Day 18 of 31: Every Successful Woman

What? This isn't a verse in Proverbs 31?

              On my desk at work, I have a mouse pad that my sister Rachel gave me, and it says, “Behind every successful woman is a substantial amount of chocolate.”

            This is true of me.  That is—if I want to think of myself as a successful woman. (The substantial amount of chocolate part is very accurate.) But I think the word success is so subjective….

            Some days I feel successful; other times I feel stuck.  Today at work, I felt the weight of having a lot to do, but I also felt the frustration of feeling inefficient, slow, stuck.  It’s a long to-do-list, so where do I start?  I walked into the workroom to make some copies, and my coworkers Krysten and Connie asked me how I was doing.  I almost said, “Fine,” but instead I sighed, “I’m feeling overwhelmed actually.”

            They laughed and joked with me, “I don’t know why that would be.”  They listed about 3 big projects that I’m involved with this week at work on top of the fact that I just moved into my new house. 

            I’m not necessarily stressed about organizing everything in my house, but I am feeling some high-strung anticipation.  (Is that the same thing as stress?)  My water softener is finally working as of 4:00 this afternoon, so I can now start using the shower and the dishwasher, but I need to hang my shower curtain and clean the tub when I get home tonight at 10pm if I want to use the shower in the morning.  My kitchen floor is being replaced tomorrow, so I can check that off my list then.  Last night my parents and I carried in about 20 boxes of stuff that had been in my bedroom at their house...and I had already carried in 5 carloads of stuff from my room this past weekend.  First, I want to know, How did I have so much stuff crammed in my little bedroom? Secondly, I want to know, Why do I have 150 t-shirts?

            But the boxes and t-shirts will have to wait until after this weekend.  I have some priorities at work—setting up for our fall festival, a new check-in system for our children’s program, and speaking for a few minutes at our Orphan Sunday service.  These are all important to me. I’ve been looking forward to them for a long time, so they take priority of my time and energy.

            It’s weeks like this that being successful isn’t about perfectly planning every detail or trying harder to keep up with everything.  It’s about leaning my head on my desk and praying for God to give me strength.  It’s about writing the tasks down and asking God to help me to do each one…then feeling a little accomplished when I finish a task.  It’s about giving thanks for the opportunity to work on meaningful tasks even when I look in the mirror, and my eyes look tired and my outfit looks sloppy.  It’s about finding joy in the process, appreciating the time I get to spend alongside old friends and new friends.  It’s about being patient and content to be able to enjoy today.  It’s about remembering that I will take an extra day off next week; it’s about looking forward to my Sabbath.      

            If I’m a successful woman, then I guess every successful woman probably has some boxes on her floor, a dresser in the back of her car, Halloween candy in buckets in her office, and a house that will take several weeks of TLC before it feels super homey.  

Moving into This Dry Walled & Painted Yes

Moving day!

           Yep, boxes and bags.

            Target and Walmart sacks.

            Bare walls, bare shelves.

            Wiping our feet because the yard is dirt, but the carpet is new. 

            Heavy furniture, heavy for my hands, heavy enough to make me worn out, heavy enough to make me extra grateful for a brother who is strong, for a brother to boss around.  “Dave, what are you doing? Can you carry this? Hey, can you pick this up?  Will you go with me to their house to load up my bed? Dave, I think I want it over here instead.”

            But tonight I’m sitting here, finally sitting in my house.  For 5 months, I walked around the house without a seat to rest on, walked around with the pressure to critique the details and to make the decisions.  But tonight I’m sitting, and I wouldn’t make another decision even at gunpoint. 

            I picked up my pen and prayer journal, but what else can I tell God tonight besides Thank You?  I opened the pages of the journal and instead of writing, I started reading prayers I had written in 2012 and 2013.  

            Yep, 2012 and 2013.

            Questions and dreams,

            Prayers on pages,

            Tears and fears of those years,      

            Millennial girl, millennial music, millennial friends, this is my generation.

            It’s a heavy time, heavy burdens, heavy in my hands, heavy enough to make me worn out, heavy enough to make me extra grateful for a God who is strong, for a God who moves me and moves in my life.  “God, what are you doing? God, can you carry this? God, will you go with me there? God, I think I want that instead of this.”

            My friend Samantha told me that she keeps a journal that records all the answers to prayers that God has given her.  Her prayers aren’t like a Christmas list of stuff she wants; her prayers are asking her heavenly Father to do miracles in her family, to equip her to be all that He created her to be, to teach her new things, to help her love others deeply.  When she asks for God to work in her life in specific ways, she can see how He shows up in those details. So she writes down these answers to prayer in a journal.

            She calls it a “Yes Journal.”  Whenever she’s discouraged, she looks back at her Yes Journal, and she can see the unseen ways that God said,

            Yes, I’m here. 

            Yes, I care.

            Yes, I love you. 

            Yes, I hear you. 

            Yes, I forgive you.

            Yes, I’m working in your sister’s life. 

            Yes, I’m going to provide.

            Yes, I’m going to give you something better than you asked for.

            If Samantha is low on faith, she reads each Yes after Yes after Yes and remembers that God is good after all, after all, after all she’s been through.  So many prayers she hasn’t seen answers to, so many questions to still seek out, so many hopes to still wait for.  But she looks back at the Yeses, and her faith increases.

           

            Yep, I look for it too.

            Each Yes after Yes after Yes.

            Faith will increase, increase.

            Teasing out my timidity,

            Trumping my passivity,

            Tearing through the trails of my twenties.

            Slap me if I ever hold back again, if I ever forget what God did, if I ever fail to see the yeses in the midst of the messes, if I ever dismiss the Yes after Yes after Yes that came with building my house.  God built my house; God built my trust.

            I’m sitting here tonight.  For years I prayed for God to provide a place for me, and I felt discouraged each time the places didn’t work out. For 22 months, I didn’t think I’d make it through the financing process to build, and I prayed for God to make a way. Now I’m sitting here tonight in my 2000 square-foot Yes.  And you can see this Yes from the road.  And I get to live in this dry walled and painted Yes, a daily reminder of what God did for me, a daily reminder that I can trust Him to always be loving and faithful.  The God who gave me a Yes yesterday is the same God who hears me today and who provides for me tomorrow.

            Yep, boxes and bags.

            Target and Walmart sacks.

            Bare walls, bare shelves.

            Wiping our feet because the yard is dirt, but the carpet is new. 

            The carpet, the cabinets, the sinks, the windows,

            It’s all new.

            It’s all new—new joys, new challenges, new tools.

            There will be new No’s, but new Yeses too.

            New Yeses in the midst of new messes.

            Yes after Yes after Yes.

            This is the God I trust.

My grandma came to see my house! xoxo

Day 15 of 31: Transition Without Tears

Grandpa brought their fridge to my house today!

            I now know that my move-in date is close.  I don’t know when exactly, but I know that it is now days instead of weeks. 

            Am I packed? No.

            Do I care? No. 

            Am I feeling sentimental about leaving my parents’ house? Umm, yes. 

            I love my parents and my brother, and I’m tearing up now thinking about how I will miss seeing them every night when I get home from work.  Good thing I’m moving only a mile and a half away.  J

            Maybe this is pathetic to share, but as an 18 year old, I cried through almost my entire first semester of college because I missed my family.  I wasn’t adjusting smoothly to the change.  I remember that I had a psychology class, and my prof asked for a volunteer who was homesick.  Oh my goodness, why did I raise my hand?!!  He asked me to come to the front of the room.  Then he told me to close my eyes and visualize walking through my door at home.

            “What’s the first thing you see?” he asked.

            With tears in my throat, I said, “My mom!” And then I started crying in front of the whole class. 

            He was an adjunct professor, and I don’t think he had ever tried that experiment before, and I bet he never tried it again.  We didn’t get anywhere with it because I was just crying.         

            Before I got to college, I thought I was a confident girl who was ready to be on her own, try new things, and build new friendships.  But instead, I found myself crying in front of my psychology class and resenting the laughter I’d hear in the hallways because no one else seemed to be as homesick as I was. 

            But slowly…month by month…I adjusted to college life.  And slowly…block by block…I built new friendships.  I no longer had that sick feeling in my stomach when I drove back to campus after the weekends were over.  I no longer walked around without a smile. On one of the first nice days of Spring, I went roller blading with Emily on the campus sidewalks. That’s when I remember feeling happy and at home there for the first time.   

            Then in May 2009, I moved back home to my parents’ house after my college graduation. I piled all of my stuff from my college apartment into my car and then 90 miles later, I unloaded it into my childhood bedroom.  I was sentimental that night.  I had graduated in 3 years, so I left a year before my close friends.  I was sad to leave them.  I leaned against my bed and felt an empty disappointment that Emily and I would never be roommates again. 

            I knew it was a new season, but I knew the transition from being a full-time student to being a full-time ministry leader wouldn’t be easy for me.  It’s tough to leave what you know.  It’s tough to be a rookie.

            Today I watched my dad manhandle my grandparents’ fridge into my house.  (Thanks, Dad.) Today I met with my bank to close.  Tomorrow I meet with my construction manager one last time.  The next few days will bring loading furniture onto truck beds and packing up my things and unloading boxes.

            I am 26—I’ll be 27 in 2 weeks.  I don’t have a good track record of transitioning without tears. Don’t get me started with how much I cried when Peyton Manning left the Colts.  But I guess that’s me, and I guess I’m cool with being independent and sentimental at the same time.  New things are always exciting, and I’m so happy and thankful right now to be moving into my new home.  But I know myself enough to know that I don’t need to try to transition without tears.  J