Today’s vacation post is from one of my very best friends, Herschel.  I asked him to write me a 10 Things post.  He wrote me 5 things.  Not only is Herschel one of my best friends (which makes him infinitely cooler), but he also puts up with me playing djembe and singing with him and his my guitar while we lead worship at church. It’s okay that he plays my guitar.  The djembe is his, so it’s a total give and take relationship.  I keep trying to get Herschel to start blogging full-time.  He’s got some pretty good stuff to say.  I think you’ll agree.  Enjoy his 10 5-Things List!

Recently, I have traveled around the Midwest, going to and from various job interviews at churches.  I hadn’t applied for a job at a church in a long time, and all of a sudden I had four interviews in a short three-week period.  While at one of the interviews, I was asked a question by the senior pastor.  He was a kind, humble man, intent on helping others, myself included, have a deeper relationship with Christ.

“How do you take care of your soul?” he asked.

I have to be honest, I didn’t know how to answer.  In all my interviews I have never been asked anything like that, before or since.  I hadn’t anticipated it.  In my nervousness, I said something to the effect of making sure I take time alone for myself and God.  Not a terrible answer, and partially true, but it barely scratches the surface, now that I’ve had time to seriously reflect on the question.  Here now are ten ways I care for my soul.

1. Retreat.  It was the first thing to come to my mind in the interview for a reason.  It is important to me to get away from everyone and everything from time to time and enjoy life alone.  Sometimes this includes prayer.  Sometimes it means going on a solitary walk in the cemetery.  Sometimes it means putting my iPod on and sitting in the backyard by myself.  The point is to get away from the world for a little bit.

2. Music.  Music has been a love of mine my whole life.  Now that I’m, ahem, 31, I can see how much music I have missed out on in my life.  Classical music for example, eluded me in my younger years, as it does most people, but now I find it to be among my favorites.  I can sit and listen and be swept away in the beauty of it all and forget what troubles I may have.  More often than not, the beauty is enough in itself to recharge my soul.

3. Laughter.  I laugh every day. Whether it be at Larry David, or my dog Wiggins, I seek out and find opportunities to laugh.  Sometimes it may not be at something appropriate either, but that is a different conversation for a different day.  The point is, make sure you’re laughing.

4. People.  From my parents to my friends, I surround my self with people who I care about, and who care about me.  I have people in my life who aren’t afraid to be honest, and that makes all the difference.  Surface relationships are for amateurs.

5. Rest.  This is crucial to a good life.  So often I hear people say “I don’t have time.” another one I hear is “I’m just so worn out.” Often, these people forget that their minds, bodies, and souls need rest.  This is similar to retreat, but different in that you don’t have to get away to do this.  They key here is what I call, “turning it off.”. You make yourself stop worrying.  You make yourself focus on a dumb t.v. show instead of your work.  You exercise.  You focus your mind and soul away from whatever is your soul’s concern.  I know everyone reading this might disagree, or think this impossible.  It’s not, and it’s not bad for you.  It takes practice.  You have to be intentional.  You have to say, “I’m not going to think about that right now.”. With time and practice, this can work.  And what it enables you do is to recharge and refocus.  You see things differently.  You regain your passion.  You do things better.  Even God rested.  Even Jesus took retreat.  What makes you so important that you can’t?

So there are my ten  five ways I take care of my soul.  Let me ask you the same question now.

How do you take care of your soul?

Today is a guest post from my friend, Lucy.  I first met Lucy at boot camp last October.  I don’t know that I’d really considered what I was getting myself into, but Lucy along with the other girls in the gym were such a constant source of encouragement.  She always has a smile on her face, and I love it.  She’s a fighter.  Enjoy this post.  By the way, when Lucy runs, she blows me away!

I have asked this question many times. I have been asked this question many times. How did you do it?

I cannot count the number of individuals who have asked me, “How did you start running? I can’t do it. How did you do it?”

To make a long story short, I had the desire to run, but I didn’t have a plan to execute this desire. I started attending boot camp in the evenings with a friend. Boot camp involved a lot of running. My friend, who is also my neighbor, and I decided to get up and walk every morning. We knew we were struggling with our running at boot camp. The walking turned into some running. Little by little, between running at boot camp and doing it on our own, we got better. As time marched on, the goal of running didn’t seem too lofty after all. In fact, we ran two 5K’s last year, and we both placed second in our age division in one race. I was pleased with my hard work and determination. The fact that I was running was what pleased the desires of my heart.

However, I cannot stress this point enough; I could not have done this alone.

I found myself repeating this bible verse in my head many times while running or during boot camp when things were getting tough and I didn‘t think I had it in me to go on:

“I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13

A valuable life lesson that one needs to be reminded of over time is this: You need the help of others to get to your goal. I needed My Lord to strengthen me when I thought I could not go on. I needed the help of my friend and the many other friends along the way that I have met while we were all striving for the common goal. The support of my husband who knew I needed time for myself to make it happen. My acquaintances that would see me out and say, “I saw you ran a 5K, good for you.” I needed these people for support. For encouragement. To push me.

That’s how I did it.

Today I’m on vacation.  So today’s post is from my friend, Andrea.  Andrea and her husband and son live in North Carolina, so I thought I’d be pretty close to them this week.  However, I’m still about 10 hours away.  Okay.  That’s probably not an accurate guess, but I’m still several hours away from them.  Andrea is a teacher, wife, sister, mother, friend and lover of Jesus.  I hope you’ll head over to her little corner on the Internet and read more of what she has to say!  You can find her here!  Go check it out and enjoy the post!!!

“When we are out of debt, then I’ll trust God with our finances.”

I actually wrote those words on Sunday.  The pastor was talking about “When…then” statements.  Something he said hit close to home.  I began to write and those words came out.  My heart broke because those words were so true and so deep rooted.  I thought my faith was so much better than this.  I trust God to keep the car going, to keep the overgrown trees from hurting anything, to bless our youth ministry, and to guide our church into our future.  I have no doubts about those things, but I doubt he can provide for us.  I realize that my lack of trust in his provision is arrogant because I think we can do it ourselves.  I trust our work more than his.  I know in my head that when we have tried to do it ourselves in the past it hasn’t worked.  It only caused us to move back and forth across the country to end up where God tried to put us for free long before.  That obviously was a time in which his provision was better than our plan.  I know that in my head, but my heart still holds out.  My heart sees life decisions as separate from finance decisions.  My heart thinks we can still do it.  Those thoughts plagued me, but at the end of the sermon I still wasn’t sure if I was going forward.  After all, I can handle it on my own.  I said I was ashamed and I didn’t want to be that way.  What more is there?

Of course there is more.  So I went forward to pray at the altar.  For me there is something very humbling about that altar that makes me very honest.  In the process of praying, I discovered a deep seeded thought emotion that I didn’t know was there.  I am afraid of God seeing my finances.  I am worried he will be ashamed of them.  Sometimes the bills get paid a day or two late.  We have credit card debt.  We don’t have a lot of money saved.  We tithe, but not all to the local church.  My finances aren’t perfect and I worry that God will be ashamed of me because of that.  Even as I type those words, I get a little teary eyed, a mini Sunday reaction.  I cried to know my heart held such lies.  I  gave it to God at the altar.  I decided to change and walked away feeling lighter.  I know the feelings will attack again and I will give it to him again.  I will continue to remind my heart of the truths he gave me and slowly my stubborn heart will learn that God’s provision is always better than my plan.

It acted like it was going to rain tonight.  Just like it’s acted like it’s going to rain so many days in the last few weeks.  I don’t have crops.  My income isn’t derived from anything dependent upon the rain, and yet the whole situation is depressing to me.  I guess mainly because my parents do derive their income from farming, but it’s just depressing.

But there was one night a few weeks ago where the clouds rolled in, the wind picked up and I just knew we were in for a good summer thunder storm.

And there was nothing.

No rain.  Just wind to further dry out the crops and crack the earth underneath our feet.

But there was a rainbow.

Bright and beautiful and so full of promise.

I love rainbows.  I can just sit and stare at them for as long as they last.  I usually grab my phone to snap a picture or run and get my camera from inside the house.  I’ve even been known to get in my car to drive just to see if I can come up with a better picture than the one where I’m standing.  They’re so beautiful.  It’s like everything around it is just illuminated tenfold.

It’s like it brings life to the deadness around it.

And what gets me is that the stuff around it didn’t look dead before.  The rainbow just comes in and brings light to the darkness that we didn’t know was there.

And brings a promise of better things to come.

Life here and now is incredible.  Life here and now is beautiful and wonderful and joyful.

But a life lived fully in the light of God’s promise?

Man, I can’t wait for that.

What do you think about when you see rainbows?

I woke up one morning this weekend to a strange noise.  My air conditioner was running, but something just sounded weird.  As I came further into consciousness, I realized that what I was hearing was rain on my roof.  In my opinion there aren’t many things that are much better than lying in bed on a rainy day and just listening to it fall.

But at first I didn’t know what it was.

Saturday was July 14.  It hadn’t rained here since May 6.  It had been so long since I’d heard the noise that I’d forgotten what it sounded like.

I wondered if I was that way with God.  It seems like it’s been a while since I’ve heard Him speak.  Or is He speaking all around me and I’ve just forgotten what to listen for?

His voice is in the sound of the rustling wind.

It’s in the laughter of a child.

It’s in the fellowship of friends.

How often do I continue on my day-to-day activities and miss the voice of God?

Is it because I’m too busy?  Is it because I’m not in the Word like I should be?  Is it because I don’t want to hear?

I realized this weekend I just need to keep myself familiar with the words that He’s spoken to all of us through His word.  I need to talk to Him more and more because I just don’t want to miss what He has to say.

His words are beautiful.

His words are love.

His words are life.

I don’t want to miss a thing.

Sometimes you need to take a day off.  Today I’m taking one here on the blog.

I read somewhere that when you have a hard time figuring out what to write or are looking for inspiration, you need to go out and do something worth writing about.

That’s my plan today.

It’s a wise decision for every day.

So what’s your plan today?

I mess up.  A lot.  Sometimes my best-laid plans don’t even come close to the target.  And sometimes it seems no matter how hard I try, that things just aren’t ever going to work out.

But then there are times when everything just takes off.  And it all works out.  And it’s way more awesome than I could ever wish for.

It’s in these times that I realize again how God takes care of me.

See, I’m not really an organized person.  Details really aren’t my thing.  And a lot of times is the little details that make a thing successful.  So when I decided to host a virtual 5K to help my friends raise some money to go towards their adoption expenses, I really didn’t know what to expect.  I was hoping to have 15-20 that were mutual friends of ours run wherever they were and maybe raise a few hundred dollars to send their way.

Sometimes I think God just sits there and says, Hey, I think this is a good idea.  Wait till you see what I’m going to do with this.

And, honestly, I don’t think we expect enough.  Why would God choose to bless something I was trying to do?  Who am I to think that something I’m trying will even work out?

And fear and doubt come in and say, Hey, you’re nobody.  I don’t know what you’re thinking, but this is ridiculous.  There is no way this will ever work out.  No one is going to go for this.

Every single one of these thoughts came into my head during the months leading up to this past weekend when I hosted a 5K for my friends.  I’d hoped for 15-20 and maybe $500.  I set a public goal of 100, but deep down I wasn’t sure there would be 50.

And these are the times when God comes in and says, Hey, I know you doubt yourself.  I know you doubt that I care and that I want to do something with you and through you, but watch this.

So all day Friday and Saturday as people were checking in on the Facebook page and sending me texts telling me that they’d finished, I just sat and stared at my computer screen with tears in my eyes.  And again last night as I was tallying up the final number of participants and getting ready to order the T-shirts.

139.

That’s the number.  My 15-20 God turned to 139.

My $500 God turned to around $3,000.  (I haven’t even started on figuring expenses yet, so it’s just a guess.)

So I’ve learned that fear and doubt are liars.  We know that they’ll be present every time we try to do something, and yet at times we so willingly give in to them.

Just think of all the things we quit halfway through because it gets hard and we get scared.

And all the while God is there just waiting to come in behind us sweeping up all our doubts and fears and failures and broken pieces and make something beautiful with our story.

So thank you, my friends.  You surpassed any and all expectations.  You blew my doubts out of the water.

And you played a part in changing the world for a little family in Illinois.

My words will never be enough.

Go be beautiful.