One week ago I sent out my first tribe subscription newsletter! I wanted to create a way to keep in touch with people who have come to one of my events and also to keep people informed in what is happening in my world.
To celebrate I am giving every person who has signed up to recieve my newsletter a free download of my first book “Capture 30 days of inspiration” online copy for free. The code will be coming out in tomorrow’s weekly e-letter.
If you are unsure whether you have or if you want to get in on the action, sign up below.
Brene Brown’s latest book Rising Strong has me reeling.
I knew it would overtake me when I committed to reading and blogging about it in the month of October for our new online book club, but honestly I had no idea that it would convict me like it has and I am only two chapters down.
How often do we let our dreams die and live frustrated because we have failed?
One of the most dangerous of kind is one who has realised that despite their failure, that they can begin to dream again.
Dream of possibilities,
Dream of what was seeded in hearts long ago,
Dream again of those deep utterances that they have not shared with a soul.
Dreamers.
Doers.
Believers.
The waiters.
The in-betweeners.
The frustrated.
The forgotten.
The disillusioned.
“All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible. ” T. E. Lawrence
Have you forgotten how to dream?
I want to be a dreamer of the day.
Not the kind of dreaming, that finds us startled in the midst of our slumber but the sweaty, dusty, in the middle of the day dreaming of possibilities that have not yet been realised.
Have you stopped dreaming?
Has pain taken the wind way out of your sails and you are not sure you can have another go?
I totally get what that feels like.
Read this from Brene that I read today and I nearly fell off the couch…
“The opposite of recognising that we’re feeling something is denying our emotions. The opposite of being curious is disengaging. When we deny our stories and disengage from tough emotions, they don’t go away; instead, they own us, they define us. Our job is not to deny the story, but to defy the ending—to rise strong, recognise our story, and rumble with the truth until we get to a place where we think, Yes. This is what happened. This is my truth. And I will choose how this story ends.” Brené Brown, Rising Strong
I know in the midst of failure, broken relationship, dreams that have been derailed, it feels impossible to dream again, but I promise you that you can choose how this story ends.
Rise strong my dear friend,
Dream Again.
Come on the journey with us in October and buy the book or download it online, I cannot wait to see what has been stopping me from really stepping into arena’s that just keep on holding me down in my everyday.
My son is a little late to the party but he has a major crush on Ana from Frozen.
Today Cate and I sat together and planned the final details of our upcoming retreat in just 14 days time. After dreaming and talking, thinking and problem solving, we sat to pray together.
A funny little side note though, is as soon as we started to pray, I could hear the background song of my son’s favourite all time tune of “let it go” blaring in the background.
The funniest part of this, is I struggle big time to let things go.
I work hard, I engage my heart and mind, I am a works kinda girl.
When we talk about surrender, it can be seen as a last resort, okay I am just letting go and whatever will be, will be.
Enter the serenity prayer…
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
enjoying one moment at a time;
accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
that I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
forever in the next.
Amen.
Surrender is not so much a dumping something on the ground, with our hands on our hips saying “I GIVE UP”.
It is a simple knowledge that greater plans can be executed when we hold our ideas a little more loosely.
Just recently I was talking about twenty sixteen to my friend Kelley from Kinwomen. We were talking about the potential of what next year could look like. Now I need to put in a little footnote here. My friend Kelley is just as much as a details/ control-ish kinda/ driven/ choleric personality as me. So the wisdom that came out of her mouth stopped me profoundly.
She said this;
“Amanda, what if we just let God surprise us!”
Yes, what if the answer is just allowing more surprises to come our way?
Yes, engage.
Yes, pursue truth and hope and wisdom.
But what if the song of Let it go, became an anthem in our current season and we became courageous warriors, who left the worrying and control to a greater power.
What if?
We allowed a little more surprise in our everyday life.
What could possibly come of it?
I think the art of surrender, is so much more than a dropping of the weight, it is a releasing the end of the story to the potential of being blown away by the limitless possibilities.
Frozen, you may be so addictive for our littles, because you actually are speaking truth into the atmosphere, that we just need to surrender a little more.
Till tomorrow, I’m seeking serenity and trying desperately to just let that stuff go.
There is something about the Serenity Prayer that gets me every time. The first few lines cut so close to the surface, that a little raw tremble hits my lips and a tear escapes my eye.
I know in my heart of hearts, there is so much that I cannot change and I know accepting the past is such a great advocate for a future of purpose.
I know deeply that there are many opportunities in my today, that just takes a big gulp of courage to step into.
I personally pray for wisdom all the time, but that next level of seeking wisdom to know the difference between what I can change and what I can’t, is so deeply profound.
Each of these stanzas in this poetic prayer, I resonate with, they make me feel scared and excited in one literal breath.
But then, then the prayer just goes a little crazy.
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
enjoying one moment at a time;
accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace.
Are you kidding me?
I personally will do anything to escape pain. (It’s probably why exercise is such a drag for me).
My husband represented New Zealand at the Body Building World Championships in Greece and he came fourth against competitors across the whole world.
It is a well known fact for body builders, personal trainers and athlete’s, that muscles must tear, rip, be pulled apart to grow back together again stronger. We can easily think that hardships make us weaker people. Many would disagree.
“Hardship often prepares an ordinary person for an extraordinary destiny.” C.S. Lewis
I have found in my life hardships, yes have made me weaker, but in many ways stronger as well. I have learn’t that when we surrender to that place of growth it makes us stronger, but also softer. Having a soft heart in a hard world, is living a life of courage not weakness.
Every season of deep loss I have experienced has drawn me to a place of surrender in my life, it has brought about a tenacity that cannot be shaken.
Every time I process those places of pain, my resilience becomes stronger.
Accepting those difficulties is the key to the prophetic power of this poem from long ago.
The key word here is accepting.
Letting that pain go.
Facing the difficulty.
Finding strength in the release of its power.
When we surrender to the power of forgiveness and the deeply healing knowledge that we all have fallen, we all have experienced pain, we have all done things we regret. Freedom comes.
Chains fly off.
Hearts are released.
We are set free.
I have found through times of hardship, seasons when I have been overwhelmed by grief, times when I have felt unable to move forward from the depth of disappointment I feel, it is friends and counsellors, it is mentors and wise women who have gone before me that have helped me find that place of acceptance.
And always it has been finding perspective in the shadow of an amazing Creator God, who always calls me home.
I have never felt condemnation, guilt or shame in His presence, I have only ever found peace.
If you are looking for the pathway to peace Reinhold Niebuhr, through his Serenity Prayer, encourages us that often acceptance is the best way home.
In my kitchen, we built a planter box, to try and convince my eyes away from the ugly fence that stares at me, multiple times a day washing dishes in my little beach shack.
In the last two days, flowers have unveiled gloriously in that little piece of windowsill green. My inspiration garden brings the outdoors, indoors as the water and bubbles fill my sink over and over.
I remember the days, when cooking and washing up was the most delightful of tasks, because it meant I was home. A rarity in the life of corporate hustler. I would open a cookbook, breathe deep and cook all day, so excited to be in my casual clothes and leaning into my home day.
Today, I struggle to find the inspiration for dinner, I roll my eyes at another sink full of dishes and I dream of days escaping my home, when I can leave the house without any cares or responsibility.
These thoughts shame me though, because I see photos of young children washed up on shores, I hear stories of people desperately wanting that pink line to appear, I know that the lot I have been served in life is indeed on the blessed side of my ugly fence.
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
enjoying one moment at a time;
Enjoy one moment at a time…
How do I enjoy my moments, when they are filled with so many dreams and desires and the weight of my own expectations overwhelm?
Moments,
Struggles,
Hormones,
Tantrums,
Sickness,
Plans falling over,
Opportunities not taken,
Moments.
Every time I think about more than my moments in my day, my serenity fades and I start to feel stuck in my apartment for the rest of my days.
Every time I think about the little moments, the laugh in his smile, the glint when she see’s, the new awakening of a season, an unexpected sleep in; it is in these precious moments that I regain my strength.
You see the way I used to live, I was always planning, I was always hustling, I was always being drawn into greater days, with even greater expectations. I am learning in my today, to find the white flowers that are opening, noticing what is right within my reach, rather than weighted expectations for tomorrow?
Do I believe we should stop dreaming?
No, but as a great friend said to me the other day “Amanda, what is so wrong with God surprising us in our future, rather than spending our days desperately trying to control the outcomes and the details”
Finding strength for my today, is revelling in the messy moments, picking up my knitting and letting things go that just don’t belong anymore. It is having conversations that matter, but keeping my relational accounts short.
It is kissing my husband passionately when he steps in the door, rather than telling him the list of unmet expectations and the struggles that overwhelm my soul.
It is playing a little as I wash those dishes, being grateful for the moments that are present and the duty that is my privilege.
The true story is that I have prayed desperately for the moments I have been graced with, yet when they arrive I can be so desperate to reach into the new, that I lose sight of the beauty in the realisation of my dreams.
Our strength for today is found in the messy moments, when we release and let go. When we smile and forgive, when we attend to the little details that often are forgotten. When we look heavenward with gratitude, when we take a deep breath and feel the sheer brilliance of the sun on our backs. When we walk a little slower, pick up one more toy smiling at their innovation and we live our lives breathing in moments that we might have just missed.
So for today, even though I’d love to fly away and search out hidden wonders on distant shores, as I dream of building orphanages and publishing books, I will surrender my will to this beautiful season and keep smiling as I watch the white flowers on my kitchen window sill bloom.
I will embrace my little inspiration moments in my today, knowing that suddenly it will be tomorrow and my season will have once again moved onward again.
What moments are you missing in your today, because you are desperate for your tomorrow?
