never been here before

I am linking up for Five Minute Friday. The FMF is hosted by Kate Motaung on her blog Heading Home . Today’s prompt is “Place.” http://fiveminutefriday.com .  I’ve lived in a lot of places for my age, so I’m told. Nebraska. Kansas. Colorado. Nebraska again. Missouri. Arizona. Kansas again.  All of these places have good and bad memories attached to them. When a hint of them crosses my mind, sometimes it’s joy and sometimes it’s sorrow. And as with most people, I wanted to find my place at each place. But I’m not sure I ever have. I don’t want to go down the road of, “of course I’m the different one” again. I do that far too often in my life. But I have struggled, in each new start, to figure out where I fit in. What I could offer this new place. What it could offer me. I far too often associate a place with doing. When it really should be about being. While I still believe that God is ever-changing me, I am still me in each place. I bring a n...

I’ve never been to a writer’s retreat. The fact is, I don’t really consider myself a writer, though I do occasionally call myself that. There is a tension in “being” a writer and just being someone who writes, I guess. We started out the retreat with the question of, “Am I called to write?” And for some many of the women there, they are called to do this. They can’t imagine NOT writing. I guess I feel that way, too. But I also don’t have that drive… that call to the pen and paper. My call is different. Writing may be part of my call, but I don’t think it’s primarily my call. I wanted to come to the retreat because I’ve been struggling with only feeling inspired to write when things are hard. My inspiration tends to come from emotional pain, which I haven’t had a lot of recently. So I wanted to see what the answer to that might be… what it looks like to write in all circumstances. So my reflection during the weekend really centered around this. But then Friday night, Christ...

I feel my heart bursting out of my chest and suddenly I cannot stop myself. The words pour out of me,racing from my brain to my heart to the fingers and onto my computer and  It's like I just threw up. I long for those burstings. Those moments I just cannot contains and words are so important, feelings too explosive, and meaning too valuable to stay inside me. To be inspired is far too often a rare thing for me, to be inspiring is what I long for all day long.  For inspiration to hit... for it to fall through me like a rock falling off a 20 story building... it can be unstoppable. Which also means it can hurt. I've had moments where my words are pain to others. Nights where my heart has rushed out onto my computer screen and the next thing I know, I've undone a friendship.  Where is the line between letting my words speak the truth and keeping those words contained? Where is that place where I can be certain that this inspiration is something tha...

I am linking up for Five Minute Friday. The FMF is hosted by Kate Motaung on her blog Heading Home. Today’s prompt is “Collect.” We’d love to have you join us on Thursday nights for our Twitter party. Don’t forget to check out FMF’s new home at http://fiveminutefriday.com.  Today was a weird day. I was overly emotional for just about everything - stuff I was working on, things I read on the internet, music I listened to. These over the top emotions were connected to memories. They brought about feelings of regret, loss, pain, sadness... connected to people, places, situations... Memories are merely collections. They can function as the graveyard for our souls, or the scrapbook of our hearts. Most of the time it's both. Our collection of memories can send us into a tailspin of regret or take us to a place of love and a sense of belonging. I would love to figure out how to un-collect those memories that bring those feelings of regret and loss and pain. With all the...

There's been a trend in the last few years talking a lot about the importance of authenticity. Which, of course, is nothing new. Churches have been having conversations about authenticity for the last 10 years at least, seeing that the new generation of adults attending church were turned off by big concerts and light shows that became so popular in the 90s. Brené Brown brought forth to us what living in shame does for our souls, and the culture around us continues to tell us to simply "be who we are, no matter what anyone else says". There are good things in this authenticity. For myself, it fed a certain part of my personality in some unhealthy ways. Earlier this year, I took a class where learning my Enneagram type was part of the experience. After I learned my type (I'm a 4) and meeting with a counselor about my test results for that and other personality tests we took, I was broken. The other tests I'd taken were nothing new to me, but learning...

  Fall Wow. Is it ever disconcerting to have Lorelei not in Connecticut. I feel like I should say something about the “the pack is too full” bit. But it’s not really all that funny to me. Has the book (movie) really spawned this whole culture of women doing this trail thing? “Of being dressed like this?” I love Lauren’s line reading here. I don’t know why I find it so funny.  That hat is so Lorelai. Jason Ritter! But I wanted more from that scene. Rory in that red dress and jean jacket? So cute. Wow. Luke is a hot mess without Lorelai. The whole laptopper/coffee house/headphone/no talking thing is kind of freaking me out. Have we really devolved this far since 2005? Really? The movie girls brought the laptop on the hike?  Ok, considering these girls are “the book” why are all the questions about relationships or drugs? Does no one remember the REAL reason Cheryl needed to do the hike? I mean, I guess there were other reasons, but...