Author: Erin

I write - all the time - mostly random thoughts on that which makes me happy every day of my life.
Words in Sentences

408 Months Today!! 

by Erin1 Comment on 408 Months Today!! 

Today is my birthday! I am 408 months old.

I know what you’re thinking.. “She doesn’t look 408 months old!”

Ok. Or maybe you’re thinking “Erin. Why are you sitting in a basket.”

Here’s the deal. Every single day the Internet provides us “10 things to make us something” for us to read, memes to engage in, and pictures to like.. To like.. To like. The social media world plays with us and I wanted to play back with this particular meme.

But – true to form – this of course points to something bigger for me…

There are pictures of vacations we want to go on, babies we want to hold, houses we want to have, meals we want to eat… There are things we admire and wish we could do. (For example, sitting in a basket with your age in months on your chest..)

It’s really easy to look at life on Facebook or to share life on Facebook and yet forget to live.

This week, I fell in love with Psalm 105:4.

It goes like this:

“Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always.”

As I round this corner and start my 34th year, I find this verse so so so pressingly affirmative. It’s not “Look for the Lord”. It’s “Look to”. Omnipresence. Always there. God is sure as shoot everywhere you are…

Even on Facebook.

I write this because I think we all need God’s strength. And not just for the biggies in life but for the everything.

If it isn’t strength to allow God in your here and now; accepting impermanence and moving forward then it’s strength to allow God to plant seeds of compassion so you can be aware of those who have lost.

If it’s not strength to take care of your body through higher self control, it’s strength to be modest even when you can easily grab attention.

If it’s not strength to edit yourself and be mindful of others, it’s strength to let go of things and not take them personally.

There is strength in not taking yourself seriously.

Kindness and patience take strength.

I once wrote a post where I described how I tied fruits of the spirit to other life attributes. I noted what I think is a strong correlation between strength and kindness. I was asked by a friend who read the blog, “How did you connect strength to kindness?”

My answer is that I think they balance eachother. When you are called to submit to kindness, there is typically an equal call to let go of something – think of people who have been kind to you: they let go of their time, money, energy and gave to you instead.

True kindness means letting go.

Facebook, guys… Facebook is funny. It is so easily mindless but what if we saw our feeds as opportunities to tap into the strength of God?

To love even when we feel longing.

To edit even when we feel proud.

To keep sacred even what we want to share most.

To speak confidently even though it might not be understood.

To be funny even if somebody might think you’re stupid.

I don’t know.. Maybe I’m ridiculous. But I really do hear people talk about their anxiety, caution, lack of confidence, pain, jealousy, etc that creeps up because of social media. What if these feelings are calls to specifically find strength and be true to yourself?

To love yourself?

I woke up melancholy this morning. I was driving to work when realized I was dressed in all black. (Who wears all black on their birthday?! I have never..) 

I turned around and came home to reset. An hour later, I wrapped a conference call and then was full on sobbing for no reason. (Ya’ll know how much I looooooove blogging about crying. I’m a total crier!!)

The reason this is relevant? Because it was my moment to be kind to myself. I told my boss I needed some time. I took a personal phone call that was revitalizing. I put on blue yoga pants and a red tank top. Lit some candles. Got it going right on my birthday..

I now proceed into my day aware of how God’s strength swept me up. It’s not dramatic people! This is daily life. There wasn’t anything about this experience for me that has me worried or concerned or longing or calling my therapist! There was nothing to understand, only something to feel. And that was to be present and honest.

Present and honest.

Kind of like labor and delivery now that I think about it.

So there you go. And before I sign off…

Thank you, really, to everybody who supports this blog and who connects with me on my writing. When I was 3 (sorry I mean 36 months) I said wanted to be an apple tree when I grew up and, you know, I kind of feel like I am. :) XO

Words in Sentences

Church Women

by Erin1 Comment on Church Women

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This is my now fifth attempt to start and write  this blog post and I seriously know I just need to sleep.

But it’s there… it is right there on the tips of my fingers. And I have got to spit. it. out.

Church women.

I wasn’t even going to write tonight but as I sat with my “church woman” to do list, I naturally found myself in texts and emails with other church women. About the bags for the school, about the post for the blog, about the woman dying, about the new baby… All these messages flickering on my phone and coming in my inbox and I got the chills. Serious chills.

Church women are amazing. 

Being a church woman is amazing.

These breezy check-ins about who is caring for what and whom brought a Psalm to a new level of understanding.. I read it two weeks ago and have been playing with it since: “I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” (Psalm 27:13)

How true. And how much more “land of the living” can you get than an army of women nurturing nearly ever facet of the human experience through meals, prayers, and touch??

Even though I believe that intention can bring our spirit forth in our daily “run of the mill” (through minivans and limousines), I truly treasure the kingdom and goodness of God as you see it through the loving kindness and compassion exercised by women in a church community.

You can be a believer anywhere you want but what gave me the chills tonight was being connected into a touching and spiritually intimate aspect of the land of the living.

The passage ends with “Wait for the Lord; be strong – and let your heart take courage..”

And how much sense does that make! So much sense. Because when we are new to community or when a community is new or when people are growing and changing; it can be so easy to try and do something. You can try to talk and convince people of what is needed. You may even start doing things outside of your normal gifting. But – surely, we will see the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living – just *wait*. Sit still. Check in with the universe, so that the little magnets associated with your purpose can call out to it’s opposing forces and connection can commence. So your relationships will start to surface.. your community.. your purpose.

Building, encouraging, praying, loving – it’s such a good thing. I pray for all to find their plug in so they can serve and witness the way the spirit works in this manner!! Everybody has such unique gifts…

People need your gifts.

And now my eyes are seriously half way shut. Off to bed.. to the land of the sleeping. I’m sure I will see the goodness of the Lord there too.. lol :) xo

Words in Sentences

The Peace that Meets Longing – My Experience of Divorce’s Heart Ache

by Erin1 Comment on The Peace that Meets Longing – My Experience of Divorce’s Heart Ache

This is my ten year old daughter, Ellen, and her biological grandmothers. My mom is on the right in the white. Both the women and the girl in this picture hold such a profound part of my heart that words just simpy don’t work here.

It’s real love.

The realist of the real.

It has been ten years that I have spent loving this child but probably closer to twenty five years that I have spent dreaming about her.

I remember laying in bed as a young girl, imagining being a mother and picturing a room for two daughters. I imagined award ribbons and pictures and momentos tacked to a cork board.

I had such good ideas for how my life would work.

Relationships.

*sigh*

Relationships (of all kinds) are simply put the best and worst part of human living. It’s incredible to love even with the inevitable grief. For in the suffering that comes with human relating we get to experience compassion. And it’s this compassion that is the core of what makes “relationship” so much to be prized: to have love is to have hurt is to have compassion.

In John 14:27, Jesus says “my peace I give to you, my peace I leave with you”. He says this to secure the comfort of our hearts. Even when he is gone – beloved teacher, shepherding friend – his peace is present.

Tonight my house filled up with people and love and laughter to celebrate Ellen’s birthday. For the first time in ten years, the dinner was on – house set – candles lit – prior to first guests arriving. Throwing a dinner for twenty gets easier but the following does not..

Hours later the house emptied. Until even my lovely ten year old and her darling sidekick Lucy were buckled into their dad’s car which pulled out of the driveway to go back to the land of Netflix and cocoa puffs, cable and ping pong to complete “dad week”.

I walked back into my colorful home that smelled like the warmth of red sauce with a hint of cinnamon and overall calm. I found the silence and the emptiness both soothing and shattering and allowed the wave of it all to wash over me.

As I sat crying – heavy tears – I thought about all the mothers longing for their babies as I longed deeply for mine. The ones born, the ones to be born, the ones that may never be born, the ones born and passed.

I thought of the marriages and relationships that suffer from demons and closets and skeletons. That suffer from selfishness and fear. That are choked by anxiety and drowned with depression.

I thought of how I wished I knew the root of sin. How I wished I could close in on the little tick of sin that breaks good things and lock it away. This way people don’t have to hurt. This way longing and sadness and loneliness don’t happen.

This way birthday parties last forever.

Then I thought – “Erin, my peace I give to you – my peace I leave with you.” And instantly I allowed my heart to enter the loving compassion of Christ and I cried not needing answers.

Surely we want to understand so much! Surely we want plans and tactics. We think of what we need that may relieve us. We think of how to get to the root and change the course. But really –  perhaps in these moments when our hearts gasp, we are to resist allowing our minds to stir and the urge to try and figure something out.

Maybe, instead, we are to accept an invitation to enter into God’s peace.

It was left for us. We should rest in it.

In Phillipians Paul writes “May the peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and your minds in Jesus Christ.” (Phil 4:7)

And it’s so true, guys, it’s so true – peace is here for us. We are invited into peace when our hearts are quaking. This peace guards us.

It allows us to cry and drip snot on our floor and not have answers. It is when we enter this without the need to know that we get to experience divine compassion.

And it’s this —

Hmmmmm….

It’s this experience of compassion that I guess really allows us to be free from the world. It’s like when we fell as kids, skinned our knee and freaked out at the blood to then have somebody’s loving warmth and care calm us down. All was made right. We forgot about the trauma.

What we want from people and relationships is valid… our sadness is valid. Our longing is valid.

So feel it —

— in doing so, I have found equal to this is the validity of calm and freedom.

Which we can also so feel. 

Valid is the power of God to be compassionately present and working always and forever in our lives.

Amen. Namaste.

ps: hug your babies if you got em ;) for all the mamas who can’t.