Category: Creativity

On the weekend we gathered with a group of girls, who love photography but would not call themselves photographers. We each pulled out our cameras and dared to turn them off automatic and start to shoot manual.

There is something about gathering with people who are honest enough to say, I want to learn and enjoy the process but at the same time am unsure. Our gather and grow sessions require courage. Courage to sit at a table with strangers, courage to say this is who I am and I want to learn. Courage to show up. Courage to speak about areas we don’t know much about. To admit that we don’t know.

Everytime I do something that takes me out of my comfort zone and stretches my capacity, courage grows.

I think sometimes I just expect of myself that courage is something I should have. I question whether the little bit of courage that hovers in my soul is enough. People often ask me how I do the brave things I often do in my world, like write, speak, my crazy random ideas and mostly I tell them honestly “I am just having a go and making most of it up along the way.”

The reason I am so passionate about creativity is it is like an elixer for our courage health. Creativity connects us to our true voice, the part of us that communicates without words with our worth. When we express something, when we learn a new skill, when we find a nugget of truth and it sinks in to bring health and intention to our self esteem.

When we open ourselves up with courage to do something we have never done before, it is like the muscle of courage is excercised and it makes us stronger.

Do you ever feel like you dont have enough courage?

Does your fear of failure stop you from stepping into situations that you kn0w would be so good for you but your courage wanes?

I know that feeling well. You may read my writing and watch my life stream through social media assuming that courage comes easily to me, but thats not always the case.

Everytime I do something new, everytime I show up in a social situation, each time I speak the truth even when it hurts, it requires a big dose of courage and there are some days that I worry whether my courage will be enough.

Like today, I am in hospital again having surgery on my leg, just day surgery, I am going home to my family sometime soon but this morning as I floated away under general anesthetic I seriously questioned whether my courage would be enough.

In pre-op, I heard families chatting about their pending birth of their baby, I heard a four year old screaming in pain, I watched nurses tending to their patients. I needed to excercise my courage muscle.

I breathed deeply, I prayed silently, I en-couraged myself softly.

Courage is not something that we each have, it is a part of our life and love that grows.

The people who are most courageous are those who have grown their courage and nurtured it.

I love this Psalm 27

Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage.

The reason I love it is because the poet is telling us courage is available for the taking. We can find it. We can gain it. Courage is a big part of our life that can grow. Every time we show up and do something we never thought we could, it’s like we inject our hearts with courage. Every time we fill our minds with the truth rather than negative false truths, courage arises. Every time we do something that is deeply connected with our love, passions or purpose courage grows.

If you are questioning whether your courage is enough for the new season that is awakening, just know that it is a seed that has the potential to grow.

Whether you are contemplating leaving your job and stepping into a new season, wondering how you will survive another year like the last, going to an event that scares you, book in for a mentoring session, take time to answer the New Year questions, write a blog or even use your camera without the automatic settings….

Everytime you feel the fear and do it anyway, your courage may not feel like it is enough but it grows.

The only way your courage recedes is when we don’t step out and do the things we have been intending to. Courage is only activated in the doing.

Dear Lord,

Help me to step out and activate my courage this year. Show me ways to trust and breathe in deeply the truth of your words. May my life be an example to others of strength in You. May my life be a beacon of courage, even though often it feels so far from it. May I have the courage to keep stepping forward towards dreams I have held deeply for years, even though there are times when I question whether I am worthy.

Amen

Seasons have a way of marking us. Christmas can be daunting for some but haunting for others. Summer can be refreshing for thrill seekers and exhausting for the sick. Weddings can be exhilarating for lovers and painfully poignant for the lonely.

We regret,

We forget,

We pain,

We shallow breathe.

Life has these seasons where the fragility of life crystalizes and we find what is truly important and we groan deeply with regret wanting to take back time.

Last week we found out that the best man from our wedding, a dear friend, a thirty year old with such purpose passed away suddenly. Our week has been a rumble.

Questions,

Regret,

And moments of gratitude for what time and gifts we have been given.

Life is terribly fragile. I think we believe that we have years upon years to flesh out the dreams we tinker with, but life slips through our finger tips, escaping containment, never asking our permission to run freely.

This last week, my husband and I have been talking a lot about perspective. We have been talking a lot about grabbing life by it’s handles and smooshing our face right in it’s very core. We have been asking of each other to believe the best, to let go of that which doesn’t matter.

If there were any parts of our life windows that were a little smoky and unclear, this last week has crystalized what is very important in our world and we are leaning in to find the grace.

Family is important, even when we continually do things that frustrate and annoy each other.

Friends are full of purpose, even if seasons have shifted, marriages, babies and jobs have hurried seasons along, pick up the phone, text or write. You will never regret the small amount of time taken.

Find what you were made for. Everyone of us has been given a unique message to bring to the world. Everyone of us has a voice that is so deeply different to the next. Sing your song, bring your dance, bake your goods, design that building, speak that manifesto. You were designed. You were delicately put together to bring something strikingly brilliant. Your voice is awaiting discovery and expression.

Things will never satisfy you. Life is about so much more than accumulating things.

God is always available for a chat. Even when you think he’s not listening He is. God is always available and open for business, He is seeking you down and longing for relationship.

Sometimes the most aligning seasons are the ones that you never dreamed would come knocking.

So on the weekend a sign told us that we could come and pick raspberry’s off the vine and fill up a container from a orchard on the way home. Normally I would see the sign smile and keep on driving, ticking off my list of accomplishments that needed to be fulfilled. But this week has unsettled me in the most satisfying of ways.

I piled my one year old out and let her run the orchard.

I explained to my three year old, how berries were harvested.

We shoed away the flies, we let spiders run across our produce, we picked prickles out of our feet and we picked our own raspberries off the vine.

Life I am determined to suck out your marrow.

Life I will not miss moments with my children seeking greener pastures.

Life I will find you in your fragility and I will not take for granted the precious simplicity of my today.

Life you were created to live graciously, even in the seasons that do not make sense.

I will dance in my darkest, I will sing even when I have no voice left, I will write words when they refuse to surface and I will not take for granted the time I have been given.

Time can never be taken back, but we can take back control of how we use our time.

Every moment, every second, every breath is precious.

Snuggle someone close by, Let go of grievances that just don’t matter, Speak words very slowly with kindness.

You never know what tomorrow may bring.

Ps- I am going to be taking a break from technology for a couple of weeks, so until after Christmas things around here are going to be a little quiet. I wanna snuggle my kids without a phone in my hands and take some brain pictures creating memories rather than digital ones.

Merry Christmas and love the ones you’re with…

On Saturday afternoon I arrived home after an event I had been coordinating to find my husband at our front door with my bags packed. He knows me, he knows what I need to find the inspiration that I so desperately needed.

He told me I had to go to the family farm. He told me to go find the space I needed.

With love and intention, he had packed my bags ready for me to drive away and find the strength I needed in a place of rest.

He knew I needed to drive, I needed to wage a war with my Maker, he knew the rising tide of questions within my heart needed to find expression. So I jumped in the car and drove, I searched for the inspiration in creation, I searched out the inspiration in the skyline, I was seeking answers. I laid out under the stars. I questioned and wrestled.

When I drive I exhale.

When I drive I sing and express.

When I escape and seek new scenery I find perspective and hope.

I drive with intention.

I drive with to find the grace my questioning heart is seeking.

Trying to find answers in a season of so much loss. Sick friends, illness, loss, death, stress and a world that seemed to be internally combusting. I felt like I was driving away from Armageddon and was seeking an answer, any answer, that would somehow quieten my raging heart.

Are you seeking answers?

Are you looking for strength in something beyond you?

Somedays we just need to be forced to find perspective beyond the landscape of our everyday.

I sat on the porch and talked about creation with my Uncle. I watched the sky turn from blue, to orange, to pink and deep blue again.

My little girl in the midst of my pondering ran in and out of the sprinklers screaming delight at the simplicity of the pleasure. She was seeking inspiration with a naive beauty, loving life at its absolute purest.

My adult heart was seeking answers to things that I just don’t have the perspective to ever understand.

My adult perception was looking for a big fat theological hat stand to hang my hat on.

Somethings we will never understand until the end of our days, somethings are just to confusing to find the boundaries that bring understanding. So sitting on the deck of my uncles farm, I found my faith again watching my daughter run underneath the sprinklers and enjoying water in a parched, dry land.

She delighted in the present.

She found her strength in the possibility of today.

Matthew 18: 3 says it this way…

“and said, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

I long to see the kingdom of heaven and I hope desperately to see my friends dancing and playing there.

For today I choose to have a childlike faith and look for the hope in the midst of the difficulty, anything more than that and my brain hurts too much.

Some seasons just don’t make sense.

Some days just don’t make sense.

And for today I choose to revel in the beauty of what is very simple in our world and try not to find the meaning in the bigger picture of it all.

Because sometimes things just don’t make sense and that is okay.