new year

2020 – The Ellipsis

January 1, 2020 by Gindi 2 Comments

Today, it is 2020.

As my brother in law said this morning, welcome to the roaring ’20s.

For me, this new decade didn’t come in roaring. It came in in a fog.

I’m in a fog.

I left on the 26th for Minnesota to spend a few days with my best friend, Kristin, and attend her son’s funeral, and returned on the 30th. A quick turn around of my carry on bag at the house, and then I left with my family for the farm. As is our New Year’s Eve tradition.

Two of Bray’s siblings and families were there, along with his parents, and the kids popped fireworks last night and laughed and ran and drank too much soda. I posted photos on social media, as I do, and my daughter and I even snapped a photo of us with me smiling.

It felt fake.

I didn’t smile much the rest of the time. Isaac wasn’t even my son but I have been heartbroken. I can’t focus or function for very long. I’m completely sleep deprived. Last week, I slept with the phone in my hand in case Kristin needed anything in the middle of the night. She never did, but somehow me not sleeping felt like I was helping. Then I never get any sleep at the farm, and little bit got sick, so I’m bleary in my fog.

I just didn’t have a bright and shiny New Year’s post to offer.

Last year I wrote about resolutions and hopes. And this year, I don’t know how I’m going to be able to work this week. I’ve left a part of myself in Minnesota and I just want to get back. (It’s actually a miracle I got out – thank you all for praying. I ran from the snow in Marshall and got out 6 hours in advance, and then my plane just beat the snow in Minneapolis by hours too.)

At the same time, I don’t want to let go of my kids. I kept hugging and kissing them once I got back until they finally pushed me off.

As I plowed through emails today, a GetAbstract book title caught my attention, You are Awesome, by Neil Pasricha. The book professes to help you through change and failure and be more intentional. So I started reading.

His first point is what struck me and finally enabled me to write something. Like I’ve meant to for weeks.

He writes to see changes with an ellipsis instead of a period. It moves your thinking from “finality” to “future” – the gap in the sentence marks a transition. He wrote about a woman who saw a change through the lens of an ellipsis instead of a period. Seeing changes as beginnings instead of endings helped her to press forward and remain stronger internally.

This ‘door opening’ perspective, according to the author and his research, gives you the ability to say “yet” at the end of your sentence.

So, I don’t have any catchy resolutions. I don’t have any grand bargains or promises, which I most certainly will fail to execute.

I have an ellipsis for this year. A ‘yet.’

I don’t understand God, yet. (That yet may never be fulfilled this side of heaven.)

I can’t focus on my work, yet. (I’ll get there. It will be far easier for me than for Isaac’s family.)

I don’t know what’s next, yet. (Maybe I won’t know until the next happens, and so I wait.)

This fog won’t lift, yet. (It will lift. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. – John 1)

As a Type A planner, this is the most unplanned I’ve ever been. Darn near unraveling.

But maybe it takes unraveling to pull together what God has planned instead of what I planned. The dictionary says unraveling means to undo twisted, knitted or woven threads. And Colossians 2 says:
I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God. Then you will have minds confident and at rest, focused on Christ, God’s great mystery. (The Msg)

So I don’t know, yet, what to expect or want from 2020. Maybe simply to expect or want this unraveling to result in a new tapestry that is woven by the hand of God.

Rejoicing after weeping.
Clothes of joy after grief in sackcloth. (Psalm 30)

Peace through tribulation. (John 16)

Beauty from ashes.
Hope from despair.
Rebuilt and restored ruins after devastation.(Isaiah 61)

New Year, New Habits

December 31, 2017 by Gindi Leave a Comment

Happy New Year!

Remember the famous New Year’s Resolutions we all used to make? Yes? You still do? Congratulations. I’ve long since thrown in the towel.

However, I’m going to try to cultivate some new habits.

New Year? New Habits!

As you likely know, the research shows it takes 21 days to form a new habit. Particularly hard habit? Maybe longer. You want it to become a strong habit? Probably longer.

So I’m going with six weeks.

I’m not going on Whole 30. (I’d die.)

I’m not going to try to kick carbs or lose 30 pounds or stop drinking or never scream again.

Always and never, I’ve found, don’t work great in my life. I fail, beat myself up, and then utterly fall off the wagon.

So instead, I picked a few self-improvement habits I’d like to grow, regrow, or strengthen.

Read more. This is crazy. I love to read. I love words – heck, I’m a writer who’s not reading, what the what?!?!? But the reality is, time’s just gotten away from me. It’s why I’m blogging less. I’m managing my time poorly. I used to read before bed. I’ve turned to other things – iPad, tv, just crashing altogether. But I have a stack of books I’m dying to read and I’m going to return to my habit of reading every night. The blog will be a heck of a lot more lively when I do that too because it’s where I find my greatest inspiration.
Actually exercise. Ahh. The holy grail. Here’s the thing, I have a buddy. My buddy and I have both gained a few pounds (me more than her) and want to be better. She’s my neighbor. So I’m going to walk down to her house three times a week. We’re going to work out. And we’re going to do a little six week challenge that involves eating better too. No drastic diets. Just smarter choices. Which leads me to…
Don’t drink at home. Except on Saturdays. I’m drinking a glass of wine at night. Not only does it dehydrate me and add calories, it’s not a great habit. I’m not going to say no wine ever on a weeknight because I do attend cocktail receptions for business. But I’m going to keep it corked on Tuesday nights in the living room – or any other night for that matter unless it’s the weekend.
Count to ten. Silly? Well, the kids and I are still struggling with patience. For the hundredth time I’ll mention age seven, and now eight, presents lots of parenting “opportunities” for me. I lose my patience. I’m not going to say I’ll never raise my voice again, but I can count to ten. Aloud. In their face. It gives me a chance to pause and think before reacting. And it gives them a chance to consider their next options. Which will likely bring better results.

That’s it. Four small changes. They’d each yield a better year. I’ll mess up. But I’ll try. Six weeks. New habits.

Discipline and Daring

January 1, 2016 by Gindi Leave a Comment

I wrote this time last year about this concept of choosing “a word” for the year. Lots of bloggers do and last year I very nearly did.

Brave would have been my word had I picked one, I said.

I’ve seen friends select their words with great care, focusing in on an element where they want to strengthen their life. Either focusing on an area of spiritual growth or physical improvement or emotional well being.

Then they get hammered in that area of their life.

Yikes! Well, I know I did this year even with my not quite selection of “brave.” I suffered from more extreme fear this year than I ever have in my life.

I’d given no thought to selecting a word for this year.

Mainly because I have no earthly idea what 2016 will hold, or even what it should hold.

After spending a life planning the next step or stage or career move, I have no idea what is supposed to come next.

You may have picked up on the fact that I’m a smidge of an ambitious, Type A, control, planner chick.

I’m totally on board with doing what God wants me to do if it fits in with the notion of where I believe I’m supposed to head next. Lately, after having a good laugh I imagine, He’s turned that way of living on end.

If I look back, my life was a series of running after a college or a law school or a law firm or a boyfriend or a husband or a new job or a pay raise or a board election or having children or visibility or a publication or a speaking portfolio.

I don’t think there’s a thing wrong with ambition and drive and goal setting, but it can become a treadmill which runs you instead of you running it.

So…I have no idea what is next. I don’t want to know.

I loved the idea of brave and bold choices. I hope I continue to be willing to step out in action instead of words (more on that next week). That’s why daring greatly is still an aspiration of mine.

This is what has been missing: DISCIPLINE.

I won’t select it as my word of the year because in addition to not generally picking a word, that particular word totally freaks me out.

What does discipline look like?

Be temperate, worthy of respect, self-controlled, and sound in faith, in love and in endurance. Titus 2:1

Discipline to say no. No to that scoop of ice cream of glass of wine. No to the speaking engagement which might raise my profile but pull me away from my family for too long. No to that opportunity which sounds good and looks good but isn’t where God is calling me to go. No to chasing titles over substance.

It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior. Titus 2:12

Discipline to shut my mouth. To bite my tongue when it comes to spreading gossip. To shut my mouth when it comes to trying to prove I’m right. To count to 10 instead of losing my temper when the kids get under my skin. Discipline to speak life not criticism or negativity.

With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this should not be. James 3

From the fruit of their mouth a person’s stomach is filled;
with the harvest of their lips they are satisfied.
The tongue has the power of life and death,
and those who love it will eat its fruit. Proverbs 18

Discipline to wait. We are a culture of immediacy. We post and tweet and instagram each moment. We email in an instant and text our first reaction. I am a fast moving person in a fast moving culture, and I have lost the discipline of waiting. Of patience. Of pausing. I want to be capable of waiting, expectantly, for what is to come rather than trying to create a result which is less than what could have been if I had practiced some discipline.

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed… We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently... And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8

Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him. Psalm 37:7

I’m a work in progress. I’m making no fancy New Year’s Resolution. Instead, I will try to put on discipline a little more each day, and wait to see what His hand brings in the year to come.

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. II Corinthians 4:18

On Being Brave

December 31, 2014 by Gindi 11 Comments

There’s a theme out there in the blogging world about selecting ONE word for the new year ahead. I’ve never done it. I’m not doing it this year. But I love the concept. If you had to capture all you want out of the year ahead in one word, what would it be?

For me, as I have written earlier, my word for 2015 would be brave.

Brave as dressed in entirely new clothes.

Brave as being rather than doing.

You see I’m a doer. It turns out being takes far more courage (for me) than doing.

When I wrote a God-sized Dreams link up post last year at this exact same time, I wrote about wonderful stuff but it generally involved doing. I did not envision just being one year ago. I envisioned doing. And so I did. I thought I was brave this year by working on a second book and taking more significant assignments at work and speaking on bigger and brighter stages in front of hundreds of women and leading an organization with an increasingly national profile.

That was not actually all that brave. It was good, don’t get me wrong. God opened those doors and I am grateful for every single one of them. But what God is teaching me, in these hours we’re spending together, is that brave MUST look different this year.

It takes more bravery for me to offer a dozen neighbors cookies in my front yard that to stand on a stage in front of a thousand women. It takes more bravery for me to read bedtime stories every single night I’m given with my children this year than to finish writing my next book. It takes more bravery for me to wake up early every morning and work out so that I can lose weight and be a healthy momma than to attend dinner parties with “the important people.” It takes more bravery for me to spend less and live “smaller,” than to gain everything but lose my soul (Matt. 16:26).

It will take a mighty act of courage, with significant assistance from my patient Heavenly Father, to focus on my influence within my property lines than my influence within my city or state or anywhere else.

I studied the 40 Day Prayer Circle Challenge by Mark Batterson this fall, and in it he writes about drawing a circle of prayer around the area you most fervently want God to work. Then he uses this beautiful image of how God draws a circle around us:”Long before we woke up this morning and long after we go to sleep tonight, the Holy Spirit was and is circling us in prayer. And if that doesn’t infuse us with holy confidence, I don’t know what will. But it isn’t just the Holy Spirit who is interceding for us; the Son of God is interceding for us as well. They are interceding for the will of God to be accomplished in our lives. We are double circled. They are circling us all the time with songs of deliverance.” (Day 15, Draw the Circle)

He wants His work to be done in you even more than you want it! I could just visualize that 2015 is the year God is drawing a circle around my family and saying, Here. Here is where you stand. You stand in this circle this year. I have a plan for you. But it will take you being brave to trust me that I can accomplish it while you stand right here in a circle that might feel a little small at first.

I wrote for God-sized Dreams, “God sometimes requires us to lay down our dream, even the dream He placed on our heart, in order to know him more.” I want to be brave enough to do that.

He must increase, but I must decrease. John 3:30

The line in a song by Francesca Battistelli resonated in my core, “I don’t need my name in lights, I’m famous in my Father’s eyes. Make no mistake, He knows my name. I’m not living for applause. I’m already so adored. It’s all His stage. He knows my name.”

You see, it’s all HIS stage. Thousands of articles have been authored by media specialists and blogging experts about the size of your platform (aka your stage). Your reach is supposed to grow and your name found at the top of every search engine. But it is His stage. I only need HIM to know my name.

So my God-sized Dream for 2015 is for the size and shape of my stage to just so reflect Him. The stage may look, from the outside, smaller and less bright, but oh friend it feels so brave and big to me.

Linking up with God-sized Dreamers today: