then again. . .maybe I will.  

What are your dreams? What are you letting fear take from you? 

The Marriage God Redeemed (Part 4: What's Next?)

“You cannot amputate your history from your destiny, because that is redemption.”
― Beth Moore, Esther: It's Tough Being a Woman 


I have put off writing this post as it might be my most painful yet.  The words stream through my mind daily, and they have for a couple months.  What do I say next? How do I begin to share the next part of my story? Why do I even want to be so vulnerable on such a public forum? Who reads this?  What do they take away from it? Today I heard the words to a new song by Tenth Avenue North. The lyrics stopped me in my tracks.  They reminded me why I write.  They reminded me HE can use the broken pieces of my life to bring healing to others.  I have had a front row seat to all the Lord can do, and there is nothing HE cannot redeem.

Let me see redemption win

Let me know the struggle ends

That You can mend a heart that's frail 

and torn

I wanna know a song can rise from the

ashes of a broken life

And all that's dead inside can be reborn

Cause I am worn

Brian and I will celebrate 11 years of marriage in just a few days.  I think back to a scary, chilly night in early April of 2011 in contrast to that beautiful, hopeful day in January of 2002.  I am struck by how lucky I am that this man still adores me.  I am reminded he had every right to walk away that April night, but the moment the words, "THIS WILL NOT END US!" exited his lips, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt he meant them.  He is the most steady man I have ever known.  I knew he would be by my side, but I was still uncertain of what was next.  In that instant, as Brian got on his knees with me and told me to pray with him, I had no clue all the mercies our Lord had waiting.  

Not long after this night, I received a private message on Facebook from a dear friend.  She said she was unsure of what was going on in my life, but she wanted me to know the change she had seen in me.  She wanted me to know that my eyes shined brighter, and she didn't know what it was, but she knew my change had come from repentance and peace.  She could not have been more right. I don't want to pretend like there weren't moments when I felt Satan's lies all over me.  Telling me Brian and I would never really work through this.  Telling me I didn't deserve to be happy.  While my repentance was like a simple switch I had been waiting to flip, my healing would be a much longer process.  I cannot sit here today and pretend there are not places in my heart that are still very tender as well as places that haven't healed. Places I have put a hard shell over the top of to protect.  My marriage wasn't "fixed" the next day. It took work on both our parts, just as it will every day for the rest of our lives, but it was and is WORTH IT!  Every marriage requires work, and ours was in a place of needing some extra special care.  

It was in the month following that I discovered the Lord's greatest mercy in all of this, I was pregnant.  The Lord gave me living and breathing proof that HE is bigger than all my mistakes.  HE is bigger than all my plans.  HE is bigger than all my hurts.  HE IS BIGGER. . .

Each day, the Lord reminds me of all He has redeemed.  I don't say any of this to pretend like that past doesn't still haunt both Brian and I at times.  You can't paint over it like it never existed.  It is now a part of who we are.  

There are moments you realize your past will always be with you.  Sometimes it is fuzzy and lost in a haze, drowned out by the excitement and anticipation of the future while other times you will hear its quiet whisper reminding you where you have been, and what you have done in a not-so-obvious-way, yet tugging at your heart strings.  Then, there are the moments when your past sneaks up on you, blind-sides you and depending on what it is, busts you in the face.  There was a particular morning last May when the past gave Brian and I a "bust you in the face" moment.  Up until this point, we had sat together on many occasions having candid, yet gentle conversations about the "what's next" for us.  I am not sure either of us were prepared for an email Brian received causing us to relive moments we were still healing from.  An email that could have caused a storm of furry or bring us together, even stronger than the day before.  After the initial shock, Brian looked at me and said, "What's next? What do we do?" I asked, "We respond?" to which he replied, "Yes, we will respond. We will respond together."  We spent time praying together, and then he left for work as I sat to write. To date, this particular letter was one of the hardest I have ever had to write, but one of the most therapeutic at the same time.  I was able to honestly pour my heart into a letter to someone I barely know, and I was able to share my story of redemption with someone who will never really understand the depths of what the Lord has done or the depths of deception I allowed in my life. Someone who will probably spend most of their life with a not so pleasant view of me, but I remind myself frequently that this person has a very narrow perception of a very intricate situation and their opinion of me does not define me.

Ephesians 5:13-14 say, "But everything exposed by the light becomes visible and everything that is illuminated becomes a light. This is why it is said, 'Wake up sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.'" This verse reminds me that bringing my darkness to light will bring Glory to a Christ who saved me!

So. . .what's next?  The past is there.  It will always be there.  BUT our God is in the business of redeeming for His glory.  I've already seen it in so many ways.  I don't know what exactly the next step is, but I am trusting in a God who found me lost deep in a dark place with no way out and brought me to the light...