Did we overcome and shall we now thrive

December 9, 2013 By Leave a Comment

lush, thrive, life, gorgeous, overcome

On the very first day of the year, I made a declaration:

I will not be overcome any circumstance, no matter how much it just plain sucks.

I was speaking of my seizures, and I made a promise to myself and to you that I would not be the victim of my condition any longer. Even if nothing changed in the details of my life, I refused to let my illness define me.

I also invited you to join me in a year of overcoming.

As we near the end of the year, it seems a good time for some reflection. It time for some tough questions, both for me and for you:

How often did we allow circumstances beyond our control to rule our reactions, which we do control?

Did we allow hope to give way to despair regularly in our daily living?

Did anyone else notice that we were trying to overcome?

It was a year of mixed success for me. I definitely had some growth. Just the other day, I had a friend of mine tell me that I inspire him every time he sees me, because he knows I am in the midst of a battle each day. And I never give up.

Most days I can see in myself a resilience, a defiant refusal to succumb to the darkness that awaits on the fringes of my consciousness. I know what yielding to the darkness brings in my life – depression, anxiety, anger, and fearful concerned whispers from my family.

Unfortunately, I know this from recent history. I have not always had the strength to stand against the raging insecurity that my seizures bring. Some days, I lose. I miss trains and feel sorry for myself. I make baffling mistakes at work and fall into the heaviness of doubt.

My anger has exploded on more than one occasion. In one instance, it changed our family dynamics forever. Though I know many factors were in play, I also understand that my anger predicated the pain, confusion and misery that every member of my family is enduring.

So overcoming has been challenging, to say the least. But now, I know why:

Maintaining a stance of overcoming each day is exhausting. It requires a staunch almost militaristic approach to life. And I don’t have to stamina for it, so some days I fail. Just from exhaustion.

Plus, life is not meant to be a battle. We ought not approach every day with a “gotta win” attitude. We learn to ask the wrong questions of our moments.

Instead, I am learning to focus on blooming where I am planted. On thriving in every moment of the day. This is my theme for 2014:

THRIVE

I will be sharing thoughts on what it means to THRIVE throughout the year. I also invite you to share this journey with me. I would love to host your thoughts on thriving anytime between now and this time next year.

What imagery comes to your mind with the word thrive?

More Than an Adoption

December 4, 2013 By 1 Comment
joy, happiness, Christmas, unadulerated, anticipation, presents, adoption

Photo by Monkey Mash Button (Creative Commons)

I have the privilege of sharing one of my favorite Christmas memories as part of a tremendous series on Rebekah Gilbert’s site A New Song to Sing site. Here is a snippet:

I will never forget the Benavidez family. About a decade ago, our home Bible study adopted the Benavidezes for Christmas. My wife found them through a connection she had with Christian Family Care Agency.

We received the details for the mom and her five kids, and we asked our small group to sign up for different family members. We encouraged everyone to be generous, because God is generous with us. But we were not expecting the turnout we received.

The week before Christmas, our small group stuffed four vehicles with presents, piled in and drove over to the Benavidez home. Before we walked into their duplex, we spent a few quick moments in prayer.

God, let us be a blessing.

Let us represent Your kindness generously.

Allow us to be the hope of Jesus with skin on.

 I knocked on the door, and…you can read the rest here…

The Power of One

November 25, 2013 By 6 Comments
friendship, power, warts, me, no judgment

Photo by ferran pestaña (Creative Commons)

I spoke briefly last week about community. There is something amazing that happens when a group of people gathers together, digitally or otherwise, for a single purpose that is greater than them.

But this pales in comparison to what can happen when one person decides to love and care and invest in you, no matter what.

There is release in knowing someone sees your warts but chooses you anyway.
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Those of us who claim Christianity as our tribe know that Romans 8 tells us God is for us, but it is different when it’s a human being, not a perfect and divine being, who is for us.

So often in my life, a single person choosing to be for me makes all the difference. I want to share two example of how one person changed the course of my life, with Jim and Kevin.

 Jim

Almost a year ago to the day, I met Jim. I was on a Facebook forum, declaring some quickly constructed writing goals for the next year. I mentioned 3 guest posts in the next year, and Jim responded – You can post on my site. Let’s talk.

After some chatting online, I sent him a draft post. It was brutal. I had walked around to block to cross the street in telling my story. And Jim told me as much. But not right away. First, he told me that I have a gift with writing. That I shouldn’t quit, because there is something special here.

We worked through a series of edits, all conspiring to make my post great, rather than mediocre. Then the unthinkable (to me) happened – my post garnered the most views and most comments in the month it was posted. Jim told me that, and then said, “I don’t know why you are surprised. You are a good writer Chris, and people want to hear your stories.”

Since then, I count Jim as more a friend than an editor. But I am really not overstating things when I say that his belief in me a year ago helped me see that I writing could be a part of who I am.

For the record (and I am not trying to pitch Jim as the answer to all problems…since he isn’t), Jim writes regularly here and has an ebook on Amazon about goals that you should check out.

 Kevin

Kevin is one of my oldest friends. He is also one of the few people I know who could tolerate living with me and stay my friend afterwards. He was my roommate in college, and still wants to hang out with me.

That could be a sign of mental instability, but I digress.

Kevin has seen me at my worst. He saw me when I angrily stomped through a year of my life because I couldn’t forgive my father for the way he abused my family. More recently, he has been by my side as I dealt with the resurgence of my seizures. He has listened to me accuse God is being uncaring.

Never has he judged me or tried to correct me in the midst of my emotion. Even when his family circumstances were far worse than mine. Instead, he listened. He just listened. At some point later, he might point out how silly I sounded.

But usually, he just lets me be me. Warts and all. And he chooses to stay my friend.

I hope and pray you have at least one person who you can share your warts with. If you do, I would LOVE to hear about them.

 

Saturday Musings — Rain Pour Down

November 23, 2013 By 11 Comments

For the past several weeks I have been writing Saturday Musings. I talk about pain and hummingbird and giants. If you want to read all of them, you can click here. But today, the topic is rain.

rain, puddle, jumping, joy

Photo by hlkljgk (Creative Commons)

It rained all day yesterday here in Phoenix, and started me thinking about rain. Rain is a rich metaphor for many things.

It refreshes a parched land.

Its cleanses smoggy skies and dirty cars.

Rain brings new life.

As I pondered the meaning of rain, an unexpected prayer escaped my lips:

Lord, bring a rainy season in my life.

Couldn’t we all use some refreshing? Some cleansing? Some new life?

I feel like so many people are in a season of parchedness, where every movement is a struggle. Every reward comes at great cost, whether that cost be financial or relational or emotional.

It is time for some rain.

Another thing rain brings that we could use is joy. Who doesn’t remember jumping in puddles and giggling gleefully (whether this would make our parents happy or not? Life is hard, but we still need unadulterated joy in our lives.

It is time for some rain.

Rain is the signal for a change in seasons. Sometimes the rain signals the beginning of the monsoon season here in Arizona. In other locales, a good rainstorm shows the start of fall. In Seattle, it signals…okay, no metaphor is perfect. We need a change of seasons, a time for new beginnings, a new hope.

It is time for some rain.

 

Community Dudes and Early Risers

November 21, 2013 By 20 Comments
Jeff Daniels, Lebowski, The Big Lebowski, Dude, Community, Dudes

Photo by vidmon (Creative Commons)

Community is a tough word to define, depending on context. The “community center” means the place designed for a geographic area. The “community of believers” generally speaks to geography in part, but also a similarity of beliefs. And then there is Community, the sitcom filled with pop culture references and Chevy Chase.

But what does it mean to have community? How does it help when our world is falling apart, or our insecurities rise up and threaten to overtake us?

The answers look a little different for everyone, but there are some commonalities – safety, common interests, vulnerability, and a willingness to give and receive support.

I have basically stumbled into a community that is a lifeline for me. We are literally just a bunch of guys who write. One of us live in Tennessee, while another lives in the UK and still another works with students in Sarajevo.

We are CPAs, journalists, government employees, and self-employed businessmen. We write about faith. We are fiction writers. We encourage others to chase their dreams.

Honestly, it might be tough to find a more difficult mix of passions and energies and focus if you tried. Yet we have community.

Talking with these dudes is one of my three favorite places on the Internet.

I won’t be judged. I will be encouraged. If I am being weak, I will be called on the carpet. I will be loved. I will be pushed to be the best writer I can be, while not judged for still being in process toward that person. More importantly, I will be pushed to be the best dude I can be. This is priceless for me, and rare in my life. I hope you have a community like this.

I mentioned three favorite places. Let me tell you a little about my other favorite places.

If you have a chronic illness of any type and don’t have a community, I invite you to consider looking into the small Facebook community called Ill But Dreaming. It exists to support those of us with chronic illness. I know there are so many of us, and we need a place to talk.

To inspire each other. To give each other courage to dream. To hope. To live.

Speaking aloud our fears can shine light into places of darkness that don’t need to be. Here, hopefully, you can be yourself WITH your diseases, rather than having to put on a brave face and smile for the world around you when all you need is for someone to give you a hug.

And the third is equally unique. I have another group that is full of safety and creativity and honesty for me. We started as a group of writers trying to encourage one another to get up at 5 am and hustle hustle hustle. Over time, we became so much more. Now we share ideas, and fears, and ask each others’ opinions on blog post titles and newsletter designs and we wonder together what could be if we jumped 150% into pursuing our dreams. All from agreeing together (and really mostly failing) to support one another in getting up way too early.

The lesson I learned from this group is that you  never know where you will find community, but it is always a wonderful blessing.

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