So here you are, Time finally looking happily your way, stretching out next to you with his hands tucked lazy behind his head. And you watch as he turns his face up to the sky, eyes closed to the warm sun, and asks what you’ll do with all of his present attention. You’re so baffled that he’s come, so amazed that you actually have the time to do something that all you can do is sit next to him in wonder.

Those of us who have been creating for any amount of time have read the books and know the ropes on how to maximize our environments for creativity. If you want to create something new, don’t check your incoming while you’re trying to do it. (shut off email, Facebook, twitter and the like.) Don’t try to be an editor and a creator at the same time. Refuse to be your own interruption. Fight the resistance. Quiet the inner critics. Write like a mad woman.

But what about when you do all these things, you’ve set the environment up just right, and still you are met with an impenetrable wall of discouragement? Yesterday I was sure my creative days were over and any chance of me ever having anything worth saying again was not only lost but killed flat dead on the ground, limp and lifeless and puny. You know how that goes. When you long for time to write or create, you have exactly 47 billion things to say. And then when the time finally comes, you sit and push out all distractions and you got…nothing. Again, it isn’t that I didn’t have any work to do. I have plenty. But my galleys for book number two won’t arrive until next week and a few other things I have going are at a stopping place for now.

There is so much talk of productivity, of focus and make your art! and don’t waste time! There is pressure, and not a small dose of it, to take the time you have been given and make the most of it. Or find the time you don’t have and beat it into submission. I have done this. I know how to boss time around. I know how to do the work.

But maybe it isn’t a bad thing to let yourself lay back on the wide green earth with Time by your side, stare up at the same bright sky, and let yourself be. There is every temptation to strangle him into productivity and make him work for you since you have so much of him right there. But some days he doesn’t bend easily. You might do well to relax and give up the fight. And to reconsider what make the most of it means anyway.

And I was, until I got hurt. And when I got hurt, rather than facing the hurt and being honest about the fact that it was there, I hid the hurt and hoped it would fade away. Instead, it seeped into my skin and came out in other ugly ways: passivity, disconnectedness, anger. I didn’t know how to share the hurt. And so it festered, I hid, and the mask got tighter.

Hiding behind fine isn’t always an indicator of fear or insecurity. Sometimes it just takes too much energy to be authentic. I want to turn my emotions off, put my hurt up on the shelf, set the glaze in my eyes and the half-smile on my face. Not necessarily because it feels safer, but because it’s just easier. And just like people who struggle with emotional eating or excessive exercise or any other type of addiction, I recognize my addiction to wanting to be left alone. I am addicted to the island of myself.

I remember listening to Brene Brown give a keynote speech at a conference last year, and she made a memorable distinction between being vulnerable and being intimate. I don’t believe we have to be honest and tell everyone how we are doing, the intimate details of the state of our hearts. But might we dare to be honest before God, to trust that he is wise enough and loving enough and intuitive enough to usher us into being vulnerable with certain people?

I recently thought more about these things as I wandered through the empty, brick streets of Seaside, FL. I share more about this at (in)courage this morning. Join me there?

Portions of this post are revised excerpts from Chapter 4 of my book, Grace for the Good Girl. You can read the first chapter here or  for the lowest price I can find right now, you can purchase the book for $9.99 at CBD. It is also available on Amazon, or at your local Barnes and Noble, Family Christian, or Lifeway bookstore. If you’ve already read the book, (or even if you haven’t) I would love to hear your thoughts or stories on this struggle between being intimate and being vulnerable.

When the critic speaks — dismissing our art, narrowing eyes at our carefully thought-through choices, misunderstanding our intent — he reminds us of all the reasons we were afraid to move in the first place. And for a bit, we are paralyzed by the fear of ever moving again. One wrong move, and they could start pointing.

It isn’t a thicker skin that I need. Don’t paint me word pictures of wet-backed ducks, water rolling off feathers. Don’t  give me a lecture on sticks and stones. The words of the critic sting. And I want them to sting because the sting means I am alive, human, frail. I used to wish I were made stronger, tougher, more naturally resilient. But the critical voice is teaching me my humanness, and that is not a bad thing.

In fact (oh, the hilariousness of this!) the more I confess my frail humanity, the louder I hear the sound of another voice rising up in me, one that has some weight behind it. It is the voice of Hope, and I know it’s Jesus but sometimes I make Hope a girl because she just feels feminine to me. And she speaks with courage and a bit of a laugh. Because when those things we most fear will happen actually happen, we have a unique window of opportunity to take inventory of the battle field in the aftermath. And we look around, blink our eyes, listen to the quiet and think to ourselves, I am not dead. That did not kill me after all.

How could it? If I say I’m a believer (and I am) and if I believe the Bible is true (and I do), then I have already died to that old life, the one that gropes and clings to assurance and acceptance the world has to offer. And so if I have died with Christ and been raised to life in Him, how can I die again at the hands of the critic? What have I to fear if death is no longer a risk?

The critic carries gifts he never meant to bring, motivation he has no awareness of. The voice of the critic forces us to face our biggest fears, and in so doing, listen for the voice of God. If we dare to believe Him, if we dare to believe His dying and rising back up apply even in this, we can then be oddly, ironically, deliriously free.

“And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him. We are sure of this because Christ was raised from the dead, and he will never die again. Death no longer has any power over him.”

Romans 6:8-9, NLT

But I do and I wish I could talk myself out of it. The interview has been over for a full 15 minutes and I consider this blessed life I’m so thankful for but didn’t quite plan on, exactly. There’s no such thing as just a writer. You need to be a communicator in all aspects of the word – writing, speaking, sweat-less interviews. It makes me dizzy sometimes.

I’m not cut out for this. And even as I say it, as I say it, I hear the Lord whisper, No, you are not cut out. You have been placed in. He really said that, sure as the way I stumbled and uh’d my way through that interview. He reminded me I have been placed into Him. No, not cut out.

I am connected, sure, safe. If I’m looking to be cut out for something, confident on my own terms, standing on my own platform, unwilling to die? Life can be scary and tasks, daunting. God takes great delight in finding us in places where we don’t feel cut out to succeed. And that is where he sends his invitation of remembrance – that shaky, sweaty mess is a reminder that I am desperate to depend on a source other than myself. Success takes on a different shape there. It looks a lot like rest and feels a lot like freedom.

Have you found yourself in a role you don’t feel cut out for lately?

I am on a fast road to becoming more of an introvert than I already was. I don’t know if it’s the fact that I filled up a whole book with my own talk and now anyone, from strangers to neighbors can walk into any Barnes and Noble in the country and read it or if it is just part of getting older. But I am slowly beginning to hold my cards closer to my chest as the years are rolling on by.

I’m not saying that’s a bad or good thing, I’m just saying it’s true. I’m thankful for the friends who know me well. I’m craving simple moments with my husband. Silence and solitude are top on my list of things that keep me sane. My neighbor told me about a book that I can’t wait to read – Quiet: The power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking. The title alone gave me freedom. It just released last week and is in the top 5 on Amazon so maybe some of you have read it or at least heard of it?

Some other books I’m reading? I’m on the last chapter of One Thousand Gifts. I know it’s been out for a year but I’ve read it with slow, thoughtful intention and now I don’t want it to end. I finished Parker Palmer’s Let Your Life Speak, a small book about learning to listen to your own design as you consider vocation. I’m also reading Sacred Rhythms by Ruth Haley Barton. All of these books together are changing how I think in a good way. They are all hardcovers and I have taken the book jacket off all of them because I have a hate relationship with book jackets.

Here is my family last month. I have precious few photos of all of us together because I’m usually the one behind the camera. Our family albums are filled with my husband looking like a single dad – poor man raising all those children alone. I’m sure his wife was a lovely creature, God rest her soul. Lucky for me, my sister-in-law always insists I get in the pictures when she’s around so I have just enough photos to prove that I am, indeed, not dead or missing.

The twins are in second grade now, all loose teeth and long legs. Our son will start kindergarten in the fall and then a week after that they will all be driving and getting married because that is just the way things go. I’m not sure how I feel about that.

This spring I will be slash have been speaking at some events and retreats, perhaps adding to the introversion that is going on. The idea of standing on stages and talking makes me want to spend equal time hiding under tables, silent. But I am beginning to embrace the beauty and relevance of speaking out loud the messages that have come in the quiet. There is a different kind of aliveness that happens in those settings. It definitely keeps me dependent and small.

We are currently (as in, today) picking out covers for my second book, the one for teen girls. It is between two beautiful covers and I can’t choose so when I’m done with this post I’m going to print them out, put them both on my mantel, blindfold myself and pin the tail on the cover. I can’t wait to share the winner with you. It’s a great problem to have, two beautiful covers. It could easily be two awful covers and it isn’t. I really love Revell.

Speaking of mantel, remember my mantel before we moved in? Well there it is, in all it’s unpainted, dark paneling glory. I changed some things around this weekend. I took an hour and painted the wall of the mantel white and hung my black and white pictures.

Yes, that is the same house. If you are curious and haven’t been around here much, you can read more about how we knocked down the living room wall wall and painted the dark paneling. This mantel has been through a lot of change over the four years since we moved in. I predict more change in the future. But for now, we’ll let her rest.

I’m considering starting a little newsletter of sorts for anyone interested – just a free not-very-often update on the state of things. It will be a place to tell you of upcoming events, to share some things I may not share on the blog, to maybe offer downloadable photos, to perhaps ask for prayer. See I am very decisive on what this would be. With all the chattering email and other fun online-y things, I can’t imagine that would be something anyone would sign up for which is why I haven’t done it. But I am discovering sometimes I have things I want to tell you about but the blog doesn’t always seem like the best way to do it. Perhaps you have a better idea? I’m all ears. And that is not a joke about how much my ears stick out. Just so you know.

May you know beyond doubt or shadow that you are loved, and may your sky be blue enough this weekend for you to look twice. May you see the gifts hiding under piles of worry, see the dream behind the fog of fear, and find the time to take the long way home. And may none of your children wipe their boogers on your wall. Amen.

While driving in traffic.

When you’re right, but they don’t know it.

On your birthday.

In your area of expertise.

When you’re running late.

When they’re doing it wrong.

While pregnant.

When you’re overlooked.

When the telemarketer calls.

At the DMV.

I know that grace is far more than biting my tongue when I want to lash out, more than not saying mean things, more than tolerating someone who is intolerable, more than just being nice, more than a tight-lipped patience. Grace is extending more than what is deserved and that never starts with me. Because that? Is impossible.

If I really believe this grace changes everything, then the secret to a life transformed is simple – receive the grace given to you in abundance, then pour it out on everything. And it isn’t fake, this outpouring of grace in the midst of the impossible. Being a hypocrite is not acting contrary to how you feel. Being a hypocrite is acting contrary to who you are. In Christ, you are graceful. Even when you don’t feel like it.

“But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them — yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.”

1 Corinthians 15:10

When you write a book about a good girl learning to let go of the try hard life, you’d better believe that yours are the hands with the whitest knuckles. This life is not stair-climbing, getting closer to the top with every glad step. It’s more like an onion, peeling back the layers of lies and regrets and misconceptions.

Last week, my husband and I stood by the sea, heads weary from the travel, hands open with time to spare, and we didn’t have much to say. It was lovely. Still, I felt pressure to make the most out of our time. Production followed me to the shore, tapping on my shoulder, waiting to be checked off my to-do list. It took a full day to shake him. And even then, it was a fight. I have a disease, I think to myself. I am addicted to producing things.

We are tethered to our own usefulness, big-headed with our own accomplishments, crushed by our shortcomings. We miss the soul breath. We miss the smallness, the doorway through which we must walk to find freedom from the ever moving treadmill of time. Even if we steal time from our productivity to find the sitter, pack the bags, pay the money, sit through the layovers and fly to the shore to relax, sometimes once we get there we forget how. And I realized as I tapped my foot on sand that I have shed my truest identity. Instead of being the beloved, I feel more like the doloved.

How do you calm a life of activity? How do you shake the guilt of rest? How do you smooth the frayed edges and loose ends that wave frantic in your face? To start? Don’t just look at that comfortable chair. Sit in it. Poke a hole in the bucket of time and let the minutes spill onto your lap. And as you do, consider this: you are loved. So be the loved. Fake it if you have to, the being. Because you are loved, so even when you fake it you’re not faking it because it’s true. Read page 44 slow. And then read it again, slower.

We know by heart, take out the trash, sort the laundry, submit the article, call the teacher. We may even know be kind, be patient, be loving. But what about the gift? Be loved. It doesn’t come natural or easy, but it does come. He did come. Take your time to consider God’s gracious love toward you. Let him show up refreshingly new. Item number 20 on the list today?

It just might change everything.

“If we are to be aware of life while we are living it, we must have the courage to relinquish our hard-earned control of ourselves.”

-Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water

I stare out the morning window, the outline of my tired head stares back at me, wispy hair out of place, wild. The sun isn’t up yet, only the faintest, faded line of pink lingers over the trees out back. This slow rising happens every morning, I think to myself. As I wrap my hands around my warm cup, I can’t help but rush ahead into the day. Even though the house is quiet, I’m running on the inside as if things are in full swing. My feet haven’t moved but my soul is rumbling.

Mercifully, the Lord whispers His presence with me and I’m pulled back to this minute. I consider how God called the light day and the dark night, how He spoke the days into being just one at a time. He still does it that way, evening and morning and evening again. And the days roll into one another in a watercolor line of elation and planning and laughter and frustration. Sometimes it feels like my life is a gray arrow right through the center, pushing ahead to get on with the next thing, desperately wishing I could see far off ahead.

It isn’t usually the big things that cause the most trouble and doubt. With the big things, it is so obvious I’m out of control – the diagnosis, the job insecurity, the safety and well-being of my family. Instead it’s those everyday things that are covered with my fingerprints. I try to get things I already have, things like acceptance, worth, security, love. Maybe everything we do is to get one of those needs met. Finish the list – I am important. Apologize for my messy house when the neighbor comes over – I need your acceptance. Don’t let them see my weakness – I need your approval. 

We are terrified of the mystery. We want our manager hats to remain firmly on our heads, skirts smoothed, shoes shined, plans lined up in neat rows. At the least, the suggestion that we are not in control is laughable. At the worst, it is offensive. I have a degree, you know.

And so I stand there next to the window, pink sky lighting up with each moment, and consider the invisible place in me where my Spirit and God’s mingle together. I used to think that a mature faith would bring with it clear pictures, thought that as I walked with God I would see life big, wide, and spacious. But that is not what is happening, and if you expect that, it can feel like perhaps your faith is shrinking. Because instead of being lifted up on a cloud to see the big picture, instead of tilting back my head and laughing at those silly things I used to worry about, I am shrinking down into a small place, a place where I can barely see two feet in front of me, much less into next week.

Everything in me wants to fight the unveiling of the anxieties that threaten to overwhelm, push them back from showing up in my day. Christians aren’t supposed to be anxious, right?  I want to ignore the smoky unknown; it is counter-intuitive to let the anxieties rise up to the surface.

But we must let them rise up, so that we can release them into His hands. Speak the fear out loud, so that He can give words of truth. Don’t run away from those places where it seems your faith is small. Run into them, look around, be honest about how it feels as you stand there. And know we have a God who can handle it.

I put my cup on the table, breathe in deep the air of a new day, pray without words to a God who knows. I become aware of His acceptance of me, and not because I finished everything on my list. Truth can be a slow rising, making no difference at first. But as each moment weaves itself into the next, as we believe Him in the great right now, His truth becomes a strand woven into the fabric of our minutes. This moment living is sweet. This moment living reminds me of who is in control and who is not. This smallness is to be celebrated, not despised. I dare not trust myself with the next step. A mature faith says I am desperately in need of a source outside of myself. I always have been, but now I know it.