Sabbatical

About 18 months ago, I was in a meeting with a client in Miami when the woman I was meeting with pulled a second person in the room. She announced she was leaving the company in two weeks, and this was her replacement. This was not entirely uncommon, but what happened next was.

I asked her what she was going to do, “Are you staying in the industry?”

“No,” she said, “I’m going back home (some country in South America) to take a sabbatical. I’m going to spend time with family and take time to figure out what I want to do.”

I started crying. Right there, in the middle of her office.

Her words were like a salve to my soul. That was exactly what I wanted. The only problem was, there’s no such thing as sabbaticals in Corporate America. You can’t just take months off of work to figure out what you want to do with your life. There are bills to pay and adult responsibilities to fulfill.

But this woman’s plan was like a refreshing oasis in the middle of my desert wilderness of exhaustion. I couldn’t stop thinking about her words, or the peaceful calm on her face when she said them.

I cried because I wanted to be that brave. I wanted to give myself that kind of time and space for my soul to breathe and my head to think clearly again. I wanted a sabbatical too. But that wasn’t realistic for me at the time.

There’s a song on the radio right now with the lyrics,

He makes a way where there ain’t no way,

let me tell you ‘bout my Jesus.

Ready?

Monday morning, May 2nd, 2022, I was a nervous wreck. The weekend prior, my husband and I had decided I would ask my company for some time off and a new position when I returned. With a knotted stomach and sweaty hands, I emailed my boss to ask if he had time for a call.

Once we connected, I told him everything that I had been wrestling with the last eight months. All my indecision, doubt, fears, uncertainty about what God was asking me to do. Travel or stay home? Work part time or full-time? Or, should I leave the workforce all together and “just” be a mom? What if I did that and hated it? How would I come back?

My company had already been SO gracious to me after my brother’s death, which happened in the middle of my maternity leave. They had given me additional time off for bereavement, and then more time again once I had been back to work a few months, when I was overwhelmed getting everything in order with my brother’s possessions and estate. And now I was asking for even more.

I couldn’t even verbalize what I needed because my head was so overloaded and scrambled I didn’t even know myself! I just knew SOMETHING had to give.

“Look,” I said, “I know there’s no such thing as sabbaticals in corporate America, but that’s what I’m asking for. I want a significant chunk of time off – like three months – so I can even have the time and space to breathe and think a clear thought about what my next steps should be. Basically, I want to take the Summer off.”

My boss said many empathetic and reassuring things to me that day. He was an absolute gem about the whole thing – a part I attribute to God. But the last words he said to me were, “As far as I know, we don’t have a sabbatical program (how he said that without laughing I’ll never know), what I imagine will happen is you will be separated on good terms and can come back anytime you’re ready, but hey, check with HR, they have more knowledge about what we can and can’t do than I do.”

My next phone call was to HR. I relayed the whole scenario and conversation with my boss. And when I was done, I kid you not, that woman opened her mouth and said, “Actually, we do have an administrative leave program. It’s kind of like a medical leave of absence, except with that you need a doctor’s note, with this, you just need your managers to sign off, which it sounds like they already have. And it lasts up to 12 weeks.”

Twelve weeks. Three months.

I was getting my sabbatical. I was going to get to take the Summer off to spend with my son and hear from God.

What. In. the. Actual. Was. Happening?

Sparing all the side-stories and details, suffice it to say, God’s provision went so far over and above what I could even imagine during this time. It was one blessing after another. More and more and more abundant overflow of His goodness than I would have ever asked for.

It was honestly bananas.

The one story I want to tell you about is this: The week that I called my boss – the VERY week – my husband got a phone call from a prospective client to do his largest project to date. If he won the job, it would net as much as his entire previous year’s income combined. And then, he got another call like that. And another. Three calls, in one week. Each would individually exceed the last year’s income. He ended up winning two of the three projects.

It’s been a year now, and the calls haven’t stopped coming.

What I didn’t know when I worked my last day on Friday, June 3rd, was that I wouldn’t go back to work at all.

My Summer never ended.

Nov 4th, 2016

Three years ago on this day, I sat on my living room couch in my snack-stained bathrobe and messy bedhead bun – on what should have been one of the happiest days of my life – only feeling confused and disappointed.

I remember thinking, this is not at all what I imagined this would be like. I thought I would feel…..different. I thought I would feel something at least.

Anything but the way I did.

It was launch day for my first book, Now What? A Story of Broken Dreams and the God Who Restores Them. This was the culmination of a six-year journey. The achievement of a dream I had held in my heart since the third grade. The pinnacle moment for the project I had poured every bit of myself into for the last four years.

And I felt nothing.

The night before, I had been up late waiting to push “publish” on the Amazon CreateSpace platform that would send my words to every corner of the globe with an internet connection.

As the second hand tipped over the minute line and the clock struck midnight, I pushed that button with great expectation – as if my whole world would magically transform in an instant. When a confirmation page loaded on the browser I thought, well that was anticlimactic.

I walked around in a daze that Friday.

My book launch party was still a week away; there was still plenty to do, so I threw myself into the last-minute details of that and convinced myself that on that day – surrounded by my closest friends and family, toasting lattes to my accomplishment – I would finally feel that mountaintop moment of arrival I was expecting.

But November 11^th came and went, and while I relished every moment of celebrating the milestone, surrounded by my biggest cheerleaders, nothing changed on the inside of me.

In fact, I plummeted so fast and so far south on my emotional rollercoaster, I felt more disenchantment than elation. Disillusionment than excitement.

I checked the sales report every morning for weeks – expecting to see numbers in the thousands. When it barely tipped over 60 copies in the first month, I was in a full-on depression.

What was happening?

If God really called me to write this book, and He opened all the doors for me to put it out in the world like He did, wouldn’t He also cause it to fly off the shelves?Wouldn’t He want as many copies in the hands of as many people as possible? Wouldn’t He want to make it a best-seller?

Did I hear Him wrong? Is this my fault? What’s wrong with me?

Then came the shame. Mountains and oceans of shame.

Shouldn’t Jesus be enough?

I mean, sure, those “lost” people out in the world deal with feeling unfulfilled, but not Christians, right?

I mean, I literally learned this lesson in junior high youth group: Every human on earth is walking around with a Jesus-sized hole inside them. Most people go around trying to fill it up with relationships, or sex, or drugs and alcohol. But once you “get saved” and “have Jesus”, all that goes away.

…Then why did I still have a hole?

What I have learned in the last three years is that achievement is empty. Achievement alone.

Even if it is the achievement of something good.

Even if it is something God called you to.

Even if it is in ministry.

Even if your heart is pure.

And no body prepared me for this.

No one ever told me that people inside the church – even inside ministry – can still feel emptiness in their souls.

I had enough foresight to see that if accomplishing the number one goal in my life made me feel this hollow, than any other goal I set from here would only result in the same cavernous hole. And I needed to do something about it.

So I set out on a journey. To wrestle with God about the ideas of success and accomplishment I held so deeply. To seek to understand the balance between expectation and contentment. Striving and satisfaction.

And it’s been great!

And scary. And fulfilling. And challenging. And burden-lifting. And freeing. And seemingly never-ending.

But, I’m starting to see a light at the end of the tunnel. I’m starting to grasp some firm answers and see through the fogginess to clarity.

It’s time to start talking about it. I’m excited to begin sharing this journey with you.

If you’ve ever been disappointed by a dream come true, I hope you’ll come along with me.

Apple Seeds and Deep Prejudices

In the Spring of 2016, I realized I am prejudice.

prejudice

noun prej·u·dice \ˈpre-jə-dəs\

: an irrational attitude of hostility directed against an individual, a group, a race, or their supposed characteristics

: an unfair feeling of dislike for a person or group because of race, sex, religion, etc.

: a feeling of like or dislike for someone or something especially when it is not reasonable or logical

All of these definitions fit my condition perfectly.

But my prejudices have nothing to do with skin color.

Home Sweet Home

While preparing a message to give at a ladies luncheon at small church in Southern Kentucky, I got stuck.

When I booked the event, I was told I could plan the theme. Immediately the word “refreshing” came to mind.

I wanted to get the audience brainstorming about their dreams and purpose in their life, to refresh their passion.

I decided to take the ladies through an exercise I had done myself a few years ago and wrote about in my book.

After pulling me out of the darkest pit of my life, God was teaching me how to dream again. He prompted me to make two lists: things I was passionate about, and things I was good at – natural talents and abilities I possessed. When I did this I began to see correlations. I began to see purpose. I started to get a clear picture of what God put me here on earth for.

With the two lists side-by-side, I saw how He had planted specific passions in my heart, and gave me the corresponding skill-sets to go after them. Refreshing, right?

But leading up to the event, I wondered if that exercise had only been refreshing to me. What if no one else found it as revelatory? I thought I knew the direction I wanted to take the day, but every time I sat down to type or research, I just felt….. blah.

In discussing ideas with the event coordinator (my mom), I asked her what she thought about it, if she thought a Purpose-Finding exercise would be interesting and applicable to the rest of the audience.

See, this wasn’t an audience of my peers; other thirty-somethings in the midst of a quarter-life crisis, trying to identify which path to take. This was going to be a room full of women who doubled my age; women who, many of them, had already lived full lives. Did they even want or need to be refreshed?!

But my mom’s response was encouraging to me. She said, “I think that’s a great idea. Because where I am now is, ‘Ok God, I’ve lived this whole life, and I’ve raised my children, and had careers, and I’ve had my own businesses, and I’ve already done all these things, but I’m still here.’ – And, I don’t know how much longer I have – it could be one more day or forty more years- but…. ‘Now What? [she giggled at her clever use of my book title] What am I supposed to do next? What am I still here for?’” And then she ended with, “I kind of feel I’ve outlived my usefulness, like I’m all used up.”

…I can’t express what it felt like to hear those heartbreaking words come out of my mom’s mouth. But I was hopeful because I had a solution, I had some insight for what to do in a “Now What?” moment like that.

And here’s what I know: if my mom felt that way, she wasn’t going to be the only woman in that room who did. So it was settled; I would walk through that exercise with them and plan my talk accordingly.

But nothing changed for me internally. I still felt so unmotivated.

Usually, once I get a clear inspiration for a talk, I can’t put it down and I absolutely cannot wait to deliver it! I get excited about the life change that God wants to bring with my words and joyfully overwhelmed at the honor that I get to be a part of it.

This was entirely not the case this time. I was utterly dreading this event.

The closer it got, the less excited I felt.

I made sure to check off every other thing on my daily to-do list and continued to put off finalizing the talk until it was the week of the event.

I sat down and reviewed the outline I had prepared and then contemplated scrapping the whole thing and starting from scratch.

I worried I had missed God’s leading altogether and was only focused on what I wanted to accomplish that day.

I sat my notes aside and picked up my prayer journal. I began to ask God if I had missed Him entirely. I told Him I was happy to throw out my talk and give the one He wanted.

But when I picked up my notes and read through again them I thought, this is really good stuff. So why am I still so drained and debilitated at the thought of giving this talk?

Within an hour of penning those words in my journal, I found myself on the phone with my high school cheerleading coach. It had been about three years since we last spoke.

While we talked I told her, “Hey, by the way, since the last time we were together, I wrote a book and I started speaking publicly.”

“WOW! Look at you!” She said, congratulating me and expressing her pride.

“Yes, it’s exciting…but it’s also a lot,” I replied, “Since I’m still working full time, it’s a lot on my plate and it’s overwhelming at times. BUT, the cool part is, I know it’s exactly what God is calling me to, and I know it is literally what I was created for.”

And I swear to you, her exact response to me was: “Isn’t that refreshing?”

She went on, “I don’t even know if that’s the right word, but I remember that point in my life, when I realized teaching was for me; that teaching is exactly what I’m supposed to be doing in life. Everything just clicked.”

I couldn’t even tell her how ironic her words were, but I was laughing.

Ok, I hear your confirmation, God, this is the talk I’m supposed to give. But YOU are going to have to give me the passion for it.

It’s Not About Me

Many times before a talk I start to feel nervous or uneasy as I prepare. I worry about delivering just the right message in just the right way. I get pretty worked up questioning if I’m qualified enough and if I have enough value to bring to the audience.

And every time, God reminds me that it’s not about me.

He has opened the door and given me this opportunity and as long as I get out of His way and let Him, He will show up and speak through me. It’s not about me, it’s about the audience and what He has in store for them.

As soon as I take my eyes off myself, my own insecurities, and focus on the audience, what they are going through and what they are going to get out of it – and remember that God is doing all the talking anyway – all of that uneasiness goes away.

With that in mind, I sat down with my prayer journal once more. It was the day before the talk.

I asked God to give me His eyes and His heart for these people. To show me what He sees when He looks at them, so I can feel what He feels and know the right words to give them.

I was immediately blindsided by a fierce conviction: I don’t believe in these people at all. (Insert big eyes emoji)

These are small-town church people living in small-town Kentucky, I thought, Even if God did have big dreams for them, would they even go after them?

It occurred to me I have always seen “these people” as a sub-class. Entirely unambitious. “Poor, dumb and happy.” Oblivious to the fact they are throwing their lives away by staying confined to small towns and small sanctuaries. I seethed with judgement against them for not dreaming bigger. Thinking bigger. For not wanting to “get out” and “move on” like I did. I believed they really couldn’t do anything of significance if they stayed where they were.

I was convicted. Oh no! I am prejudice!

Against small-town people.

And, against traditional “church” people.

In my book, Now What? A Story of Broken Dreams and the God Who Restores Them I recount the months after my divorce when I was angry and bitter at God. I ran away from Him and from all things church and religion – I didn’t want anything to do with any of it. I had followed their rulebook and God’s gameplan and my life didn’t turn out like I had been promised.

Additionally, recollections of the shaming and shunning of people who had fallen short during my childhood church experience replayed in my head as I imagined I, too, was being judged and condemned by these people during the lowest point in my life.

A few years after my divorce, I found a safe place in the welcoming arms and atmosphere of a self-admitted “church for people who have given up on church but not on God.” And it was unlike any experience I ever had to that point. But, even after all the healing and restoration God has brought into my life, I was caught off guard by the fact I still assumed and thought the worst of the “traditional church people”.

I was absolutely prejudice against them.

I had an “irrational attitude of hostility directed against an individual, a group, a race, or their supposed characteristics” just like the dictionary described.

And I was wrong.

For both of these prejudices.

God immediately opened my eyes to see these people weren’t any different than anyone else He’s created.

We are all equally flawed. And most of all, equally loved by Him.

Of course He has a plan and a purpose for their lives.

Of course they could be effectively and impactfully used by Him.

Of course they could dream big dreams and do big things, even from their small towns.

Of course He believed in them.

And of course He expected me to believe in them too.

It wasn’t my talk that was off, it was me that was off! Ouch.

My heart was completely wrong toward these people.

And I had some serious repenting to do.

Apple Seeds

After my revelation (and repentance), I was on the phone with my speaking mentor, recounting the experience to him.

He quipped, “It’s good that you figured that out now. If you had gone in there tomorrow with the same attitude you had toward those people today, you would have felt it and they would have felt it and it would have not been effective.”

He went on to tell me a very wise reminder, one he said he has to constantly remind himself of over and over:

“When you walk into a room to speak to a group of 100 people,” he began, “How many people’s lives do you have the opportunity to impact that day? …..100, right? That math works. The answer is 100, right?”

“Right,” I agreed.

“But that’s the wrong answer.”

Jeff is the master of trick questions that make you feel like you’re brilliant in one instant and rubbish the next, but they get your wheels turning and the lessons stick long-after the conversation.

“When you walk into a room of 100 people,” He said, “The number of lives you have the opportunity and ability to impact that day is infinity. It’s limitless.”

Seemingly changing subjects he pondered an ancient riddle, “How many seeds are in an apple? 10, 12, 15? …But how many apples are in a seed? An unlimited number, right?

…Because an apple seed becomes a tree, which produces hundreds of apples each year, which all contain seeds, that all contain more trees.

…So it’s the same when you walk into that room of 100,” He asserted, “Because those people know people who aren’t in that room, and they know other people, and those people know other people and so on. And those people are going to have kids one day,” He paused, if only for a millisecond, “When you and I walk into a room to speak, we literally have the ability to impact generations of people who aren’t even born yet!

So just think about that for a minute…. If even just one of those 60 year-old, grey-haired, small-town Kentucky women grabs hold of a dream and a vision you share with them on Saturday – and does something with it – she could impact the lives of people who aren’t even born.”

After that phone call, I was electric! My belief in these women and their futures was raised exponentially!

And that’s exactly what I told them from stage that next day!

After pouring myself out for them that afternoon, there were several women who came up to me afterward and told me they really were leaving refreshed. So my mission was indeed successful.

But more than that, I planted some apple trees that day. And I am eager to see the bountiful harvest that comes out of small sanctuary in that small town in southern Kentucky.

Unfinished: Waiting for What’s Next

“Not scared to say it, I used to be the one
Preachin’ it to you, that you could overcome
I still believe it, but it ain’t easy
‘Cause that world I painted, where things just all work out
It started changing and I started having doubts
And it got me so down…”

-Mandisa, Unfinished

Turns out Mandisa and I are practically the same person. Who knew?

Remember last month when I wrote to you about What to do with the Death of a Dream? It’s not that I was being disingenuous at that time, but I have a confession: The reason I felt compelled to share that message with you is because I am in a place where I am struggling with believing in my dreams right now. Those words I wrote to you were just as much a reminder to myself.

I don’t know at what point I stopped believing in my dreams. But it happened. And I didn’t even realize it had until I found myself crying into the pages of Mark Batterson’s Circle Maker, unable to bring myself to believe his words within.

Our enemy is sly, y’all.

I have found, in my life, the easiest places for him to attack me are in areas I have already overcome and told other people about, things I’ve even helped other people overcome in their own lives. Preachin it to them…

Because then he can plague me with these thoughts, Oh no! what if people find out I’m a hypocrite?! What if they find out I don’t have it all together, after I said I did?! I mean, I’m the girl who signs books, “your story isn’t over yet!”

That’s what Mandisa is talking about. I’m sure she had a lot of those same thoughts between her 2013 album “Overcomer” and her most recent, “Out of the Dark”, which includes the track above. The lyrics that come next in her song Unfinished, map a blueprint for us in this place:

“But I picked myself back up, I started tellin’ me,
‘No, my God’s not done, makin’ me a masterpiece’

He’s still working on me,

He started something good and I’m gonna believe it
He started something good and He’s gonna complete it.

So I celebrate the Truth: His work in me ain’t through
I’m just unfinished.”

Unfinished

Can I tell you something I’ve come to embrace – dearly – in this season of my life? My mentor, Jennifer Beckham, has been saying it for years, but I’m just starting to grasp it for myself, and it gives me permission to breathe: I’m still a work in progress.

Unfinished.

Which means I haven’t arrived. Even if I did write a book about coming out of one pit in my life, that doesn’t mean I’ll spend the rest of my life on a mountaintop.

And I have to stop beating myself up every time I feel like I take a step backward. (Can I get an amen?)

There is an interesting season after the realization of a dream or a pursuit, when it’s easy to feel lost and confused. An ok-what-do-I-do-next? season.

Subconsciously, I knew this before publishing my book. I think that’s why it took me two years to actually get it out after I wrote it…. some of that may have been deliberate procrastination.

I foresaw this line of thinking for myself: Ok, I have dedicated the last 2 ½ years of my life to this one thing, this one goal, this one mission. It gives me life and energy and focus. It allows me to walk every day on a clear path of obedience toward the mark God has called me. It’s me literally living in my purpose. And once it’s over, once the goal is accomplished, once the book is out and on the shelf, what do I do now? What will I do with my time and my life to feel significant and purposed?

What I didn’t foresee was how indescribably HARD these thoughts and emotions would hit me. And how hollow it would make me feel.

It’s only in writing this I called to mind a quote I heard years ago, “Never let a dream come true steal your dream.”

Meaning, don’t let accomplishing one thing keep you from accomplishing everything else God has created you for.

With each dream realized, you’ve got to set new dreams and goals for yourself. And I have not done that. At all.

(Sidenote: I acknowledge what I’m saying means I have been finding my significance in my work for God, rather than in my relationship with Him. A mindset I don’t think I understand how to transition out of yet. But that’s a whole other psychological and spiritual evaluation for another day.)

Dreams Do Come True

When I launched my book in November of last year, I was at an all-time high – it was the realization of a lifelong dream come true. I did not anticipate the series of emotional crashes that came next.

As I type this in retrospect, I think I see the dream-thieving pieces come together:

The month of my book launch, I expected to sell a certain number of copies and I came in at a fraction of that. I was devastated.

I sullenly reported the numbers to a friend in the industry and she told me my numbers were actually really great for a self-published author, which led me to doing some research. I found out most nonfiction books today – traditionally-published or self-published – never sell more than 3,000 copies in their lifetime. Usually no more than 300 in the first year.

So my numbers weren’t that bad after all, it was my expectations that were off. And I found solace in this fact at the time.

Looking back, that was exactly what my enemy wanted. For me to lower my expectations, and to keep lowering them. And keep lowering them. Until eventually, I didn’t expect much of anything above “average” for my future at all.

I had relegated myself to “this is just the way it is in the publishing world today” and I was “right on track” – with average.

YOU DREAMED BIG I have been anti-average my entire life. Repulsed by it even.

There is a delicate balance I surf between contentment and wanting more – feeling like God is calling me to more. But lately, it’s been just been discontentment and disbelief all around.

I find myself teetering on a ledge between believing for more, one more time, or just….settling.

It feels too hard and too painful to get my hopes up again; to stretch my faith and to see a vision beyond where I am now. It seems much easier to just settle for how far I’ve come.

You can settle at all different levels you know. There’s a temptation for it all your life, a pressure just to give in and give up hope. You can settle at $20,000 when it feels too hard to believe for $40,000, you can settle for $40,000 when it seems like $80,000 is out of reach, you can even settle at $100,000 or a million.

You can settle for 500 books sold when believing for 5,000 seems impossible. Which is the place I found myself.

So by the time I stumbled across Mark Batterson’s book, The Circle Maker, buried in an ebay sale pile of my mom’s, my belief and expectations were so low that the author’s words were a shocking wake-up call.

Inside, Batterson tells the backstory leading up to the launch of his first book, In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day. He writes about a faith-stretching financial commitment he made and how God came through on it BIG time:

A faith promise is an amount of money pledged to missions above and beyond the tithe. It’s not based on a budget; it’s based on faith. Honestly, we [my wife and I] had no idea how we’d be able to give the amount of money we pledged…

…On the day we made the pledge, July 31^st, 2005, I blogged what I believed: “I have a holy anticipation that I can’t even put into words. I can’t wait to see how God provides what we promised.” Two months later on October 4, 2005, I landed my first book contract. The advance on that four-book deal was THIRTY TIMES GREATER than the pledge we had made.

…I was thrilled about getting the book contract, but I was even more thrilled about writing the largest check we had ever written for a kingdom cause.

In December 2010, he signed another book contract, the gift he and his wife gave on that advance was THIRTY TIMES LARGER than the original faith promise they had made five years before!

What miraculous provision!!

I read more of the story: In the fall of 2006, a week before his first book was set to release, Batterson was speaking at a men’s conference when he asked for God’s blessing on the book. He writes:

I was painfully aware of the fact that 95% of books don’t sell five thousand copies, but I prayed a circle around the book and asked God to put a multiplication anointing on it. I mustered as much faith as I could and asked God to help it sell 25,000 copies. Of course I threw in the obligatory “if it be Your will” at the end. That tagline may sound spiritual, but it was less a submission to God’s will and more a profession of doubt. If you aren’t careful, the will of God can become a cop-out if things don’t turn out the way you want.

Reading that paragraph, hot tears streamed down my cheeks. I realized I couldn’t even begin to believe my book would sell 25,000 copies. The revelation was startling me. When had my dreams gotten so small? When had I lost my faith in the God who called me to write this book in the first place? When had I stopped trusting Him and His power?

“It’s easy to give up on your dreams, on miracles, on promises.
We lose heart, we lose patience, we lose faith. And like a slow leak, it often happens without us even knowing it…” – Mark Batterson

Reading those words, I felt like God was begging me to believe Him for such a miracle. To trust that He could to the same for me.

This is the same God who restores sight to the blind, who brings people back from the dead, who created the entire universe from His mouth and His hands. It should be easy for me to believe He can get a book into the right hands at the right time, enough times, right?

But I had settled for that cop-out Batterson referenced, with these nagging questions in my mind, Maybe it wasn’t God’s will for my book after all. Maybe I heard Him wrong. Maybe I should have waited for a publisher to pick it up, instead of being stubborn and forcing it to fruition myself. Maybe the timing was off. Maybe I didn’t launch it right…

Guys, can I tell you something? Following God, and following your dreams, is not easy.

I don’t have an answer to the question, “How do you know when it’s God or when it’s you in your own head?” Because I still ask myself that all.the.time.

All I can do is try to get it right each time, and trust that He will make it right even if I mess it up. Because I do know this: my heart is always in the right place of obedience, even if my ears aren’t always hearing crystal-clear.

I’m still a work in progress. Unfinished. He’s still working on me.

So that’s the place I rest in.

This week I thought to myself, I don’t even know how to dream anymore. Which made me cry all over again. And feel lost and hopeless.

Here’s what I’ve learned (over and over again), when I try to do things myself, I get exhausted and overwhelmed and it doesn’t turn out so well. But, when I ask God into the equation and rely on His help, I get to relax and it all works out.

So here’s the first step I took: I wrote to God in my prayer journal that He would have to teach me how to dream again. That He would have to show me a new dream. And show me if my old dreams, that are hard to believe in now, are things that were never from Him that I should let go of, or if that’s really what He wants for me.

And because my heart is rooted in obedience, I won’t take another step forward until I hear from Him.

So if you need me, I’ll be here, writing to you and waiting for what’s next.

Is there a dream that God wants to resurrect [in your life]? Is there some promise you need to reclaim? Is there some miracle you need to start believing for again?

The reason many of us give up too soon is because we feel like we failed if God doesn’t answer our prayer. The only way you can fail is if you stop praying.” – Mark Batterson

What to do with the Death of a Dream

Have you ever given up on a dream? Has life ever beaten you up or beaten you down so badly, you felt it was pointless to believe in a better or different future?

In my book Now What? A Story of Broken Dreams and the God Who Restores Them, I talk about how after my divorce in 2011, I felt like my life was ruined. Like I had blown my chance at the dream life I pictured in my head, by mistakenly marrying the wrong person, and would just have to settle for whatever second-rate existence I could get from thereon.

A divorce is not only the death of a relationship, but the death of a dream.

And I have found the mourning process to be much the same as mourning the loss of a human being.

Have you ever found yourself in a place like this? It’s daunting, discouraging…depressing even.

There’s a verse in Proverbs that says,
“Where there is no vision, the people perish…”

My mentors once explained to me that everyone starts out with a big “dream circle” when they are young. We are all going to be astronauts and professional athletes and Broadway stars when we’re 6 – even 16 – but somewhere along the way to becoming an adult, responsibilities and bills and routine take ahold of us, and our dream circle shrinks to fit the reality of the life we are living.

Or, for some of us, a life-altering event shakes us out of the perpetual state of hope and optimism we have always known until all we can do is survive each day.

We stop being able to see more than what is right in front of us. Our dream dies. And we just exist.

That’s where I was.

I share this story in my book:

I have always had “vision boards” up in my bedroom. I was probably sixteen when I pasted together and hung my first one. I’ve moved them to every apartment and house I have ever lived in (and I’ve moved a lot!). I hung them when I was first on my own, living in a low-income apartment. At a time when I would often only have ten dollars left over at the end of the week for groceries, looking at those boards inspired me to keep dreaming.

Right in front of me I saw the pictures of the types of houses I wanted to live in, the cars I wanted to drive, the places I wanted to see, and the intangible things—children to adopt, relationships I would have, the impact I would make. And I was reminded that where I was, was not where I was staying. My circumstances and surroundings were only temporary as long as I kept moving forward.

The first place I lived after my divorce, I didn’t hang my vision boards up. I felt so far removed from those pictures, from ever seeing those dreams come to fruition. I just couldn’t see how that life was possible anymore.

When Barry and I moved into our first house together, I pulled them all out and cried. I still wasn’t sure I believed in them, but I was more disheartened that I had given up on dreaming all together.

When I shared this with Barry, he went out and bought fresh poster board and insisted we make new ones together.

Even though my old ones still had some things on them I liked, they were from a totally different place in my life. I took a couple things from them, but I wanted a new vision board to match the new vision in my life.

That’s the power of vision boards. When you constantly have the images of what you want your life to look like in front of your eyes, your imagination and subconscious mind go to work to make those things manifest in the physical realm. They will find a way, attracting ideas and people and opportunities to you.

While creating my new vision board, I found this one small quote I cut out of a magazine that meant the most to me. I don’t even remember what it was in reference to, but it said,

“Your dreams miss you.”

I get emotional just typing that now. Those four words were such a simple, sweet reminder to me that I was called and created for more than the complacency I was settling for.

I had dreams inside me just waiting to get out, but I had allowed myself to move far away from them. I had forgotten them, left them behind. I’d buried them in my day-to-day routine and busyness to keep my mind off what I had been through and the fact that I was stagnant in life.

My dreams missed me.

And I missed them.

Your dreams miss you.

I give you permission to dream again.

The next chapter of your life hasn’t been written yet and it matters how you finish. Live on purpose and scream to the world, ‘It’s not over till I win!’” – Pastor Gary Newell

So, if you’re in that place where hope seems lost and dreams seem dead, create a vision board for yourself.
When is the last time you let yourself dream? Given yourself permission to imagine life a different way?

I have always heard, if you want to get a big dream, get around big dreamers. Believe it or not, there are people in your life who see your potential more clearly than you do. Find those people. Spend time with them.

Whatever you do, do not lose sight of that vision, that hope – that your life can be better, fuller, more-fulfilling, more-purposeful than it is now.

As cliché as it sounds, you have seeds of greatness inside of you. I beg you, do not let them get buried in busyness and routine and monotony. Or disappointments, heartache and loss. Keep your dreams in the forefront of your mind, put pictures of them in front of you. And you will see them come to pass.

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4 Things You Need to Know Before You Start Blogging

Have you ever thought about starting a blog?

I toyed with the idea once or twice myself before I finally did. As much as I love to write, I hate blogs. Everything about them. My thoughts are, who has time to read blogs? …much less keep up with writing one? AmIRight?

Plus, there are just so many out there already! As of 2013, there were 152 million blogs on the internet. [1] As of 2:46pm on Feb 17^th, 2017 there had already been 2.9 million blog posts posted THAT DAY alone.[2]

I figured if I did ever start one, I would make it about two months and never remember to post again. Fizzle out. Like so many other bloggers do. In fact, research shows the average blog is dead after a mere 100 days.

So I never started one. Until I did. Sunday was the two year anniversary of my first blog post.

So, why did I start one?

Because in one conversation with my mentor, she told me if I ever wanted to get a book contract with a publisher, I needed this thing called a platform, and blogging was generally a good way to start building one of those.

So, Feb 19^th, 2015, I opened a WordPress account and copy/pasted something I’d already written as a facebook post as my first blog entry. (I know, I totally cheated.)

But since that first post, I’ve learned a few things. Here’s what I want you to know, that I wish I had known then:

Know that blogging is not for the faint of heart. But it’s worth it.

Baring your soul for the whole world to see is not easy – even for us extroverts.

There’s a Special Thanks page in the back of my book and my editor’s name is first on the list. This is part of what I wrote to her: Turning over a first book (or maybe any book? I don’t know yet) for editing is kind of like tearing open your soul and inviting someone to walk inside. It’s exposing the most intimate parts of your inner self and trusting that person not to return pieces of you shattered and bloody.

It’s the same with blogging.

There are some posts I write that are so vulnerable I want to throw up after I hit the “publish” button. I don’t know if my words and my heart will be received appropriately. What if the message I was trying to convey is misinterpreted? Or what if I just sound stupid, or whiny, or self-centered, or entitled….

I vividly remember feeling this way about a post I wrote regarding race relations during some of the tense riots that happened over the last few years. (You can read that post here: www.RachelDawnWrites.com/blog/Color-blinded)

I have been super fortunate to this point that I haven’t gotten any extremely negative, critical or harsh comments about anything I’ve written. But I know as my platform grows, it’s inevitable.

.facebook_1460409929320 I heard a speaker at a writing conference say, “When you’re marketing anything in life – whether it’s chicken sandwiches or books – there is a 1% jerk factor in the world. One percent of people who are just negative and critical for the sake of being negative and critical. It doesn’t have anything to do with you. You could offer the best thing in the world, that 99 other people love, but this 1 person will find something wrong with it and a reason to complain.” Expect it, Accept it, Move on. It’s not you, it’s them.

Your message will resonate with some people and not with others, and that’s ok. You can get really derailed really fast if you try pleasing everyone with every post. That’s just not reality.

Pick you niche, hone your voice, find your audience, and write meaningful stuff for them. Period.

Any self-doubt, second-guessing, fear, uncertainty or criticism is totally worth it when someone responds to something you’ve written with, “me too”, “that’s exactly how I feel”, “I thought I was alone”.

Know that it sucks. No one will read it (at first). You will want to quit.

I understand that’s 3 things in one bullet point, but they are all the same.

Recently a photographer friend of mine posted: “Being a [creative] entrepreneur is just waves of ‘I just want to quit’, ‘this is crap’, ‘I’m deleting social media’, and occasionally, ‘Man, I was really made to do this.’”

When you spend hours working on one post, upload it, and keep refreshing your wordpress stats every 15 mins only to see that only 6 people look at it and no one comments….. you kiiiind of feel like throwing in the towel.

What’s the point of writing, of investing your time and emotional/mental energy, if no one even cares?

I don’t have an answer to this one. Because I found myself asking this very same question this week. After two years of blogging I have 33 “subscribers” to my blog. Even some of my most loyal readers, who tell me they love every post I write, aren’t subscribed and they don’t regularly share my posts with their networks. So I get it, it’s really discouraging.

But I’m learning there are ways you can hone your voice and your craft to increase those numbers, to increase your effectiveness.

I came across some incredible free training just this week that’s helping me with streamlining my posts to get more traction and shares. Ruth Surkamp founder of Elite Blogging Academy, author of “How to Blog for Profit: Without Selling Your Soul”, is offering this free series online right now. Check it out: https://ruthsoukup.leadpages.co/blogging-made-simple-2017-video-1/?inf_contact_key=bd1f84da626e39d8eb703404e962fc6161c1d1a4683a3ab7fb02ce596d2ae12f

I got tons of practical, immediately applicable tips from the very first video. I completely restructured this post I had already started after watching it and learning what I did. Thank you for that Ruth!

Know WHY you are blogging.

The quickest way to get frustrated and stop blogging is if you start a blog before you know why you are starting a blog. There are definitely tips and tricks and skills you can learn to blog more effectively, depending on what your goals are. But if you don’t know what your goals are….. you can’t hit them.

Ask yourself, why are you blogging? Is it just for fun? Are you just blogging for yourself, a literal personal web-log or diary? Are you blogging to tell stories to your close family and friends? Are you trying to use blogging as a source of income? Are you trying to expand your network/platform/reach/tribe/influence – whatever you want to call it – to get your voice and your message out there? Are you trying to make an impact? Change people’s lives? Raise awareness? Be an expert? Start a movement?

Even if it’s just to make people laugh or to feel inspired, you need to ask yourself: What is your purpose in blogging?

I came face to face with this question shortly after I launched my blog and my online platform, when Facebook asked me “What business am I in?” I stared at the blank box with the blinking cursor in it for a solid half hour while I asked myself, why am I doing this anyway? I came up with a pretty solid answer I shared in this post here: www.RachelDawnWrites.com/blog/what-business-am-i-in.

What it boiled down to in 160 characters or less was:

“I am in the business of restoring hope, igniting dreams, inspiring change, and leading people toward freedom.”

And out of that whole exercise came my business tagline, “Restoring Hope, Igniting Dreams”.

That’s why I blog. That’s why I study how and work to increase my platform. Because the more people my blogs can reach, the more people’s lives I can impact and influence for the better. Which is literally the reason I was created in the first place.

Blogging helps me move in the direction of my purpose. That’s a good investment of time and energy.

You need to ask yourself if it is for you.

Know You Have Something Worth Saying.

Who was I to start a blog? What did I have to say that people would be interested in and that hadn’t already been said a thousand times. Who would want to read it? How would I stand out from all the others? Those were some of the questions I wrestled with that February two years ago.

counter (2) Reading all the overwhelming stats about how saturated the world of blogging is and thinking about all the work, potential roadblocks, discouragements and frustrations could easily make you throw up your hands and decide blogging isn’t worth it at all.

Or maybe you’re stuck in that place I was asking, “Who am I to do this?”

This week I taught the high school service at my church. We are in the midst of an all-church journey on identity, wherein we are identifying the lies and labels in our lives – who we think we are or who the world says we are – and replacing those with the Truth of who God says we are.

Part of the lesson this week was the story of Moses and his own identity crisis. Born a Hebrew slave, raised an Egyptian Prince, on the run after committing murder, Moses found himself pondering life as a sheepherder in the country. When seemingly out of nowhere, God called him to be the hero of the story; to lead the people of Isreal out of slavery in Egypt. His response to God was similar to mine when God told me to write a book (and subsequently start a blog), “Who am I, Lord? Who am I to be the hero or lead a people?”

God’s response was simple: It doesn’t matter who you are, Moses, what matters is Who is with you and Who is sending you. He told Moses to go into Egypt and tell people “I Am” (Yahweh) has sent me. That’s all the credibility and power Moses needed.

You were created for a purpose. Just like I was. Just like Moses was. Uniquely. There are 522d171b57ab75f123db71e966e47bfa seeds planted inside of you, talents and abilities, to help you succeed in that purpose. Writing – sharing your thoughts through written words – may very well be a part of that.

Lysa Terkeurst says this in her book “Uninvited”: “Remember that there is an abundant need in this word for your contributions….. your thoughts and words and artistic expressions…. Your exact brand of beautiful.”

Other people might have similar things to say, but there is only one you. You are the only person with your story, your experiences, your worldview, your voice.

Don’t let your doubts, fears, or insecurities stop you from doing what you were created to do.

What if, instead of agreeing to the mission, Moses had told God, “There are so many other Hebrew men more qualified for this than me, I’m out.”

Would the Isrealites still be in slavery today? Would thousands of lives be entirely different? Maybe. Likely not. Likely, God still would have accomplished His mission, but He would have used someone else to get it done. He could have found someone else to stand up to Pharoah and say, “Let my people go.” But the one life that certainly would have been different would have been Moses’. He would have lived out his days as a sheepherder, which was not what he was created to do.

If you decide not to let those words that are burning inside you get out, could God still get that message out through someone else? Of course. But then you won’t be living out what you were created to do either. And what kind of living is that?

So, blogging might be hard and it might suck and maybe you’ll never have more than 30 readers, and most of the time you’ll feel like giving up, but if it’s part of what you were created to do, you must.

And when you feel like quitting, just remember why you are doing it, Who sent you, and that you have something worth saying.

[1] http://www.patrickkphillips.com/blogging/research-the-average-blog-lifespan-isnt-very-long/

[2] www.Worldometers.info/blogs

What to Do Before You’re Ready

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“Do everything before you’re ready.”

-Jodie Fox, lawyer turned entrepreneur, co-founder of shoes of prey

I read this quote as I finally began #therechargechallenge. (A guided reflection/goal-setting program hosted by The Rising Tide Society on instagram)

Ironically, as I was reading the introduction in the guide, I was already thinking about my big takeaway from this year being: the year that I finally released my book was the year I was least prepared for it.

And then I read those words above and laughed at the irony.

This is EXACTLY what the last two years has been about for me.

On my journey to publishing, I learned that I needed a platform to go along with my manuscript. And the fastest way to get that was to begin a public speaking career.

Sure, I knew I would be speaking on stages on day, but I assumed it would be after I released a book and organizations would invite me in to tell my story and talk about the book.

Instead, after a couple phone calls to some mentors of mine in the Summer of 2015, I found myself booked into my first public speaking gig….. And no idea what I was doing.

But I did it anyway.

A little over a year later, just when I’d started to get my confidence bearings there, I realized I was running out of months in yet another year, and my book was still sitting inside my laptop in Microsoft Word.

So, I set a date on the calendar for my book release – I felt mighty and accomplished – and thirty seconds later I thought, oh Crap! That’s only 7 weeks from now!! I have way too much to do in just 7 weeks to make this happen!

But I just did it anyway.

When I didn’t feel ready, enough.

When I didn’t feel prepared, enough.

When I didn’t feel qualified, enough.

When I wondered of the book was enough.

It was a lot of late nights, and hard work, and frantic emails/phone calls, and learning marketing & design on the fly, and leaning into some great people who were willing to help this clueless, in-over-her-head, with a deadline, chick.

And it got done. Before I was ready to hit “publish”, I did.

And people’s lives are beginning to change.

Elizabeth Gilbert puts it this way, “Start before you’re ready and before you’re good at it. That’s how you get ready and how you get good at it.”

Oh how I’ve learned that’s true.

How to Find Your Reset Button

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Earlier this month, while sitting across the table from a beautiful 16 year old, I recognized the familiar look of overwhelmed-ness on her face and in her tone that I have felt myself for most of the last 18 months.

She told me about changing schools so now she’s in a vocational program in addition to her normal school load, she is in the Army Junior ROTC program, and on top of all that is interviewing for other jobs.

We talked about other things, but in between each conversation topic I would see her sigh heavily – something I catch myself doing a lot – and could watch her mind reeling with all the things she had left to do before hitting her bed that night.

My advice to her that day was something I am just learning for myself:

You have to find a reset button.

A place you can take yourself and/or an activity you can do that allows you to take a deep breath, relax, drop your tensed shoulders, and reset mentally.

You HAVE to.

For me, I found that place early this Summer on the Loveland Bike Trail with my husband.

I literally have a hundred dollar “Malibu Cruiser” bike from Walmart, and Barry uses one borrowed from a friend that he breaks the pedal every other ride. A far cry from the equipment the true trail enthusiasts race past us on, but it doesn’t matter. Out there, we talk, we connect. We can’t be hunkered over our laptops while riding the trail, and our phones stay packed away unattended. It’s just us and the woods and the river and the wildlife.

It’s like a reset button for my brain. You know when you’re computer starts acting sluggish and erratic from too much active information and the only solution is a restart? It’s like that.

I remember the first time I had this experience, it actually happened off the bike trail, but in a similar setting and a little earlier in the year. Since moving into our new house last Fall, Barry has been begging me to “go into the woods” with him. Our new property sits on 5 acres, including 4 acres of woods with a winding creek. He has showed me pictures of all the wildlife on his trail camera, deer, turkeys, owls, hawks and even a fox we named Felix. But I always had an excuse, I’m too busy, it’s too cold, there are too many bugs, I don’t want to get muddy…. Finally, I broke down and agreed just to appease him so he would stop asking.

We crossed the creek and climbed up the ridge on the other side, there’s a densely wooded plain and then it opens to a serene clearing in the back. Since the trees were still so bare from the Winter months, I could see far enough to admire the sun starting to set over the rooftops of our neighborhood below. I sat on a giant downed tree and it was the first time I felt like I could breathe in months. I started to cry.

I told Barry this place reminded me of my farm in Kentucky, and it had been so long since I had been there. I think that used to be my former place of reset. And since my parents moved away 4 years earlier, our trips back there had become fewer and fewer until they stopped altogether.

Having just come off battling the fiercest medical condition I had in my life, on top of buying a new house, editing my book and everything else that had been going on over the last year, I didn’t even realize how much pressure had mounted on my chest until I was literally up and above it all, looking back down.

The first time we went out on the bike trail, that same sense of peace and calm overtook me. And every time since.

As soon as we cross the busy highway and enter the wooded clearing I can breathe. My brain stops racing on a loop through my to-do list. There’s no stress of the things left undone around the house or anything for us to bicker over. With every rotation, it’s like my foot is pressing that circular “refresh” button at the top of my internet browser. And the screen of my mind is reloaded.

I am able to talk through things my normal-mode brain doesn’t have the capacity to stop and process. And I always come out thinking clearer, completely refreshed, and ready to dive back in to my life.

We ride the four miles from Maineville into downtown Loveland and treat ourselves to Hawaiian shaved ice or a light dinner at one of the trailside shacks. Then we peddle four miles back.

A few times we got to the trail late, which caused us to peddle back in the dark. But it didn’t matter. I treasured every single moment we spent on that trail this Summer.

Out there it’s just the two of us, side-by-side, peddling in rhythm with one another. Sometimes we talk, sometimes we just ride. Most of the time we end up laughing. And it’s perfect.

That became my place. My reset button. And I made sure we went there often. As often as two or three times a week some weeks. And especially on the days I felt like I didn’t “have time” for it.

That’s what you have to find.

What’s your place? Do you have one?

Trust me, you need one.

You’ve got to find a way to reset yourself, to refresh your brain and restart your psyche. As much as this Type-A, task-driven, choleric personality hates to admit it, our bodies and our minds need it. They demand it. We are not designed to never take a break, to never rest. I nearly broke my gallbladder last year grinding away with the “I can do it all myself” and “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” mentality.

Learn from my mistakes.

Find your reset button. And push it. Often.

LANES, PAINS, AND PLAYDOUGH SALONS

Hi, my name is Meagan. I am a songwriter/nanny/blogger in Nashville, Tennessee. I love Jesus and I love Taco Bell gorditas. I believe the invention of Crocs initiated the American decline. I regularly tell waiters I am allergic to cilantro when really I just don’t like the taste. I have watched Gossip Girl to its seasonal entirety 4 times in the past 10 years (#TeamLonelyBoy). I absolutely adore my friendships, think my family might actually change the world, and applaud any sign of grace over judgement.

So now that we’ve become a little more acquainted, allow me to share one of my most daunting personal issues. I mean, we’re there right?

If I had to choose one thing that holds me back from accomplishing my purpose, it is that vicious little vixen we like to call “comparison.” As a woman, I have found upon confession that I am not the only one filling a seat on this struggle bus, so I hope I am not writing this post in vain.

I moved to Nashville over a year ago and, quite honestly, gained the songwriters momentum quickly. I was focused and driven, a picture perfect cliche of the American dream. I developed deep, valuable friendships within the industry, and began what I hoped to be a thriving career. I came to Nashville believing that one could either be inspired or defeated by the amount of creatives in one city. With the best of intentions, I supported my friends and loved our little songwriting world. And then my friends started succeeding. They went on world tours, got record deals, and signed to labels that set their writing schedules. They instagrammed shows and facebooked conference photos. They began to pass me in the race, versus run alongside. At least, that was my personal, emotional perspective. On the outside, I celebrated each friend, went to their shows, promoted their new albums. But on the inside, I sank and sank fast. My faith and focus faltered, slowly stripping my heart of its original intent and filling it with a fear that God skipped over me and had chosen my friends instead. You see, I struggled with staying in my own lane. I realize that phrase can be highly overused in any self-help arena, but just bear with me as we dissect.

Each of us, upon birth, are given the beautiful gift of a one lane road in the form of a “calling” or “purpose.” God gives us an identity and graces us with dreams and goals to fulfill His ultimate purpose on earth. Our simple task is to stay in our lane and run the race presented before us, to do the best we can with what He’s given.

“I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” -Philippians 3:14

“Do you not know that those who run in a race all run, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win.” -1 Corinthians 9:24

I was constantly glancing over at my friends and family, eyeing their race with envy and, ultimately, defeat. If I had simply kept my eyes forward and focused on God’s path versus theirs, who knows what I would’ve accomplished by this time. Comparison is crippling. Learning to stay in your lane and embrace your personal race isn’t easy, trust me, I’m still a work in progress. But there are a few things I’ve picked up along the way that might be worth a read. So how do we stay in our lane? How do we keep that focus? Lucky for you, I have a few car analogies to get things rolling. (Get it? Rolling? Like a tire? Yeah I’m awesome.)

“IF YOU WANT TO SURVIVE, DON’T TEXT AND DRIVE”

Remember 5 years ago when Oprah went bat poop cray over texting and driving, creating awareness and a culture shift in her wake? We all know texting and driving is not only idiotic, it can be deadly. Too many statistics solidify that fact. And yet, how many times do we catch ourselves on an empty highway or bored in a traffic jam typing away? We check our Facebook during lunch hours, we don’t go out unless the plan is Instagram-worthy, and we get all our news updates from Twitter. Our lives revolve around connection, and social media has become the great connector. It can be a beautiful thing, a generational tool to be celebrated! It can also be fatal when viewed at the wrong time. One of the main contributors to my personal life-lane swerve was social media. I was in a habit of waking up and hitting my newsfeed before I hit snooze. Everyday I began with a solid dose of comparison. With every “like,” I developed a big fat failure feeling, all before my first cup of coffee.

I will say, it took a certain amount of self-awareness to realize that this was an unhealthy habit for me. Some seasons I can celebrate every single human on my newsfeed with adorational abandon. (No, adorational is not a word.) But I now know there are other seasons when I feel like life is moving a tad slower, or Jesus has me in a waiting period, when I have to monitor my social media intake. If I’m looking over at anothers filtered view of constant success, it’s easy for me to feel like I can never catch up. If you’re constantly checking on another lane, you will veer off your course entirely, causing a mental collision that’s hard to come back from. Satan loves these little stalls, these tiny hits of negativity. Be honest with yourself and your journey. Evaluate whether it’s a healthy season for you to be virtually present, and if it’s not, unplug. Trust me, your world will not end. People will still contact you. Your lunch will be just as good without the stand-on-chair crema filtered photo.

“CHECK YOUR BLINDSPOT, BABY”

One of the first things they teach you in drivers ed is to never change lanes without checking your blindspot. There could be someone else in the way, or a road obstruction outside of your view. When we swerve and skid into another’s lane, comparing ourself to what seems like their massive success, we rarely get the whole picture. We believe the grass is greener, however we don’t know what kind of weeds are hiding in their backyard. It’s so important to check yourself when you begin to compare because you don’t know that persons complete story. You don’t know what they went through to get to this place in their journey. You don’t know what they are currently battling to stay afloat. You don’t know who they hurt, loved, or lost along the way. You are literally comparing your entirety to their partiality and that makes no sense. Perspective is everything. Everyone has a blindspot they keep hidden or quieted, so when you compare keep in mind that you are most likely not getting the full picture.

“WE GON’ CELEBRATE AND HAVE A GOOD TIME”

Remember that feeling you got as a kid? You’d be at your best friend’s birthday party and they’d be joyfully opening presents while you were forced to stand around and watch. Part of you was just happy to be in the room, genuinely excited to be celebrating your friend. The other was absolutely downright jealous that they just opened the brand new state of the art Playdough salon you’d been secretly saving for with every lemonade stand. Can I get a witness? As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realized that feeling never really goes away. It just transforms itself into light envy via mountaintop engagement Facebook post, or new homeowners keys. You see your friends moving on and having these amazing adulting wins, and boom, here comes that little comparison virus. I have found that a practical way of mentally battling that moment is to outwardly and sometimes embarrassingly celebrate your tribe.

My friend Stephanie is AMAZING at this, ya’ll. If her boys come home from school with even so much as a worm they found on the playground, she will fall to the floor in shrieks of joy over their accomplishment. She is my #momgoals in so many ways. When someone you love has a moment to celebrate and you find yourself comparing, immediately catch it, acknowledge it, and then defeat it by doing the exact opposite of what your feelings tell you. Take the friend to dinner, freak out on their comment section, lose your mind in their general direction. Celebrate your people, because that’s what we are called to do. We are called to laugh with those who laugh, and mourn with those who mourn. So laugh, even when you feel like less, even when you feel left out or alone. Let those closest to you know that no matter what is happening in your life, you value their dreams and goals and support them completely. This isn’t easy. Trust me, I know. There was a moment in a particularly hard season of singleness when a friend of mine announced her pregnancy. I had a choice. I could celebrate alongside her or cower in my defeat. I chose to celebrate her, shower her, and quite honestly over-honor her. I am so glad I did. God blesses that obedience, and He fills that hurt. He is glorified through your willingness to lay your life down for your friend. So ya’ll, celebrate good times, come on.

“HONEY, YOU CAN DRIVE MY CAR”

The main thing that shocks me back into reality when I find myself comparing is one simple truth: THIS IS NOT MY LANE. Let me explain. This life, this gift of humanity you’ve been given, this lane is not yours. It belongs to God, first and foremost, no argument. When I focus on me, my failures, my insecurities, I forget the fact that this life and lane is meant to glorify Him.

“For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.” -Galations 1:10

Yikes. That’s terrifyingly blunt. “I would not be a servant of Christ if I was trying to please man.” We are here to share the gospel and our calling in life is perfectly assigned to reflect that truth. The fact of the matter is, if you stay in your lane and keep your focus above versus beside, you’ll realize this race, this journey is not about you. It’s about Jesus. And if it’s about Jesus, then there’s nothing that compares. He is all that matters, His heart, His opinion, His work is incomparable. This life is not about us. Your lane is not really your lane. It belongs to God. When I remember this, it puts everything into perspective. It doesn’t matter what anyone else is doing or accomplishing. My passion and focus is on Jesus, and that alone is the prize. That alone is all I need to fulfill me. That alone is all I desire.

Trust that Jesus sees you and loves you. He celebrates you and covers you. When you look from right to left, don’t compare your story. Jesus doesn’t. Like I said, I am still a work in progress when it comes to comparison. But oh how the pressure releases when I remember that this life is not my own. I’ve learned that if I keep my focus on Him, He never fails me. Stay in your lane. It might seem small right now, the road may seem windy or difficult, but know that God has gone before you. He sees every lane on that road and has made sure you are in the exact one that will fulfill the desires of your heart and bring others to His kingdom.

Celebrate your tribe, press forward, embrace God’s plan for your life. STAY IN YOUR LANE. And always honk if you love Jesus, ya’ll.

(If you’d like to read more humorously insightful posts by Meagan, you can find her blog here: www.thegracefulattempt.com )

What makes you come alive?

I’m never so alive as when I’m writing something that has the potential to change someone else’s life.

DOing what I was CREATED and gifted to do.

I am not perfect. I will continue to get better, hone my craft, improve my skills…. But there’s nothing like living out your God-given purpose in real life.

What’s your purpose? What makes you come alive? When is the last time you thought about it? Or acted on it?

I know how easy it is to get buried in the routine of every day until weeks have gone by and you haven’t done anything meaningful. Friends, you were not created to work a job, to make money, to pay bills and just die.