Category: Faith/Spirituality

Faith/Spirituality, forgiveness

“Gimme some-whole-ness”

Heather Carter

It’s probably not a coincidence that I came up with an idea to write a blog on “unwholesome talk” while I was running (or trying to run) on a treadmill. Remember how in my book I talk about how the doctors made a note on my medical chart that says “she runs marathons”? Well, I did run two half marathons right before I got Leukemia but haven’t run since. Thus the “unwholesome talk” blog epiphany. It wasn’t like I was letting the profanity fly or anything, but I was definitely abusing myself mentally and verbally: “What is wrong with me?” “Everyone else is running-I’m so out of shape!” “That girl next to me is just showing off!” “I’ll never be as fast or thin as her, and she looks about 10 years older than me!”. You get the idea.

There is a biblical principle in Ephesians 4:29 warning us to “not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful…that it may benefit those who listen.” Well guess what, I was listening to myself and it was not helpful at all. I used to think this verse was mostly addressing flat out cussing or mean-speech and potentially some pretty dirty and outright judgmental gossip. But that’s just the obvious stuff. Most people, even those who don’t really have a commitment to living like Jesus asks us to, believe that kind of talk is detrimental to all involved. It’s that sneaky self-talk that we tend to accept without challenge.

The synonyms for “unwholesome” help me understand the damage this kind of talk can bring about: destructive, damaging, poisonous, harmful, ruinous, injurious, unnourishing. On the contrary, “wholesome” is defined as conducive or valuable to our physical, mental or moral well-being. And I would add our spiritual well-being as well. You have heard of the golden rule (which also originates from God’s plan for how we should love each other in Matthew 22:39): Love your neighbor/others as you love yourself. The problem is, most of us do. When we are cruel, critical, judgmental and harsh with others, it is most likely because we are cruel, critical, judgmental and harsh on ourselves. Our self-talk is “unwholesome”. Practically, this means I have keep to my thoughts and words in check, mostly when I am frustrated or disappointed in myself. I need to catch and redirect phrases like “I am such an idiot!”, “I’ll never be able to ….”, “I am always screwing that up”, “I can’t seem to remember anything or keep details straight” (that’s one of my favorites-I try to blame the Chemo but apparently Leukemia chemo doesn’t have that side effect. Whatever), or “I will never be __________ enough”.

The kind of talk I participate in with and about others starts with how I talk to myself.  I have to ask myself if my silent and out-loud words bring “some-whole-ness” to my life? If the answer is yes, then I am on the right track and it will be much more natural for me to bring “some-whole-ness” to others when I open my mouth. As usual, if I want to bring love, joy, peace and happiness the world around me, it has to begin with me taking tender, thoughtful and gracious care of myself. My wholesome talk has to start with me.

awareness, Faith/Spirituality, gratitude, identity, Relationships, Serenity, Trust

49er (almost 50 but not quite!)

Heather Carter

Tomorrow is my birthday. It’s not the big 5-0, but I will be turning the number only one year away from that. I can hardly stand to even talk about that right now. So let’s just look backwards instead. I remember when I turned 30 I was sorely disappointed because in my twenties I envisioned myself being a “wise woman of God” by the time I arrived at that mile marker. Needless to say, that was “no-go”. I remember my 40th birthday well. A group of ladies went out to dinner with me at Indigo restaurant. It was a special time. My husband and I also celebrated our 40th by going to Grand Cayman for a week! It was awesome, but, side note, as I opened the doors on the veranda of our hotel room at the Ritz Carlton…again, on my FORTIETH birthday….there was a supermodel doing a photo shoot right below us. In a swimsuit. Sprawling across a speedboat. Posing and working the camera with great fervor. She was there for some sort of supermodel convention that would begin in a couple days. Supermodels trickled in throughout the week. I remember laying on the beach as they literally carried said supermodel across the sand to her next shoot about 20 feet away from me. Perrrrfect.

I had sort of blocked out that part of my birthday history until just now….

So, back to my original reason for writing. It’s not to get you to tell me happy birthday tomorrow. It’s about what I have come to understand about life and birthdays: God’s plan is better than mine. It would be easy for me to get pretty sad if I think about the fact that 50% of those friends that celebrated me on my 40th birthday are no longer in my life. Or when I recollect that after my 40th birthday my life pretty much imploded (or exploded?) and has been a serious learning curve ever since. Up until that point of my life I don’t think I ever really knew the pangs of betrayal, heartbreak, terror, rage or despair. I guess I was lucky to not experience it until 40, and for that I am grateful.

But here I am, 9 years later, and I have new eyes to see with as a result of what God has brought me through. I am still not the “wise woman of God” I had wished to turn into when I was 30. But that’s ok. What I am, or in the process of becoming, is more joyful, more humble, more content, more relaxed, more vulnerable and authentic. I am also becoming less of a few things: less judgmental, less angry, less fearful, less insistent on my own way. I have come to realize that though I would not have chosen to go through the struggles I have faced in the past almost-decade, God used them to mold me into a person I finally like. I finally feel like I am leaning in to what He wants for me instead of trying to manipulate him into giving me what I think will make me happy.

I had to go through the fire to reap the benefits of the refinement that comes only through the intense heat of extreme circumstances. There is no other way but through if you want the serenity that comes from trusting God in every single event, challenge, opportunity, accident or heartache that comes your way. Don’t get me wrong, I certainly was not bravely challenging the storm to “bring it on!” most of the time. But I didn’t give up or curl up. I trudged away. I found new friends to celebrate with these past few years. Though I had to say goodbye to many relationships, I have added more than double what I lost. My life is richer now as a result. I would say that I know and interact with at least 100 more people that have blessed my world, all as a result of circumstances that seemed as if they would be the figurative and even literal death of me.

When I was reading Oswald Chambers this morning, I skipped ahead to the reading for my birthday. Here’s what I read and what I will do my best to remember until I turn 50 (at which point we can chat about whatever new revelations God has brought my way…):

“If a man or woman is called of God, it does not matter how untoward (read: horrific, undesirable, agonizing, disappointing, sucky, etc.) fcircumstances are, every force that has been at work will tell for God’s purpose in the end. If you agree with God’s purpose He will bring not only your conscious life, but all the deeper regions of your life which you cannot get at, into harmony.”

Thank you God. Happy Birthday to me.

awareness, Change, Faith/Spirituality, Growth

“Vacation, all I ever wanted…”🎼🎤

Heather Carter

I don’t know why I haven’t written for so long. Well, actually, yes I do. I think I allowed myself to believe a lie. I convinced myself, unintentionally of course, that if I didn’t have anything new and enlightening to talk about I shouldn’t bother. If God wasn’t shining a sunbeam down on me and writing a message on the wall, then why bore anyone with my drivel. Well lucky for you 😝 I’ve come to my senses. And how exactly did that happen, you ask? Let me explain.

Some of you know that this summer, my daughter Emma, spent time serving at a camp in Oregon. So it was just Bennett and Blake and I here. Made for a pretty quiet house with no girl for me to jabber with! On August 9th Bennett and Blake drove to Las Vegas where Bennett will live with family for the next year or so. I flew out Saturday and met them there. I spent the next Morning with an “escapee” from Springfield who moved there a few years ago. Then we hung with my in-laws (grandparents and Blake’s sister and fam) and headed to the strip for dinner that night. The next morning Blake and Bennett and I drove to LA, checked in to our hotel and I headed to the airport to pick up Emma who flew in from her summer in Oregon. We all spent 5 days there visiting our son Berkeley and were joined later in the week by his sweet girlfriend Kinze. After doing Disney (meeting up with some other “escapees” from Springfield), Laguna beach and Paramount Studios (where Berk works), Emma, Bennett, Blake and I headed to Napa, California to see my parents, my siblings and their children. Oh, and for the record, we drove 4 hours from Vegas to LA, spent about a jillion hours in LA traffic during the week (Lord, have mercy), and drove 6 hours to Napa before we flew back to St. Louis and then drove 2 hours home. The next day Emma started school and we headed back to catch up at our jobs. We had fun fun fun but does anyone else feel exhausted from just reviewing that schedule? It’s not even that it was exhausting, it’s that during times of extreme busyness and positive distractions, I tend forget some of the priorities that keep my soul on track.

So, when I think I have nothing new to say, I am right. But that is no reason to stop writing. Being on vacation for 10 days reminds me of a core truth about myself, and maybe some of you can relate: repetition/routine=reflection/remembering. You see, when I am on vacation, my daily routine goes out the window. Things aren’t normal, because “I’m on vacation.” My time clock is off and am out later than normal, I am sleeping with 4 people in the same hotel room and eating and drinking foods that are not on my regular diet and I have little to no time alone. I forget to take my vitamin that I have taken every other day of the year without even thinking about it and forget to take off my eye make up at night which, as a woman, should never ever happen🙃. Routine of working out is easily discarded and my morning reading regiment is postponed until I return back to “normal life”. It’s like I take a vacation from everything that’s good for me in order to “celebrate” being on vacation! Which of course, sounds insane now that I type it out.

Here’s the thing; I am painfully human and have an astounding capacity to forget. If I don’t have routine and set aside time to reflect on and review what I say I believe or want to change or improve on, those principles and goals become a vapor and disappear into thin air. when I regularly write and read what I write, I am reminded of what I believe. I remember that even though I say in every other blog that trying to manipulate God or other people to get them to do what I want is no good, it takes me about 2 days/hours to live out the opposite (just one of many recurring themes).

Though it’s not ideal to do vacation without all the good routine/reflection, it’s drastically more dangerous to get in to such a pattern of neglect, busyness, distraction, avoidance, ignorance, etc. at home. For me, it is imperative that I set aside time, intentionally and without waver, to do what I know is good for my body, mind and soul. What I repeat, I learn from, even if by accident. I form habits for healthy and positive and beautiful living through repetition, review and reflection.

I had a wonderful vacation. I am sad to be home in some ways because I am reminded that we are minus 2 boys that are on the other side of the country. And living in reality is much harder than the blissful denial that defines “vacation Heather”. And yet, I know that even though every-day-life is rarely glamorous, It’s here that I grow. I slow down a bit, I integrate routine and discipline back into my daily living. I remind myself that it’s ok to read and re-read books on the same dang topics. It’s ok to write and repeat myself. I am never so advanced that I will not need to be regularly reminded of what I believe and how I then should act. I can not afford to take a vacation from that.

Faith/Spirituality, identity, Uncategorized

Mental “Woolgathering”

Heather Carter

At the risk of offending any Shepherds, I am going to take the concept of wool-gathering a bit out of context because, well, I am determined to use the idea to clarify the dangers of a lackadaisical mind. The concept of mental “woolgathering” typically refers to a mind given to daydreaming or idle/fanciful thinking. Nothing ultimately wrong with that if done on occasion and when you aren’t supposed to be focused on learning something important or listening attentively to someone you care about. But here’s where I tend to get myself into trouble with it: the gathering part. You see, our minds are active, having thousands of thoughts every few seconds. And as innocent as most of those may seem, there are thoughts that repeat, that we “gather”, that can give us brain damage.

“Woolgathering” is derived from the activity of people who would scour bushes and fences, collecting the wool the sheep left behind after rubbing against or getting snagged on them. I imagine they would then take it to someone who would use it to make blankets or clothing. The more wool you accumulate, the bigger the blanket you could make.

I feel like this is a perfect metaphor for what happens in my mind if I am not mindful about what I am allowing to enter it. No thoughts are harmless, especially if they are repeated and have to do with worry, fears, doubts about my self-worth or whether I am “enough”(you fill in the blank for what you wonder if you are enough of). When I am not intentional about what I think (whatever is good, whatever is lovely, whatever is kind, pure, positive, etc.), if I allow thoughts that are untrue or negative about me or others, and dwell on them or ruminate on them, I am “gathering wool.” Each additional thought adds more wool to a blanket of guilt/shame/pessimism/cynicism/disdain/arrogance/judgmentalism. It’s a blanket that covers and smothers.

It’s pretty challenging to never have a thought that shouldn’t be there; a thought that can accumulate and destroy us over time. Our best hope, maybe, is that when we come across a nasty piece of wool, to pick it up, acknowledge it for what it is, open our hand, and let it blow away. What we think about repetitively becomes our reality. It can define who we are, how we act and even cause physical harm to our bodies.

We were created to choose what we allow ourselves to think about. Or at least dwell on. It takes lots of intentional practice to create a new default setting in our brain. One where our first thoughts are the thoughts of God: wise, discerning, compassionate, selfless, tender, loving. But our nature is “transformed by the renewing of our minds” (Romans 12:2).

So pay attention to what wool you have been gathering. Maybe you need to pull that loose strand at the end of some pretty ugly blankets you have been knitting for years. Let each one unravel and free you from the weight. Keep pulling until it disappears. Refuse to gather any more wool to add to it or start over. Guard your mind. Let the thoughts that do not come from God blow away. Eventually, you will learn to not pick them up at all. Eventually you will learn to only gather the good stuff. Remember,”as a man thinketh in his heart, so he is.” (Proverbs23:7)

Faith/Spirituality, gratitude

Celebrating Emma…

Heather Carter

On July 20th, our only daughter turned 18. Kind of a big deal, I’d say. Helping her celebrate took some creativity on our part and I have to say, it was one of the best birthdays I have ever had. 😂 I realize it wasn’t my birthday, but the joy of celebrating hers was better than celebrating my own! You see, she is currently living in Oregon for the summer. So, not only is she 1,718 miles away, she can only have her phone on weekends and had to leave the camp for the weekend of her birthday because it was being used for a retreat. But, leave it to Emma, she has made many friends already and arranged to go home with a new friend for the weekend. She had told me she didn’t want any gifts because her pile of gifts, between me and grandparents, was already getting pretty big and she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to get them home! I listened a little bit but knew she would want a little something to open on her birthday so I sent a small package of unique and small gifts and arranged for it to arrive at the home where she was staying. As we talked (after she got her phone back!) she mentioned how excited she was when she realized she would be able to take an actual bath (in private in a clean tub, vs group-shared showers at the camp). Enter Amazon Prime 2 day shipping. I immediately hopped on the site and sent a box of Bath Bombs to the home for delivery on her actual birthday. And this is my favorite gift of all: I spoke with her friend’s mom and arranged for her to pick up the most decadent and glorious dessert on the planet and Emma’s favorite, a Mud Pie from Baskin and Robbins.

During her birthday weekend, she went to Canon Beach, a place I have visited when I lived in Oregon as a child. This gave me such joy, seeing her share in a beautiful place that I could picture and remember. She also visited Multnomah Falls, another place I had been several times when I was young and have fond memories of.

I have been wondering about why I enjoyed Emma’s birthday so much, considering I didn’t get to see her or hug her or eat even one slice that Mud Pie. It’s obvious that I love her and want her to feel celebrated, which I believe she did, but my joy in it comes from doing something for someone I love dearly so that she feels how special she is to me. How valuable she is and how much energy and effort I put in to making her day unique but also with the familiarities of home.

It has occurred to me that this is how God surely feels about me and the good gifts he sets before me everyday. Sometimes I ask for them, but sometimes I don’t, and he gives them anyway-and he loves it! Sometimes, like Emma, I am content to live with what I have and he surprises me with blessings I didn’t even know I wanted-and he feels giddy with satisfaction that he has made my day. Any time I appreciate nature and the creation he has set before me to enjoy, he feels my pleasure and it warms his heart. And when I am grateful for the gifts, the answers to prayer and the surprise answers I didn’t think to ask for, he is deeply, warmly and fully satisfied.

God loves me as I love Emma. In helping her feel loved on her birthday, from Illinois to Oregon, I got a tiny glimpse of God’s intense and sweet love for me and can honestly say to him, “Now I know how you feel. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

awareness, Brokenness, Faith/Spirituality

Detoxing my mind…(Who’s Your Inner Critic part 2)

Heather Carter

My brain kinda hurts already, just thinking about thinking. A couple months ago I attended a conference and heard a Cognitive Neuroscientist speak about detoxing our minds. She says we do this by ridding our brains, or rather, retraining our thoughts, to eliminate toxic thinking patterns. Perhaps that talk is what has got me reflecting on how I talk to myself in my mind. Last time I wrote I told you about my inner critic, Miss Mary Poppins, who whispers judgment and harshness and criticism to me. I have listened to those words for so long that the repetitive nature of them has created neuropathways in my brain. Caroline Leaf showed actual pictures of the inside of a brain and what happens when a person has a thought. It fires up like a short squiggly line in your brain with every idea. Over and over this little zap occurs. But here’s the kicker, if the same thought is repeated over and over again, it wears an actual groove in your brain and eventually forms a little cluster of thoughts that get rooted in your mind, making it easier for them to happen the next time.

I have a few pathways that have been forged and frequently travelled over the years. There are two main ones that I want to tell you about today, but I know for sure that there are dozens more.

One recurring thought I have is some version of the following: “What is wrong with me?”. I can already hear my counselor saying to me, as he always does, “there’s nothing wrong with you.” I usually just blow him off and continue to tell him about something negative, childish or dumb that I did or thought. Instead of giving myself grace or permission to be less than perfect or a mere human, I beat myself up in my head about mistakes, failures or shortcomings. The more I have these kinds of thoughts, the more I believe them to be true about me. I am pretty certain I have a mass the size of an apple in my brain on this one.

The other pathway that I’m sure  leads to a mass the size of a grapefruit (just thought i would be consistent since all doctors seem to relate tumors to a size of fruit to illustrate severity!) is “I’m bad.” I don’t say it quite like that every time, of course, because that would be too obvious. I use Mary Poppin’s type words and phrases so it sounds intelligent and well thought through and much much more convincing. Again, my counselor calls me on it when I say something like, “I know I’m bad, but I…”. He reminds me for the thousandth time, “You’re not bad.”

The fact that I preface what I tell a counselor who, in theory, is paid to not judge me (at least on the outside), with “I know this is bad” tells me even more about how I think of myself. What does it say, you ask? It tells me that I often talk/think negatively about myself because I care too much what other people think of me. Think about that for a moment…I have a twisted belief in me that if I point out the “bad” in me to others ahead of time, then maybe they will be less hard on me or feel bad for doing so. If I just say it to myself, maybe I can avoid criticism or correction from others. I beat them to the punch, in essence.

Not to confirm what I am saying about myself, but that seems “bad”! The one positive thing I will say is that I’ve improved over the years. 12 Step programs and cancer and faith have helped that happen. I remember a long time ago (in galaxy far far away) in my marriage I did that a lot to avoid “getting in trouble” or just prevent my husband from finding out I wasn’t perfect (I’m sure he would have been shocked!). Basically, it’s a form of trying to control or manipulate what someone else thinks about me. Image Management, if you will. I would audibly beat myself up when I forgot to drop off a payment, send a lunch to school, or backed in to my husband’s cute red sports car with my minivan (hypothetically speaking, of course). I did this to hopefully prevent someone I loved from thinking ill of me or being, God forbid, mad or frustrated.

I don’t really know the root of all the reasons I tend to have lots of little zappy negative squiggles in my mind, but I am working on doing something to unravel them. I am becoming mindful enough to correct Mary Poppins and replace her words with kind, accepting, gracious, loving words that come from God. Words that I would whisper tenderly to those I love the most.

Anxiety/Worry, awareness, Brokenness, Faith/Spirituality, freedom, grace

Who’s your inner critic?

Heather Carter

You may have heard the saying, “hurt (adjective) people-hurt (verb) people”. I recently read through some notes I took from a speaker that had the quote, “free (adjective) people-free (verb) people”. Even though at my core I believe God’s grace received gives me the gift of being free at all times, I don’t always feel or live in that freedom. Sometimes I choose to sit in the jail cell even when the door to freedom is standing wide open. I guess the idea is that we often operate alongside and influence those we encounter based on what state we are currently living in. So, regarding my particular state, I would have to say I am a “wanna be”. And “wanna be free” people can often help other “wanna be free” people be, well, free. Or more acutely, I am a “wanna live free” person. Being free and living free are worlds apart. If you are one of those people, maybe you can join me in learning how to do this.

…I am laughing at myself, because at the end of that last sentence I started to type “better”. And therein lies the obstacle to why I don’t feel free in my head: I have terrible trouble accepting who am and being ok with me. With letting myself be enough of (fill in the blank). I am constantly trying to be better than I am right now. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, unless you berate and frown upon the person you are presently. How I talk to myself is so subtly abusive that I don’t even notice it most of the time. But the words and the beliefs those thoughts create in my brain-actual neuropathways-keep me from living light.

Maybe I am being too vague. Maybe it will help to have a visual. A few months ago I was privileged to do a book study with a group of women in leadership in Springfield. One of the weeks, our assignment was to characterize our “inner critic” and give him or her a name. Without thinking very long about it, I identified her as Mary Poppins. I am a pseudo-expert on her character, based on the fact that I have seen the original Disney flick approximately 79 times. When my 23 yr old son was about 4, he was obsessed with the “Step in Time” song/dance. You know, the one where Burt (Dick Van Dyke) dances on the rooftops with Chimney Sweeps? My son would place couch pillows on the floor (these were the chimney tops) and leap from pillow to pillow with a long duster (the kind you use to clean spider webs and such from the ceilings of your home), mimicking the choreography. I tell you that adorable story to validate my Mary Poppins expertise. Anyway…here’s the relation. I find Mary Poppins to be slightly intimidating, arrogant, judgmental and have exceedingly high expectations of others. She’s also a bit cra cra if the truth be told. Several times in the movie she takes the kids on some wild adventure and when they try to tell their father about it she denies it ever happened saying something like “we did nothing of the sort!” (Or some other funky English phrase).

When the voice in my head tell me I am not enough (didn’t manage my time well enough to get the dishes/laundry/phone calls/appointments made, am not working out often enough or eating well enough, that I should have give more attention to my kids and given them more responsibility and hugged them more, etc.), she sound like Mary Poppins. She has a nice English accent, which we all know makes everything sound more romantic and pleasant even when it’s not. She doesn’t curse or accuse in a way that causes me to tell her to take a hike. She simply points out all the ways I don’t measure up. It’s a running monologue, background static that seeps into my subconscious until I eventually accept those ideas as truth. Once the are solidified, she moves on to other areas so there is never a moment of rest.

Maybe you are ready to call 911 and send them over to have me take to the hospital for evaluation. Or maybe you could take a moment and ponder what your inner critic is saying to you. What’s his/her name? What kind of lies is he whispering, or shouting, to you throughout your day? What kind of truths can you cling to that can be used to combat that voice? How can you put her in her place-in a time-out, if you will-and replace her words of bondage and criticism with ones of freedom and acceptance.

My intention is to pay attention to my thoughts, evaluate if they are true and from God, who loves me and created me and accepts me exactly where I am today, or if they are from Mary Poppins who thinks she’s “got me”. I intend to listen for the voice of truth and counter her lies by acknowledging that I am doing the best I can with what I have at any given time. And so is everyone else, for that matter. I get pretty worked up when I think of cruel or hurtful things other people have said to or about me. To quote Marianne Williamson in A Return to Love, “whatever abuse they gave us was often mild compared to the way we abuse ourselves today. It’s true that your mother might have said repeatedly, ‘You’ll never be able to do that, dear.’ But now you say to yourself, ‘You’re a jerk. You never do it right. You blew it. I hate you.’ They might have been mean, but we’re vicious.” This type of self-loathing is destructive and deadly. It is the root of all that is bad in us and in the world. She points out that all this emotional energy has to go somewhere. “So we sabotage.We drink. We do drugs. We control. We obsess. We codepend. We overeat. We hide. We attack. The form of dysfunction is irrelevant. We can find a lot of different ways to express how much we hate ourselves.”

Without being hard on myself and therefore responding counter-productively to this whole blog, I do want to say that i am going to do what it takes to silence Miss Mary Poppins. I need a new voice in my head. I need to listen for God’s soft whisper and mix it with the kind and gentle part of my own spirit. The one that gives me a break for not being perfect and tells me to rest in who I am at this current moment. That tells me I am always enough. And so are you.

Faith/Spirituality

“I guess God…”

Heather Carter

We just got back from a vacation in Branson, Missouri. You know, home of the Baldknobbers, Elvis impersonators, country western shows, Silver Dollar City amusement park and the strip, lined with wax museums, Ripley’s Believe or Not, mini golf and go carts and water parks. It’s kind of like a hill billy version of Vegas. Cheesy and blingy. We were planning to leave around noon on Monday, so I was excited to just sit by the pool and relax after a couple days of Hill Billy overload. When I woke up it was pouring rain. Instead, I decided to work out (the antithesis of relaxing by a pool).

As I was on the elliptical I had this very mature thought (which kind of caught me off guard because I was pretty disappointed about not being able to lay by the pool and also, I am not that mature): “I wish I could have laid by the pool, but I guess God had different plans for me.” I wish I could say that I “know” or “trust” that God had other plans for me, but I guess “guessing” is the best I can do for now. It’s honest at least. I don’t know what I want half the time, so it stands to reason that I can’t always know for certain what God wants. But, when things don’t go as planned for me, when I don’t get my way or the world around me seems to be working against me, I can choose to say, “I guess God…”.

I have been created to make up my own mind and choose to do my life however I wish, but even when I am operating with my best intentions, I am not privy to how my actions effect others or how they will effect me long term. As a result, sometimes my best laid plans need to be redirected and I am frequently in the dark as to why. Why can’t I have it the way I want it? I may never understand, but what I can do is acknowledge that perhaps I don’t always know what’s best for me or for the world around me. When I make plans or have expectations about how things are going to play out, and they seem to crumble or disappoint, I can say, “I guess God has a different or better plan/knows better than me what needs to happen/wants to teach me something that can only be learned another way/wants me to consult with him before I run out ahead of him as if I am the leader and he is not.” Any of those options put me in a place of humility before God and give me wise perspective about what is and what is not happening around me.

So let’s try it out, just for today. Maybe you can adopt a new, go with God-flow attitude:

“I guess God…”

Anxiety/Worry, Brokenness, Faith/Spirituality, Serenity

Boneless and Skinless

Heather Carter

“In the same way a piece of bone-in, skin-on chicken will always be juicier and more flavorful than its boneless, skinless counterpart, fish benefits from keeping its protective skin and bones.”

Now that’a a good “hook” to kick off a blog, right? Hang with me…

Even though I generally buy my chicken boneless and skinless”, we all know that it releases the most flavor and maintains moisture better when it is cooked together with the bone and skin. Seems to be sort of the opposite to bring out flavor in the fish. Whichever way you frame it, I think we can agree that having bones and skin involved=better.

On various occasions in my past, and even as recent as the past few weeks, I feel like I have been walking around without them. I am “boneless and skinless”. This is a phenomenon that happens from my inside out when especially emotional situations enter my life and don’t leave in a timely fashion. I cling to the book of Psalms during these periods because David, who wrote the majority of them, does a lot of pleading with God to come quickly to his rescue because he is “poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint”(Psalm 22. ). I love, or at least understand, that metaphor. when my heart is wrecked and my mind orbits around a wound 24 hours a day without relief, I feel like my very structure is incapable of “doing the next right thing” that’s needs doing. Laundry=too hard. Dinner=way too hard. Making a phone call=too much. And being “present” with people I am with?=not happening. It’s all just so much work. I physically can’t seem to put one foot in front of the other sometimes.

And what about skinless? That’s a painful one. In Psalm 73:26 another Psalmist talks about his “flesh/skin failing” as a result of his suffering. Sometimes, and maybe you have had your own experience with this, I feel like I am literally walking around without my skin on. Everything and everyone that brushes against me during the day feels “extra”. Extra harsh, extra tender, extra soft, extra scathing. “It’s not you, it’s me”, as the saying goes. I am raw and sinewy and exposed to outside elements in the most vulnerable and cringy way. I really hate being like this. It makes me feel not only emotional, but weak. Crying in front of people is something I hate to do but it seems to happen a lot in this kind of season. I don’t think people around me mind (what? She’s human??), but I certainly don’t like to let my guard down like this!

When I read the Psalms, I don’t always get the answers I want to hear (although, and I ‘m not proud to admit it, but sometimes I read and re-read the ones where God finally brings down justice on David’s enemies 😬). I do, however, observe a posture that David seems to circle back to over and over, and I hear a common refrain that keeps me from completely imploding (which is what happens when one tries to live life without proper bones and skin).

First-after David begs God to help him (and whines a bit about his unfair circumstances), he remembers his track record. Or should I say, God’s track record. He says things like:

*For you have been my hope, O Sovereign God, my confidence since my youth
*Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again
*For you have delivered me from death, and my feet from stumbling.
*If your word had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction
*I was pushed back and about to fall, but the Lord helped me.

Second, He gives us the solution: Trust in God.

*In you our fathers put their trust.; they trusted and you delivered them.They cried out to you (God) and were saved; in you they trusted and were not disappointed. (Ps. 22:4,5)
*The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy (Ps 28:7)
*Be still and know that I am God (Ps. 46:10)
*When I am afraid, I will trust in you. In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust; I will not be afraid. What can mortal man do to me? (Ps. 56:3,4)
*Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you (Ps. 143:8)
*But I trust you o lord. You are my God, my times are in your hands (Ps. 31:14,15)

Have you been doing life “boneless and skinless”? Me too. We are not chickens. It’s not healthier this way. Maybe we can do what David did; remember God’s track record and how he has shown up for us in the past. And maybe it will help us both if we read through some of the Psalms I listed above and then wait patiently for God to restore us to physical, emotional and spiritual health.

What have we got to lose?

awareness, Change, Faith/Spirituality, Growth

Things I learned the hard way…

Heather Carter

When I refer to things I “learned” the hard way, I mean that in the truest sense of word; to gain knowledge or understanding by study, instruction or experience. It’s important that you know that I don’t mean to imply that I have mastered any of what I am about to share with you. It’s more of an exercise in putting some pretty excruciating and embarrassing scenarios and revelations on paper in order that it might help someone. It’s quite possible that I am the someone that most needs help today…

We learn best in hindsight, unfortunately. I really wish I could have been more aware of the growth opportunities in the midst of my pain, but sometimes it takes the rear view mirror perspective to truly appreciate the the wisdom hard circumstances provide if we are willing to receive it. In the interest of time and attention span, I’ll limit today’s lessons to a small handful of items so as not to overwhelm either of us (my heart is already racing, just thinking about some of the experiences that brought me to my awareness in these areas…)

1. I can be “scary”. I finally get it. I have been told this in a variety of ways over the past 30 years but always had a defensive argument for how that is ridiculous. how could I possibly be scary to anyone!?!  I now understand, after years of keeping potential friends away, losing many valued friends and being confronted by some real friends who loved me enough to risk pointing this out to my scary-self. The root of it was a result of expectations that I put on myself and others that were impossible to live by. That attitude resulted in my friends feeling a sense of being judged, being not enough, being a disappointment. If no one, not even me, can fulfill these expectations, everyone loses. I have done a lot of soul-searching and found that when I “live and let live” and focus on myself and doing my job (which is to take care of myself and not try to do God’s job and work on other people) I can actually maintain some long-term, intimate relationships.

2. “I care way too much about what you think of me.” This is really an awareness that I have to keep in check regularly. When I get unfit spiritually, I start making idols out of the people around me (whether or not I like or know them). My identity and self-worth become dependent not on God, but on what I think others are thinking about me. That is a dangerous lens to view myself through considering much of it is based on your brokenness mixed in with mine. It’s hard to see anything clearly with that standard and makes for some pretty unstable self-esteem and security. I didn’t always see this as a problem and am grateful, having been in a twelve-step program the past 6 years, that I am beginning to get a handle on it. I used to put all my eggs in the baskets of people who were not capable, because only God is capable, of meeting my needs and giving me my identity. After years of suffering I finally stopped blaming them and transferred my eggs to God’s basket (can’t deny that I occasionally steal them back until it get’s painful again).

3. “I’m not much but I’m all I think about.” ‘Tis true. In spite of the fact that I tend to trash myself (telling myself I am a bad friend, bad Christian, bad mom, bad wife), I think about myself an awful lot. I can obsess about my woes and worries and completely forget that anyone else could use a word, a text, a call, an hug, a simple smile. Self-consumption is a sickness that I haven’t always recognized in me. I think Leukemia was a really good remedy for that kind of sickness. Even in the midst of a pretty terrifying threat of dying and potential for absolute self-absorption, I chose to write and share hope and strength with others. That was only a God-inspired decision that I take no credit for at all.

4. “I can be right or I can be happy.” Apparently I was born with or cultivated a very vibrant and stubborn “justice gene”. This has gotten me into trouble on more than one occasion. If in the right context, God can do a lot with this genetic wiring. But if it goes astray, it manifests itself in an attitude of self-righteous superiority toward groups or individuals. Neither of which are productive or feel very loving to the recipient. When I am sure I am right on something I feel compelled to prove it (feeling like I have to “win”) and the recipient often feels as if their views or needs are disregarded and devalued. I almost never see it that way and am therefore shocked when I get a strong pushback. I have most certainly not entirely recovered from this, but am at least willing to acknowledge that I have the propensity to go there and don’t argue my “way” nearly as long as I used to. 😬

5. “I am a wimp”. I have an embarrassing memory of a conversation I had between a friend and I several years ago (like 20 years, so give me a slight break). She asked me why I never drank before I was 21 or did drugs or had sex before I was married. I told her I thought it was because I wasn’t afraid to do the “hard thing.” It’s actually a “hard thing: for me to even get those words out;  it’s so arrogant. And so far from reality, now that I can see myself a tiny bit more clearly. As I mentioned a few blogs ago, I am afraid of practically everything! And I wasn’t any better back then. Just a bit dumber (is that a word?). I actually think I have an extra large aversion to “hard things”. I mean, I won’t even go downstairs to put my laundry in because it’s too far and the very thought of even planning a meal or following a recipe makes me want to start fasting. I work out the shortest time necessary and eat as much as possible without crossing the line into excess. I text and email instead of call because that is easier. My whole life revolves around doing what is easy. Who am I trying to fool? Today, the answer is “no one”. I am fully aware that I am doing the best I can for now and so is everyone else. I am not special. I only do hard because I have to, not because I want to or am up for the challenge. Most people do. I used to take pride in my “uprightness”, whatever that is, and now, I am just glad to be upright and not in jail (ok, that’s a little extreme, but you get my point). I have been humbled once or twice, and continue to be reminded that “there, but for the grace of God, go I.”

So there you have it. That is the tip of the ice berg on what I have had to learn the hard way. Maybe sometime soon we will get to what’s underneath all of that-consider yourself warned.