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The Amazon River out of which a thousand fears flow: do we matter? We fear we don’t. We fear nothingness, insignificance. We fear evaporation. We fear that in the last tabulation we make no contribution to the final sum. We fear coming and going and no one knowing.

-Max Lucado, Fearless: Imagine Your Life without Fear

Can you imagine your life without fear?

Max Lucado asks us this daunting question and spends two hundred pages in his latest book, Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fear, inspiring us to a “yes” answer.

First he examines why we are afraid, and then begins laying out his argument that will continue the course of the book: Jesus commands and empowers us to be fearless.

“If quantity is any indicator, Jesus takes our fears seriously. The one statement he made more than any other was this: don’t be afraid,” writes Max Lucado in chapter one.

Fearless attempts to address and debunk our fears head on. Lucado dedicates 13 of the 15 chapters to focusing on a specific fear. Examples include fear of not mattering, fear of not disappointing God,  fear of violence, fear of overwhelming challenges, and (my favorite?), fear that God is not real.

Lucado examines, exposes and battles fear eloquently, genuinely and humorously. His story telling is comforting and at times very powerful. However, I don’t believe this book for everyone. In order to get out of Fearless all that Max Lucado put in it, the reader must already identify him/herself as Christian– or at least well on the path to becoming one.

The spiritually uncertain might find the argument, “Trust God more, fear less” a little flat and too simplistic (many steps are missing!!! I hear them cry).  We all want to be convinced a “yes” is possible to the question, “Can you imagine your life without fear?” but when the argument to get us there centers around a doctrine we are still not 100% sure about, our shoulder and hopes sink.  This book is not for us.

One chapter attempts to speak to the Doubting Toms amongst us/within us. But the chapter titled “Fear that God is Not Real” falls a bit short. This is not the fault of the author perhaps but of the reader’s inner block.  One’s doubt about God is extremely personal and complex- 10 pages are probably not going to resolve it. No person- not even Max Lucado- can be responsible for alleviating that particular fear.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be so harsh: There is the possibility that within Max Lucado’s Fearlessis the line that will resonate in an unbeliever’s soul and truly replace doubt with faith.

If the reader has already triumphantly passed through their own personal “valley of the shadow of doubt,” Fearless opens up to become an incredibly inspiring book. You will be underlining Max Lucado’s words, quoting them in your journal and perhaps even re-writing them on 3×5 index cards to post on your mirror as a daily reminder to trust God more and fear less.

Imagining our life without fear is a mental/spiritual exercise all of us can benefit from.

You can buy Fearless: Imagine Your Life Without Fearat Amazon.

I wasn’t raised in any particular religion. I guess I was Christian by default, because my grandma took us to Sunday school sometimes and of course we celebrated Christmas and Easter, but my parents never took us to church or read the bible to us on their own.

My Mom did teach us how to say our prayers, and she said them with us every night when she tucked me and my two sister into bed. It went something like this:

Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the lord my soul to keep
God bless mommy and daddy and Hope and Courtney and all my grandma’s and grandpas and aunts and uncles and cousins
And my best friend Shawn and our dog Goldie
Please keep us safe and healthy and happy,
Amen.
I love you all the love in the world.

This wasn’t a bad start, but my husband, a Christian and once-upon-a-time aspiring pastor, would say it was slightly incomplete.
Where is Jesus? Where is the Gospel?

My bachelor’s degree is in Philosophy with a minor in Religious Studies. And my master’s was in Eastern Classics. I’ve always been spiritual but kept a safe academic distance from religious doctrine. Raising a son together with my now husband means we are combining our values: Me, wanting to teach my son religious tolerance and love above all, my husband, wanting to give my son a sound foundation in the bible.

We got the book 100 Bible Stories 100 Bible Songs. It’s a great introduction for my 3 year old and myself. I haven’t listened to the songs that much (it comes with 2 CD’s with children’s songs that go along with bible stories from Genesis all the way to Revelations) but I’ve enjoyed reading the book to Lucca during our story times.

The book is well laid out, colorful, with plenty of white space on each page to not overwhelm little eyes (or my eyes) with verse. Gentle cartoons with plenty of personified animals decorate the stories. On the left-hand side of every page is the short story taken from a bible verses. Underneath the page title is the name of the song and one line from that song that corresponds to that particular story. The actual bible verse the story and song relate to is given too so you can look it up in your big-person bible from cross-reference.

The right hand side of the page is my favorite. This is mostly illustration, but on the top is a one-liner in red about who God is or what faith is. Ex: Faith starts small and grows big. Directly underneath is a second line in blue that references both the general statement and the story on the left. Ex: It’s just like a mustard seed.

On the very bottom of the right hand side page is an affirmation about our own personal relationship with God or faith. It’s always written in the first person and I imagine it is meant for our little ones to repeat out loud. Ex: I believe that my faith will grow and grow!

This is never Lucca’s first pick off the book shelf– he goes for the cars/trucks/trains/doggies, but one that he really does enjoy once we start reading it together.

Not only is the bite-size, (okay, I’ll say it- “dumbed-down”) bible versus good for him, I think it’s good for me too.

You can buy 100 Bible Stories, 100 Bible Songs at Amazon.

There is such thing as social media addiction. Perhaps even a social media ‘problem.’

I am a self-confessed ’social media romantic’ and I suffer the highs and lows of a stereotypical- albeit unhealthy- romance.

There are days when I am thrilled to be in this SM world, when genuine friendships explode from the dark and the greatness of humanity beams hope down on the twitter stream like a light house over a cape.

Then there are days when all I sense is an emptiness and scrounging hunger for approval– within myself, not just in others.

If you’ve never felt the rush or the angst of twitter, the combination of exhilaration and overwhelm of Facebook, or the sinusoidal waves of satisfaction and disappointment in social media in general, this post is not for you.

But if you are like me, and are by nature, an ‘over-sharer’ (thanks @Missive) , and you’ve fallen in love with social media, perhaps even admitted you are addicted to it, you might be prone to suffer a degree of ‘privacy deprivation syndrome’ too.

I say this a bit tongue in cheek, because I don’t actually know if there is such a thing as privacy deprivation syndrome as it relates to social media, but if I can trust my inner read on things, I think might be something to it.

Technically, privacy deprivation syndrome is a term psychologist use to diagnoses people who don’t spend regular time alone to rest and recoup. It’s symptoms include increasing resentment, mood swings, chronic fatigue and depression.

I stumbled on this information accidentally.

Last week, I myself was feeling the low- disillusionment and disappointment with my online life. The mood swings were there and so was the anxiety and moments of saddness. I began to feel a sense of resentment for things that normally brought be joy- blogging for example.

Instinctively I knew I needed to take a break…a break from my online life. It was Wednesday, it was only one day, but it felt incredible to unplug midweek and not send or receive one tweet or facebook status update. I didn’t even check my email or look at my blog to see if there were any comments. I took a real break.

And I read one of my favorite things to read when I need inspiration or perspective, Simple Abundance.

The author, Sarah Ban Breathnach, sites this psychological term to point out a woman’s tendency to overbook herself and sign on for too much, only to experience unfulfilled exasperation. [Mother take note: "The never refreshed are really not that much fun to be around."]

She speaks about our need for solitude, a ‘psychic time out,’ the importance of spending a regular time alone. I read this and my initial thought was: Well, I spend lots of time alone! I work from home, my son is at daycare, my husband is at his office, I have the whole house to myself. But a deeper truth smacked me in the face.
Sure, you have the whole how to yourself, but how about those thoughts? How many of them become tweets or blogs posts? How much of your life to do you share with the world before you’ve truly enjoyed it just for yourself?

Very sobering.

Social media addicts and enthusiasts are prone to suffer privacy deprivation syndrome because they (I mean, we- I broadcasted my wedding, for crying out load) don’t have the same filter as everyone else. Whether we truly just don’t know when to shut-up, or because we believe there might be someone who is lifted just a little bit higher by our willingness to be naked, emotionally speaking, or, darkly, because we’ve grown to depend on others’ comments and mentions to feel love and approval, we over-share a lot.

Maybe we don’t over-share about the intimate things like sex and bathroom breaks (we have higher social intelligence than that), but we do over-share about the daily goings-on in our life that most likely mean nothing to anyone else.

We tweet about going to Ikea, getting a coffee, reading at the library, playing at the park with our children. We update our Facebook status at quarter past midnight to let everyone know we have insomnia and to call out for attention to our friends in early time-zones. Half way through a yoga session we are a given an insight of personal significance and feel our journey as human being get a little more rewarding, and we can’t wait to rush home to blog about it. We jump from our down-ward to open our laptop.

When I was reading about the casualties of privacy deprivation syndrome – depression, chronic fatigue, emotional depletion- I realized I was due to experience all of this thanks to my social media addiction and this new tendency to think of thoughts as broadcast messages for others to respond to or take action on, rather than as intimate belongings of self-reward.

Being uncomfortably honest with myself I knew I was starting to place my inner value on how many comments were left on my blog and how many twitter friends reached out an @ message to me that day. I was starting to judge my own self worth not by the love of my family or god, but by the measure of others.

Personal value can never come from the outside. If it starts to, that’s the time to cut and run…or at least take a break to get a grip.

I needed a ’social media time out’. And so last Wednesday I took one. Instead of tweeting or typing at a keyboard, I opened my red leather-bound book and wrote with ink. I wrote and told no one. I enjoyed the intimacy of alone. I realize the irony of sharing with you now what I wrote in private, but I may forever be cursed an over-sharer and I am okay with that as long I know how to ‘get a grip’ when I need to. I hope in this sharing you see less privacy deprivation syndrome and more of it’s cure- or it’s least momentary treatment.

The bath water is running. It is just 11 am. The house is dark with mist outside and I am alone, a perfect solitude. I am going to soak in a bath full of bubbles and shave my legs. A mid-week luxury. Turning on Astrud Gilbreto now. Turning off Tweetdeck. Closing down all my browsers. I’m writing just with pen today, for myself. Today my thoughts and actions are for only me. I remember Sarah Ban Breathnach’s words, “Solitude cracks open the door that separates two worlds: the life we lead today and thew life we yearn for so deeply.

What do you think? Do you think there is such thing as ‘privacy deprivation syndrome’ associated with social media? Do you occassionaly suffer too? If you don’t, tell me your secrets.

If you feel no enthusiasm or inspiration on a particular day, try to remember a joyful experience from your past. The joy you got from your previous achievements will carry you through. Very soon, you will not only reach but transcend your previous height. You are not fooling yourself, you are only bringing happiness in your system, and this happiness is confidence.

Try to feel that your problem is just a small obstacle that you will soon overcome. -Sri Chimnoy

Children wake up in a way that is very different than the way most of us adults wake up:

There is awe and wonderment when the light of day greets their eyelids.

There is eagerness and a calling to new discoveries even before arrival at the breakfast table.

And I see this in my son, Lucca, every morning: a pure possibility for joy, just in cereal and milk.

What is romance if not this awe and wonderment, eagerness and joy?

We’ve all felt it before, just as our children do now, but our adult definitions and criteria for romance has limited our experience of fanciful delights significantly.

A quick glance at dictionary definitions might serve us:

Romance
?noun
1. the colorful world, life, or conditions depicted in such tales.
2. a romantic spirit, sentiment, emotion, or desire.
?verb (used without object)
9. to invent; indulge in fanciful or extravagant stories or daydreams.

Notice romance is mostly a state-of-mind or an activity engaged with the mind- not a synopsis of a story requiring two people.

If you bear witness to a colorful world– if you pay attention to the incredible blueness of the blue sky, or just how yellow the tip of Sunflower petal really is– you are living romantically.

Your kids know the magic of seeing colors in the world. Listen to them. They will tell you with undying amazement what color is the fire-truck screaming down the road. It’s red. No, wait– it is an alive and hungry red that also looks fantastic on mommy’s toes and lips.

Romance is first and foremost a state-of-mind where we stand in awe of the things we could just as easily pass off as mundane.

Romance as a verb (without an object) gets even more exciting. To romance is to invent and dwell in magical possibility.

To romance YOU, like I spoke about in The Meaning of a Personal Love Story, is to daydream about all the lovely things you are– and are becoming. It is to indulge in extravagant stories about your goals and ambitions, about living in Italy or having another baby, or writing a book, or walking the Camino in Spain.

When it comes to daydreaming, and indulging in fanciful stories, we are called to be childlike, because being childlike means being bold, and brave and unapologetic about the desires in our heart.

Childlike
1. marked by innocence, trust.
2. young, ingenuous, simple, guileless, trusting, innocent.

The thing is, most of the experience with romance we have had as adults, has left us the opposite of innocent and trusting. Romance- as we have come to know it our 20s and 30s- is anything but simple.

This is why you want a return of childlike romance in your life. A return of childlike romance restores self-value and self-driven joy. In the practice of delightful engagement with your own mind, you are given wonderment and possibility back. And you are given it not as condition of someone else’s presence, but as an affirmative with each deep inhale. This is self-love.

Give yourself 10 minutes of solitude and be romantic-in the most free and childlike ways. Think impractical, unrealistic and fanciful thoughts. Believe impossible things.

Let your heart be dominated by idealism and welcome back a desire for adventure. Awe and wonderment can begin at lunch if you missed them at breakfast.

“I can’t believe that!” said Alice.

“Can’t you?” the queen said in a pitying tone. “Try again, draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.”

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said. “One can’t believe impossible things.”

“I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

You’ve heard this passage before. Jen welcomed us all to the club house with it.

But why? Why the importance of believing in impossible things? Head on over to Looking Glass Lane to find out.

Today was my day to post. Friday’s we go “Under the Glass”… So come on over and hang out with us…Do like Jen says and “bring your thoughtful minds and pull on your big-girl pants.“

Every human being desires a love story.

We all want love, but more than a moment of it. We want an entire story of it and we want to live this amazing story out ourselves- in our own lives. (And why shouldn’t we?)

The thing is, we aren’t clear on what kind of love story we really are after. We have it in our heads that it has to do with someone else not showing up (Cupid’s fault), rather than us just being here now.

We think we need someone to co-star with us in order to make this love story happen. We worry there is no one.

We think of love stories as classic tales of boy meets girl (or boy meets boy; or girl meets girl- hey, it’s 2009!)

But there is a more fundamental story to be told about love, and it involves just you- no prince, no hero, no supporting actor need apply.

Personal
[Adjective]
belonging to, or for the sole use of, a particular individual

Love-Story
[Noun]
a story dealing with love

What is a personal love story?

Simple. It’s a story about love that belongs only to you. It’s a story about love for sole use by you.

Your personal love story is your expression of affection for the woman you are; it is the expression of honor you give your deepest dreams.

It is your commitment to seek and experience joy despite the circumstances that try to define you.

It is your belief about what you are worth regardless of the presence or absence or size of ring on your finger.

Your personal love story is the heroic adventure of becoming an ever more luminous woman.

It is the light you draw unto you, the light you share with others, the happiness that gets created out of nowhere, the energy that draws everything in it’s likeness closer.

It the mysterious force that precedes you when you walk into the room.

It is the joy that has surprised you with its spontaneous company since you were 6 years old.

Your personal love story is all about you and the current gratitude you feel. It’s also about excitement and ‘being game‘ for what is up ahead.

This is a healthy, well functioning personal love story. (And note: This is what precedes a healthy, well functioning love-story you co-star in with another).

Each of us write a personal story in our head way before we fall in love. Personal love stories always serve us better than our biographies, because they leave room for what’s possible and do not limit us to what has already been.

Think about your personal love story. Do you have one? Or do you just have a story, a biography, that is keeping you from where you really want to go, who you really want to be? These things can-and deserve-to be updated, you know.

Remember love lifts us up where we belong. (Thank Joe Cocker!).

Coming up we’ll talk about how to write your own personal love story and what a personal love story looks like when it’s played out (I’ll share mine).
But first, we are going to talk about the importance of nurturing a child-like romance which is key to embracing a genuine and long-lasting personal love story.

In the mean time, buy some severely dark, dark chocolate, drink some red wine on your porch or draw a bath with loads of bubbles.

Or-
Go on a bike-ride to an Inn and rest your bicycle against the trunk of elm tree while you sit in it’s shade and take your journal out for a little pen-on-paper action.

Whatever you do, Romance You.

I know my purpose on this planet. I decided on it this past week, and I’m declaring out in the world today. I’ll tell you what it is in a second.

First, I want to share with you the importance of declaring your purpose, and I want to show you how you can write your own personal purpose statement.

When I say “I know my purpose because I decided on it last week,” that is only half true.

I know my purpose with clarity now because of a decision I made in a moment of time. But I didn’t choose that purpose out of a hat. It wasn’t given to me by a palm reader or a fortune cookie or Oprah (although she is great at inspiring it). It wasn’t random. It wasn’t willy-nilly.

Neither is yours.

I know my purpose because I listened to who I was and– more importantly–what I loved most about myself and life.

I asked myself 3 questions:

1. What brings me joy?
2. When do I feel the best in me shine?
3. Why do I get up in the morning? (Besides to feed my little guy cereal. This question really is about what makes me excited about being human)

Non-verbal hints on personal purpose have been dancing around and inside of you all your life. Often they appear in action, though you don’t readily recognize it as “purpose” being exposed. Only after you bring things to tangible life by articulating with written words do you start to connect the dots. (Note: get a journal ASAP!)

Ah-ha moments start flying your way.

Don’t underestimate the ‘tangible life’ articulation brings. Words–especially when they can be read again and again– are powerful. Words documented in ink– your pen on paper ink– can move mountains. Got your pen ready?

Try this exercise: Declare Purpose.
1. Scour your home and your closets for hints. Who are you?
2. Dig up the past. Who were you at 6 years old? What did you believe was possible and what did know for sure you wanted to do?
3. Daydream. Who do you want to be?

Next, ask your self the three questions of What, When and Why (see above).

And now, write a rough-draft Purpose Statement. (I say rough draft so you can feel free to amend and revise as often as you like to you nail it).

My purpose is to use my creativity, insight and genuine joy to inspire others–single moms especially– to live their own personal love story and to promote the possibility of child-like romance everywhere.

What is a personal love story? What is a child-like romance? And why do I know we all need more of it?
Stay tuned. I’ll be sharing. In the mean time, tune into the Single Mom Revolution Blog Talk show. [Spoiler Alert: It's good for you even if you aren't a single mom.]

This past weekend, we had fun. Real, summer fun. With water and sunshine, pies and beers.

Our friends invited us to their family cabin 5 hours off in western Kentucky. The land between the lakes. A cabin, a perfect time-capsule from the 1950’s, fit with bunk-beds, beautiful quilts, a party platoon boat, and a dock that transported one over a million minows to a haven of wave-rocking joy.

We swam and we skied. I taught my husband to wake-board and dared to jump the wake myself. Lucca wore a life-vest and for the first time together we experienced the refreshing freedom of floating around in an emerald lake.

So grateful to our friends who brought us here. How did they know we needed it so much? If they ever turn out to be in-laws, I would be well-pleased. (Never have I seen Lucca so smitten by a little girl, their daughter Ellie).

This weekend reminded so much of the summer fun I used to have with my family on the lake I grew up on in Oregon- Lake Oswego. My dad taught me to knee-board then ski. We did crazy summer stunts. Pulling 7 kids behind the boat on water-skis at once, missing the Guinness Book of World Records by 93 (yes, the record stand at 100), but beaming with equal pride for having made the front page of our local paper. Still small, I road on my dad’s shoulder’s as he would ski, and adopt my gymnastic talents when I would ski on my own- lifting my back leg high in the air, doing scales and even tempting to hold the rope with my foot.

Perhaps if I had lived in Florida a career at Cypress Gardens would have beckoned me.

How often as adults do we deliberately set out to have summer fun? The kind of exhilarating sport, laughter and days spent in nothing but a swimsuit? Not enough in my adult life. But that’s gonna change. Play is as important for sanity as sleep. Most of us need more of each. I know I do.

If you aren’t blessed with friends with a cabin on a lake and a motorboat perfect for tubing, you still have plenty of options of play before you. Sprinklers will do wonders to transform a muggy July afternoon. So will running through the city fountains.

And if there is a ration on water where you are living, don’t underestimate the power of a hammock from the dollar store. Or the shade of Willow tree with a cool cotton sheet to rest on and that book of poetry you used to read in college.

It’s almost mid July:Have Summer fun now.

Just one word more– please steal time every day, if you cannot find it in any other way, to lie on the grass, or in a hammock, under a huge tree live lovey month…and relax. What a tonic this is for the soul! What a rest for weary nerves! Our husbands, children, friends– yes, and the nation– with profit from our relaxation. The greatest need today is for calmer homes, and no fireside can be calm unless its guardian is at peace with the world.
- Nell B. Nichols, from the summer of 1924 Woman’s Home Companion

Cecil’s ride on a ski-do. Lucca drives.

Warm summer evening, family sunset watch.
Check out the rest of our flickr picks from our weekend at the lake here.