One Word for 2019: Light

“‘Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond all measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.’ We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? you are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

— Marianne Williamson

If I’m honest, I’ve come into the new year a bit jaded and uncharacteristically hardened. That’s not the person that I want to be. And so, an antidote –

My word for the year: light.

Light as in seeing the light, speaking the light, shining light. More than anything, I want this to be a year of looking for God’s hand and seeing His grace. A year of noticing the gifts and seeking out the Giver. A year of cultivating warmth, positivity, and encouragement and surrounding myself with people who do the same. A year of journeying with my boys as they learn to shine their own small, but significant lights.

Light as in unburdened, light of heart, minimal. I want this to be a year of not holding onto what I am not meant to carry. A year of letting go of baggage, both literal and emotional. A year of few things – only what we need and only what we love.

Light as in sunshine streaming through the windows, sunsets on the beach and the glow given off of a fire pit around which we gather in Adirondack chairs making s’mores.

Light as in the opposite of dark. Because darkness in people, circumstances, our environment cannot always be avoided, I want this to be the year of looking for light in the dark places, the places where things are not what they should be. A year of “wak[ing] up with great expectation of these little reminders of God’s goodness.”

I’m beginning this year with Marilyn McEntyre’s book, Word by Word: a Daily Spiritual Practice, and in it she writes:

“I invite you to discover, as I have, to my lasting delight, how words may become little fountains of grace. How a single word may open wide wakes of meaning and feeling. How a single word may, if you hold it for a while, become a prayer.”

Light – my 2019 prayer and practice.

Present: A Practice.

My days are looking a whole lot different from six months ago when I was up at the crack of dawn because of pregnancy insomnia. These days – with a toddler, preschooler, and newborn on different sleep schedules – my morning routine has gone out the window. I came across the PRESENT principle in the book Design Your Day, and it turned out to be the best takeaway from that book. PRESENT is an acronym that the author uses for her morning routine – P for Pray (or Pause), R for Read, E for Express, S for Schedule, E for Exercise, N for Nourish, and T for Track (progress). I love this so much that I’ve adopted and adapted it for myself as a daily self-care checklist for this season and the ones to come.

PRESENT over perfect.

PRAY

It’s been a rough year in some respects (and a great year in others – I’m not complaining!), so I’m re-learning how to pray in different ways. The daily Examen is becoming a favorite practice, and I’ve found the Book of Common Prayer to be helpful when I just don’t have the words. Next year, I hope to restart the practice of centering prayer. For the Advent/Christmas season in particular, I love what Sarah Bessey writes.

READ

I usually start out the day reading a book like this one, but basically, I’m reading all day long in bits in pieces (lately: memoirs). Reading is one of my favorite ways to start the day, and the fact that I can both relax and feel productive without leaving the bed is a bonus.

EXPRESS

I write the clearest in the morning, but like reading, I write all day long. I journal my feelings, so that I can clear my head. I write down endless lists and braindumps. I write bits and pieces of blog posts and ideas.  Recently, I’ve adopted the practice of spiritual journaling – writing down my prayers, and then copying scripture, and personal or insights from devotional books.

SCHEDULE

Hands down, the Day Designer has been my best scheduling tool. Even on weekends, I start the day by writing my ideal schedule and calendaring events and appointments.

EXERCISE

Ideally, this happens at the beginning of the day because my motivation starts waning as the day progresses. My goal for this season and the upcoming year is to exercise 6 times a week and to do core compressions daily. I’ve had a postpartum healing setback, but my main focus is getting my core and strength back because carrying/chasing after three boys is no joke.

NOURISH

I am 100% a coffee person. Steaming hot coffee or a latte first thing in the morning is one of my favorite rituals, but I’ve found soul care in other places too – talks with sisters/friends, preschool walks with my crew, and allowing myself the gift of resting with my newborn boy sleeping on my chest.

TRACK

I naturally check my to do list progress at the end of each day, but I’m learning to spend more time reflecting with gratitude on the gifts of the day. Before I go to bed,  I use the Rifle Paper Co. Five Year Journal set to document the highlights of each day along with five specifics for which I am grateful.

What practices or routines are you embracing this season? I’d love to know!

On Fight & On Grace.

 “All is grace in our one brutal and beautiful life.” - Ann Voskamp

One of my very favorite places. Someday, I'll have an epic party on that rooftop.

I wonder if grace is written in the sunsets and the clear blue skies and iced half-decaf mint lattes by the pool and clothes that are not maternity but still miraculously fit. I wonder if grace is found in quiet mornings by the ocean, the perfect glass of pinot noir rosé, and running into friends at the farmers’ market.

I wonder if grace is holding both the light and the darkness, what is and what isn’t, the homecoming and the ache. I wonder if grace is being showered with love that you don’t deserve and never asked for.

Jen Hatmaker wrote a book about fighting for grace. I haven’t read it. It seems like an oxymoron – like fighting for peace, which doesn’t seem to make sense until you look back at all of human history and see that all peace was hard-won and paid for in blood, tears, and loss.

Maybe what we need is a little more fight and a little more grace. Maybe it’s in the juxtaposition that we sense more clearly, like with bitter and sweet. In Come Matter Here, Hannah Brencher describes fight songs as reminders to keep going.

She writes:  “I just hope you always know you deserve beautiful things. You deserve the chance to close chapters and write new endings and cry loud and not be sorry for whatever makes that wild heart of yours beat. (Fight Song #4).”

Here’s to reclaiming that wild heart and letting it beat, for the fight and for the grace.

Note to Self.

I had a student at work ask me recently for advice. I gave her the advice that really, I needed for myself. What I said:

Intentionally develop your voice. I love how Sheryl Sandberg (my patron saint of all things business) says it: “People aren’t brands. That’s what products need. They need to be packaged cleanly, neatly, concretely – I don’t have a brand, but I have a voice.” Practice pitching ideas – in meetings, but even with friends. Practice disagreeing with people – forcefully or sweetly. Practice writing on a personal blog because you are the boss on that blog (side note: Learn to be the boss. Own your decisions). Know the rules before you break the rules, so to speak. Practice and refine, so that your voice can bend to accommodate the audience or the topic, yet still stay true to your essence.

Engage in the disciplined work of moving towards your goals (and be ok with your goals changing). For a few different seasons in my life, my priorities did not revolve around creative practices. I needed international experience, so for over a year, my discipline revolved around the daily study and practice of Chinese. My “creative” practices felt to the wayside. They felt fluffy and less important. There are seasons – with a newborn or acclimating to a new country, for example –  when it can feel impossible to create, but totally possible to observe. So observe, instead. Progress can come in different forms.

Read, as much as possible. This is something that comes naturally to me, because I’m a librarian’s daughter, because I consider myself a curious person, and because I love words and ideas. I’m an ENFJ, and I especially love how words and ideas act as the inputs that allow me to draw connections across genres and disciplines and areas of learning. It may take 4 months to finish reading a single book. Or you might juggle between 18 books at a time (me, currently). Reading is like eating your veggies. It makes you healthier.

It’s ok to be “behind.” I recently completed – and I use the term completed loosely – a writing workshop. “I’m so behind!” I emailed to the instructor. She replied, “There is no behind. There’s just where you are.” I love that. Start where you are, with what you have. Jess Connolly wrote, in my new favorite devotional, Always Enough | Never Too Much: “Maybe it’s time we look down at what He’s given us and get busy multiplying it. Maybe we should stop thinking about when we’ll get more and start thinking about how about how we can give what we’ve got.”

Make time to appreciate art in community. In my 20s, I was part of a book club where we not only read books together, but we cooked together and ate at the cutest cafes. I am one thousand percent a goals person, and the working life comes easily to me. In other words, I can be overly pragmatic and very intent on “accomplishments.” Communal appreciation of beautiful and interesting things pulls me out of that tendency and brings much needed balance and richness to my life. Don't sacrifice joy on the altar of work.

Leave room for white space. This has been a game-changer in my life. Since I’ve started the practice of a “daily office” – regular time for Scripture reading, centered prayer, and silence – I’ve noticed that the days I practice are more balanced and more centered than the days that I don’t. Also: margin is everything. Silence and margin are two sides of the same way of being that have been hugely impactful in my journey to maintain healthy habits, develop new insights, and engage in purpose-driven growth.

The Middle.

It’s April now, the in-betweenest of all the months – in between winter and spring, not the beginning of the year, but not yet the summer. The middle.

That’s where I find myself right now, in the middle (cue Maren Morris).

I’m not a new mom or a newlywed, but I’m still a young mom and a young-ish wife. I’m not super early in my career, but I also haven’t yet built the thing that I want to build. I’ve passed the discovery phase of my 20s, and now I’m learning how to undo patterns and habits that have rooted their way into this new decade.

The saying – when the student is ready, the teacher will appear – has never been more true in my life than in these last three months. My life since January has felt like a bootcamp in life skills: finances, emotional health, communication in marriage, parenting. I’ve been a sponge, soaking up new skills, shedding old perspectives, adopting new paradigms.

For one thing, we’ve stopped using personal credit cards completely. And I don’t mean that we use a credit card, and we pay it off every month. I’ve literally closed down credit lines. It’s one less thing for me to manage, and I will never go back.

Emotional health has become a real pursuit for me. We went to marriage counseling for the first time. I’m wrapping up a study on the subject with women from my church. Dates have become a weekly non-negotiable priority.  I’m learning every single day better ways to give and receive love, so that I can be the best mom and wife possible.

I’ve had a onslaught of gray hairs appear that I attribute to this particular learning season, but at the same time, I am enjoying this season so much because I have a glimpse of what’s ahead for our family. I have total and complete faith that our family legacy is being built, day by day, right now, in this season, in this year.

I am the farthest person from a marathon runner, but there is a special place in my heart for athlete analogies. I’m in the slog of the training phase. It’s slow. It’s hard. It’s sweaty. I’m moving a single step – a single action – at a time, but I’m confident that I’m heading in the right direction. The beautiful thing about this “race” is that it could be 26.2 miles, or it could not. Maybe it’ll only be 3 miles because God’s timelines and God’s ability to fulfill are infinitely greater than our own. Good news for us non-runners.