God is bigger than that.

I've decided that God is bigger than my desire to get married. This may seem a little out of left field somewhere, but as more and more of my friends get married and have babies, and as I approach birthday "golden plus two", the topic of my singleness finds itself at the forefront of my mind more often than I'd wish it lately. 

Anyway, I've decided that I've made God too small. Although I've prayed for my husband to show up at my doorstep, I've far too often doubted that he'll ever really come. I've contemplated far too many back up plans for what I'll do if I end up alone. I've spent too many hours dreading the possibility of becoming that crazy middle aged single lady (you know the type). I've gone on far too many first dates of desperation only to end up disappointed. But no more. 

God gave me a desire in my heart to be a loving wife and mother. He built it into me. And not having found a husband is not some sort of punishment for wrongdoings or a withholding for not being faithful enough or good enough. It just is what it is. But no longer will I assume that because this is something I want, God will somehow keep it from me. No longer will I think that God can't or won't bring my husband to me. No longer will I scoff at God's assured "something far better" than my own plans. God is bigger than all of that.

Here's what I know:

God is bigger than all of my deepest desires. 

God is better at finding my husband than all of my friends' setups. 

God is wiser than all of the marital advice I've ever received. 

God knows what He's doing. 

God does not make mistakes. 

God is big. God is love. God is joy.

What does this mean for my immediate future? I surely haven't a clue. I don't feel particularly led to steer clear of dating and setups altogether. I just know that I'll be praying differently starting today than I have for years. And that's a great starting point I think.

Stop Reflecting?

Today, I was talking with a dear friend who at some point in our conversation said, "You process and reflect more than any other human I know. Maybe you should just stop processing for a while and enjoy the ride." 

Of course, you find me now processing the value and weight of this statement. Ironic. 

Over the past few weeks, as I have struggled with lots of things like human limitations, managing chaos effectively, making and recovering from mistakes and shortcomings, I have had lots of thoughts about who I wished I was or was becoming. I wished to be more even-keeled. I wished to be able to control thoughts and actions better. I wished to be more perfect in my actions to live as a good example for others. I even wished just to be older to have more life experience. 

But really, why do I want to be all of those things? Are they better per se than I what I have now? Do they make me a better person? Or will they make me react and think and act better? Probably not. They just make me different from what I am. 

God has blessed me with a wild personality. With deep-welled emotions. With random life experiences. With a great, nearly uncontrollable passion and enthusiasm. He has given me those things. He has not made a mistake in creating me. He made me just as He intended. He made me. So to wish to have things that I don't have, to long for the giftings of others, well it's just silly. 

There are reasons I act as I do...and for the most part, those reasons are good and pure. And in the times that I make mistakes, poor choices, negative reactions, well, that's human nature, and that's the very thing grace is for. God understands, or He wouldn't have created grace. 

So, no, I will probably not stop reflecting on things anytime soon. After all, that's how I was made. But I will work to stop striving so hard to be the coveted other...the things that I am not and am not created to ever be.

Getting Back Up

There is a human element to being human. I know. Surprising, right? Humans have imperfections, sinful natures, and all sorts of influences in our lives that cause us to act the way we do. 

Looking back over the past three or four weeks, I have struggled mightily with my human nature, with my sinful self, with my own imperfections. I was running along at a pretty good clip, and I fell. Took a huge digger. Face-planted into life like I meant it. (Read the past three or so entries to just get a taste of what I've been feeling, experiences, doing.) People saw it. They watched me fall. 

And here I lay, face-first on the ground (whether I wanted to be there or not) with a choice to make. How am I going to get up? Am I going to sulk, whine, and pout? Am I going to curse the ground for tripping me? Or am I going to humbly stand up, acknowledging that I fell, take a deep breath, and get back to running? 

The beauty of falling down is not necessarily in the falling. We all trip and wipe out at some point. We make mistakes. We make bad choices. We hurt others. We act out. And if, like me, you're trying to live your life as an example worth replicating, the last thing you want is for others to see that. But the beauty of the fall is that we do indeed have the choice to get back up and get up well...and that there's a sort of defining moment that takes place that allows both faller and witnesses to learn from the experience. Humility, grace and forgiveness, strength, perseverance.

Today, I'm still face down on the ground. My knees and elbows are scraped up. My face is still maybe red from embarrassment. But I've decided that I will indeed get up and try to get up well. My hands and feet are moving, ever so slowly, to a position of recovery and strength. And before I even get up off of the ground, I'm praying that there is learning happening to me and others. And that learning will continue as I continue to get up. 

And I know I don't have to get up all on my own. The gracious arms of my Father are wrapping around me, helping to pull me off the ground. And the voice that I thought even just briefly that I couldn't quite hear behind me whispers in my ear, It's okay. You can do this. It's time to get up and get back to the race. Here's the trail. Run.

Moments of Truth

Today, I nearly lost it in my faculty/staff book club. This is not a great place to lose it, as it is a group of faculty, staff, and administrators, all of which are working with and/or above me at the university. Part of the very reason I decided to be in the book club was face time with others, a partly relational, partly political decision. 

Anyway, in the book we're reading (Seven Pillars of Servant Leadership by Sipe and Frick), today's discussion centered around a person's "true north", the internal compass on which our core values rest, and "moments of truth". "Moments of truth" are those interactions you have with others that are sort of defining moments - those things that reveal our character to others through our actions. The example given was that in a particular airline corporation, customers, on average, interacted with five employees for about fifteen seconds each. But it's pretty much only those fifteen second interactions that customers base their opinion of the entire company on. Focusing on those little moments of interaction then becomes critically important to the success of the company and the satisfaction of the customers. 

This discussion has me feeling extremely convicted today as I spent most of the day in an extension of the funk that I described in my last few posts. I was grumpy, feeling overwhelmed, feeling inadequate in every way. And I took it out on students. I griped in front of them, I was upset when they made errors or even in one situation before they even made an error, I displayed a bad attitude, and I, in general, made some poor choices. 

Moment of truth. 

In a fifteen second interaction, students took note of my body language, my language, my attitude, my actions. And they learned that how I acted must be okay. After all, usually Lindsey is someone we look up to, desire to emulate, learn from...this must be okay, too. 

Not okay. 

How do I deal with this as a leader? How do I force myself to conquer a bad day, to kill it with kindness, as the phrase goes? It's a lot of pressure to never be able to have a bad day, to never be able to act out a little, to be disappointed, to feel defeated. Because frankly, some days I just do. But students continue to watch and learn. 

Aristotle said, "We are what we repeatedly do." But what if we don't want to be what we repeatedly do? What if I don't like what I find myself repeatedly doing? Human nature fights against what I consider to be some of my core values. Clearly, I am not alone in these struggles:

¹⁵ I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. ¹⁶ And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. ¹⁷ As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. ¹⁸ For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.  ²¹ So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. ²² For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; ²³ but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. ²⁴ What a wretched man I am!  (Romans 7:15-24)

I struggle tonight in wanting to do well to make good choices, to live faithfully as an example worth emulating, as a reflection of Christ to the world but constantly messing it up. I know I need grace and forgiveness in my life, and that I'm not perfect and never will be, but I still feel internally tortured, knowing that I am not the great example of life I desire to be to others.

So what do I do? How do I grow? How do I become more faithful in my moments of truth?

Stormy Weather

Have you ever had to run through a really bad storm before? You know what I'm talking about, the kind of storm where the rain seems to be heading in a more horizontal direction than a vertical one. Have you ever just had to be out in one of those, even for a few seconds? 

That is what my life has been feeling like lately. All the time. 

I can't look around. My arms are covering my face for protection from the wind and rain. I'm a little bit fearful. A little bit frustrated that it won't let up. More than a little bit hurried. Things just seem to come from all sides in a relentless, tormenting sort of way that after a while just drives a person crazy. 

When you're out in storms like this, you hope for the best, that maybe you're shoes won't let your socks get so wet that you'll have to wring them out, or that you won't slip and wipe out between the front door and the car. You hope you can move faster than you usually do, as if that might keep you somewhat drier. All you can really focus on is that moment, that feeling of being out in the middle of it all, to be over. 

I started thinking today, is this depression?  But no, I am certain it is not. I've been through depression before. Depression is like a weight hung around your neck or from your heart. It's like an internal condition that you can feel, you know is there, and your decisions, your actions, your behaviors, all react based on that internal weight. My life right now, is nothing like that. It's more just like being a person caught in a rain storm with whipping winds and loud thunder and torrential rains. It's external forces acting upon me that seem to force my hand when it comes to actions, decisions, and behaviors. It makes me a little scared, a little frustrated, rushed. 

But this weekend, I found a little bit of an awning to take shelter under - a few moments of peace amidst the chaos. I ran a peaceful, joy-filled 5K and did well. I spent a day with my dearest friend shopping, eating, relaxing. And I spent this afternoon with the two people that know and love me best in the world as they helped me around the house and the yard.

You don't realize how much those quiet moments mean until you're searching for an awning while running down the street in the rain. Those moments allow us to exhale deeply, dwelling in the reminder that the entire world isn't always stuck in a rain storm. And although I know I have to get back out from under the awning and run a little further to the next one, the fact that there is a next one is enough to keep me going. 

Someday, the rains will stop, the pace will slow, the world will feel a bit less panicked and a bit more calm. This coming week, the awnings will have to be enough as I continue to stand my ground in the storm.