Unique

I just got back from a weekend spent scrapbooking with my mom, best friend, and her mom. We've done the "go to a resort" and scrapbook for the weekend but this time we took a different route. We spread our stuff all over her mom's basement and went to work-snacking, creating, sleeping in the spare room, loosing all track of time. It was good to get away. A quiet seeps into my soul that was full to overfowing with the "stuff" of life. To focus, and create-well, it was a gift. I hadn't really scrapbooked for a long time-it was so good to play with my supplies and just create for me, because I wanted to. I didn't make incredible creations-I just put stuff down and played. Scrapbooked several years of sporting events, some of my favorite photos and well, just stuff. Today, I'm back to the routine of home-wash, kid projects, making lunch and that is all good as well, but now I have a new energy.

Sometimes I wonder why I create in so many different areas? Why do I scrapbook and paint canvases and paint watercolors and keep journals and decorative paint and teach kids and work at my church? Wouldn't it be better if I could just FOCUS?!? But, after taking a slew of personal assessments (part of a leadership class I am participating in) over the last week, I've realized this is just a part of who I am-who I was created to be. I love input-collecting ideas, techniques, thoughts, inspiration. My challenge is to simply embrace this part of who I am and not fight it and not hide it. I had a Jr. high teacher who used to always tell us we could never call anyone "weird or strange" but instead use the word UNIQUE. Here's to embracing the "unique" in me!

Simplify and Redirect

In order to look forward, we need to look back. In looking back, I have learned and now I need to take what I have learned and redirect for the future. All of this is taking a huge amount of time and energy. And, so I am simplifying. I am taking things off the plate. I am saying NO to many carrots dangling in front of me. Art "carrots" are the hardest to back away from for me. If it has to do with creativity and color or marketing and art, I HAVE TO do it, don't I?!? Well, the answer is NO. And, so I'm saying No to things which would appear to be very good things for me. The problem is they are not the great things. I don't want any more "good enough", I want to live in the great-the path that God really intended for me to be on. I've wandered quite a bit along that path lately, pursued some gravel roads I should of left alone, learned some things on some bunny trails I followed, but now I'm working on focus. I'm learning about me and it is painful, hard and time consuming. I'm confronting the things I have believed about myself that are not truth. I'm confronting the things other have told me about me that is not truth. I'm trying to live in the truth that God says about me.

Thanks for being patient with me while I walk this path. There is so much more freedom on the other end. I'm walking toward that freedom, dipping my toes back in the muck here and there, stretching myself. The whole process feels about as pleasant as getting my teeth cleaned, not easy but good-maybe healthy is a better word for it. For I know that in order to CREATE-I need to first conquer fear, in order to TEACH-I must first know, and in order to INSPIRE-I must first listen. I'm doing the work of the deep listening and knowing what my life is saying.

Right now...I have more work to do.