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Recap of the video:

Recently, I was wronged by someone, and I have been really having a hard time letting it go. The situation feels so unfair, and I have just felt so angry and lost as to how to deal with it. Last night I was up at midnight praying and asking God what to do with my feelings, with all the unfairness, and how to genuinely move on. Below are the thoughts that were impressed on my heart.

4 Ways to Forgive (When You Don’t Know What to Do With The Unfairness of it All)

1. Say to God, “Lord, I feel like this situation is so unfair and I feel so wronged and I don’t know what to do with it, but I trust that you do know what to do with it. You know me, you know them, and you see all the things I don’t. Plus, I know you love me and have my back (as well as their’s), so here you go God, it’s all yours.” In other words, trust God with the person and the situation.

2. Would you agree that life is hard? It is, and the fact is, nobody gets a free pass to skip the battle, not even the person who wronged you. When I remember that truth, that everyone is facing a hard battle, I can have compassion on the person who wronged me. Also? Think about all the times you have wronged someone. Yea, that helps me to be more compassionate as well.

3. Is there something I have done that I should ask forgiveness for with the person who wronged me? Ask it. And ask without expectation that you will be asked for forgiveness in return. Free and clear, ask genuinely (ask God to show you where you may have gone wrong/offended).

4. Choose to be a person of the light. The enemy wants nothing more than to keep you in the dark – seething, feeling vengeful, getting worked up, having major lack of peace – he wants you faraway from forgiveness, because forgiveness shines blindingly, beautifully bright.

“Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice.Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.” Ephesians 4:31-32

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that…” Martin Luther King, Jr.

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” Lewis B. Smedes 

Love, SM

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With Jessica (Allume co-host)

With the hubs

With Christin

With @Claire

With the DaySpring crew (and other friends)

With Jessica, again

With Logan

With Darren Rowse (AKA Problogger)

With Crystal Paine and Sally Clarkson

With the hubs and other great friends

Just…giggle

With Elizabeth and Trina

There was just so much goodness and beauty. Will post more soon. Oh, and about that 31 Days thing, clearly, did NOT count the cost. 

Onward!

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“…significant figures in the life of faith were fashioned from the same clay as the rest of us…fan clubs encourage second hand living…scripture, however, doesn’t play that game. Something very different takes place in the life of faith: each person discovers all the elements of a unique and original adventure…each life is a fresh canvas…” Eugene Peterson, Run with the Horses

I used to morph into other people.

I hid myself behind a series of manufactured lives.

Being someone else, living out all the good and beautiful things I saw in them seemed better than the vision I had of myself. I was immature, never good enough, awkward, and sad. There was this cloud over me that showered me with lies. This “morphing” began when I met her.

I wanted to be vibrant and wise and mature, all of the things I figured I wasn’t; all of the things she was.

She was smart and alive and I had never met anyone like her. I hated her, but wanted to be her. For years I fought comparing myself to her.

Years.

Read the rest of my story here. 

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Ann Voskamp wrote the forword to Desperate.

I’m telling you not because I think it’s completely wonderful (it is!), but because she wrote it while sitting in the ER. After I received her forward, I called Sally and said, “I don’t think I could have done what she did, writing this beautiful, thoughtful forward while sitting in the ER with a nasty bronchial infection. Heck, I can’t write if I have a cold!”

Sally replied,

“Ann is a professional.”

And I lost my words.

I always have a million “good” reasons not to follow-through with something I said I would do. I’ve gotten too busy, or I’m sick, or I just don’t want to do it anymore.  The word “professionalism” has never entered my mind. Wow.

Ann is an expert at her work. She not only has a gift, but she chooses to keep at it. Sally is this way as well, and so I have before me two wise women who refine their gifts day in and day out, and who keep their word. I want to join their ranks. I want to live out of integrity, because really, that’s what a professional is, someone who has integrity. They are an expert because they choose what to do and what they will be able to do, and then they do it. And they do it well, because they know their strengths and their limitations.

What I also know about those two women is that they choose to be “professional” in their homes first. They have spent hours and hours investing in their families, and I would say they are experts with their family puzzle (as Sally calls it). They have not offered crumbs, but feasts of their time and energy. I am grateful for their example.

I don’t want to be Sally or Ann or anyone else, but I do think it is prudent to emulate wise women.

Professional women.

Women of integrity.

What kind of woman do you want to be? 

Find wise women to learn from; watch them, invite them to coffee, get to know them. They are a gift.

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This picture has nothing to do with the post except that it makes me feel all zesty. The gal in the photo is Mandy from ZealousForHim.com. We were celebrating my husband’s 30th with an 80′s themed party.

I was burned-out.

Blogging was the least appealing thing to me. Eating lot’s of late night snacks and watching movies was entirely enticing (and I indulged). I dragged during the day and vegged out every night. Days weren’t mine and life was dull. Writing was painful. Motivation was nowhere to be found.

This is what happens when you burn-out. You either push yourself harder and then fade into a blur of saddness and abuse (abuse of yourself and your family), or you quit. For awhile. For me, quitting was in order, indefinitely.

Sally told me it would take a month or two to recover from burn-out, and she was right on. I wasn’t sure I’d ever want to write again. I had even convinced myself that I didn’t like writing, and that I had nothing to say.

Boo.

But here I am with this newly lit fire in my spirit for writing, and man, it feels wonderful. And so freeing. This fresh flame was kindled when my husband told me that he wanted to start blogging. He bought a book on blogging, purchased his domain, and is excited to begin putting words into the online space. His zest for this new hobby has rubbed off on me, and it makes me remember what I felt like when I first started blogging. Exhilarated.

I am actually anticipatory for my new found stamina.

Have any of you felt the stale of burn out? Maybe some of you are there now. Here are some signs you might need a break:

Signs You May Be Burned-Out

You Don’t Enjoy Your Hobby Anymore

I used to love blogging and I did it every day just because I enjoyed it so much. After three years, a slew of other doings, and later bedtimes for my babes, my desire to blog went to 0.

You Feel Tired All The Time…And You Don’t Have a Baby

Do you feel like you are dragging most days? Have you lost motivation? Do you wish you could put your life on hold to catch up with it? You might be burned-out.

You Have Nothing To Say

If you’re a writer but you can’t write, you might be burned-out. I could not write for months. Months! I tried and tried but writing was like forcing myself to wash dishes. Blech. I hated it. I hated doing the thing that I used to love. I not only hated it, I felt like I had no words in me. I was empty, and it was an awful feeling. I even convinced myself that I wasn’t really a writer, because writers love to write. Burn-out was lying to me.

You Feel/Are Depressed

Does your life feel like it’s passing without your permission? Do you feel like you’ve lost control of your days? Do you feel like doing nothing but watching Gilmore Girls while eating Caesar salads? Do you even want to go out and live your life, or would you rather stay holed up while you sit on social media sites feeling even worse? Have you lost your innocent joy for the fullness of life and the world?

You, my friend, might be burned-out.

___

If you’ve experienced any of the above, really evaluate where you are in your life and your soul. You might need to give yourself some slack, or maybe even back off completely for a while. The best thing I did was to let myself recover, be lazy, gain weight (okay, this not so enjoyable), and just be in a paused place for a time. I needed to stop. It was wise to quit.

But now? I’m back, baby. I’m back.

How are you doing today, friend?

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Celebrating 9 years of silliness

Aside from getting into a fight with a cabinet the first day of my break (and acquiring a Harry Potter like mark on my forehead), I had a wonderful, wonderful, super time being offline.

I love being offline so much, that I’m probably going to stay offline much more. I gained perspective, was able to see things in my life more clearly, and just enjoyed the illusion that I had no online responsiblities (AKA no stress).

Grand I tell you, grand.

So what does this mean for the blog? It means that I am only going to post when I feel inspired to write. I don’t want to write just to write. I want to write when I have something to say, not something conjured up. Sometimes this means I’ll write every day for a week, and sometimes you may not see anything on here for two months. So it goes. I’m at peace.

When I first started blogging four years ago, I couldn’t wait to get online in the evenings and write because I loved it so much. I wrote every day, and I looked forward to it. Now, not so much. So, I’m making happy changes.

I’m going to own my life (insomuch as that is possible), and make decisions that genuinely make me happy and that honor my family. A girl only has time for so much in her life.

Here’s to life!

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