never been here before

mar·gin·al·ize : treat (a person, group, or concept) as insignificant or peripheral. Most of my life I’ve felt like a social pariah.  In high school, I was never pretty enough or athletic enough to be accepted. (I wish I’d known then the importance of music and that it would one day become a career for me, so that I would have felt less horrible about it. None of the popular kids in school use their athletic ability or good looks in their career, which makes me sound petty and small, but let’s face it, all us social pariahs think this way. … if we’re being honest.) And I really thought the social pariah status would go away at some point in my life. But then this happened .   And two big emotions caught me as a result: in the moment, complete relief. As my post says, I actually felt a weight lift from my shoulders when I was told that there was a reason no one understood me and it wasn’t my entire fault. In the years since, though, I’ve also settled into a rather ...

Being left out is one of the worst feeling in the world. Yes, as an adult, I still really believe that. Perhaps it's because of how often I was left out of things in my childhood that makes this still a challenge today. And there is such a part of me right now that is screaming, "Won't you ever grow up? Won't you ever just get over it?" As children, we are told by our parents that being left out is "their loss" and the familiar, "they don't know what they will be missing" and then, of course, "You're too good for them anyway" would often come from the mouths of friends. Which means nothing when you are at your grandmother's house after school and her next door neighbor is a classmate having a birthday party that she did not invite you to. My 4th grade heart was crushed. I still remember standing in my grandma's driveway while I watched all the other girls in my class run around in the yard playing games, without ...

One of the most interesting aspects of my job involves remnants. It's amazing what you find when you are cleaning and sorting through a church cabinet or closet. Everything from old bandages from a first aid kit to curriculum from 1987 to pictures of kids in the nursery from 10 years ago to construction paper scraps are discovered. There are keys to things we don't know about (see above pic) and crayons. Each person who touched those items, each kid who used them in Sunday school… they are part of the larger story of the body of Christ and the kingdom work God is doing in this place. One of my favorite ways to decorate any space around me, whether it be my office at work or my home living space, is to fill is with things that have memories attached to them. I love looking up from my desk at work and seeing a frame piece of parchment paper with the lyrics to Amazing Grace on it. I love it because it causes me to remember the church I served in  Nebraska  for many ye...

When I grabbed my phone off the charger this morning to toss it in my purse and head out the door to work, I glanced at it briefly and discovered my entire screen filled up with facebook messages from high school classmates. The group had been trying to plan a reunion, so it wasn't unusual to see these messages on my phone’s screen. But the message this time carried much different news than reunion plans. Grief is a strange thing. We've lost two classmates already to unexpected, early deaths. Other classmates have lost parents and other family members. But now, one of us had lost a child. It’s probably been ten years since I have seen anyone from my graduating class. I’ve moved around a lot – Kansas , Colorado , Nebraska , Missouri and now Arizona . And since I wasn't particularly close to anyone in my class, I haven’t made an effort to call or exchange emails over the years. I left high school behind the year I graduated and haven’t really looked back. ...

When I find myself trying not to look across the room, wondering. When I find myself waiting for that acceptance in some form of contact. When I find myself assuming rather than knowing. When I find myself waiting and hoping that this isn’t really rejection but just miscommunication. When I find myself asking “was it something I did?” When deep down I am really just asking myself “is it something I am?” Everyone hates rejection. That does not make me special. The desperate pain we all feel when rejection hits our hearts and the ache causes our chests to cave in and our breathing to become shallow. This is real. But perhaps I am the only one who feels this way. I find myself desperate to mend the feelings of rejection that seems ingrained in my soul… that crop up when an expectation isn’t met, when an invitation isn’t extended. When leaving feels like rejection, even though it isn’t always. When criticism tears open a wound where a freshly healed scar was mended by a prayer...

I grew up on a farm. That doesn't mean much in my life now, for I’ve always been a city kind of girl. My mom made sure there was more than just farm culture in my life growing up and I have fond memories of trips to see the Nutcracker, Broadway shows, museums and all others kinds of things that she believed would make me a more well-rounded person. I was still the girl who had to get up at 6am in the summer and help her brother irrigate. The girl who rode on the back of pickup truck and shucked sweet corn after a morning in the field, picking it by hand. I was still the girl who mowed an acre and half of lawn on the homestead, rode horses when she could, and had a chore list. I was also the girl that got lost in the music of Miss Saigon and Les Miserablés , lived my life with rich imagination (okay, it was more like my version of a pop music video but… whatever) and wanted to know more about Van Gogh, devoured The Catcher in the Rye and was often brought to tears by...

I've been refreshing my mind on adaptive leadership of late, as some significant changes are happening in my job. Three themes are on my heart today, and when something is on my heart I will loos sleep until I write about it. Influence ___ I've been placed in a position of great influence, pretty much by accident (on my part.) But I am aware of the power I now hold and have been prayerfully processing how best to use this in grace, challenge and love. Influence must never been abused, and must always be used selflessly and with wise discretion. There is another term for this kind of influence - most of the terms are nouns. Some call it a "power-broker" (I first heard this when I read the book "Transitioning" by Dan Southland). PBS went so far as to call it "The Merchants of Cool" in one of their best episodes. Some simply may call them influencers or leaders. I call it terrifying. I've spent a fair amount of time in the last six week...