The Best Author I Know

March 7, 2013 ~ Emily ~ 9 Comments

One thing I love about how God shapes our lives is His uncanny way of creating unforeseen twists and turns in the setting, the plot, and the cast of characters. I’m not talking about major surprises coming out of left field (though He does do that); I’m talking about subtle nuances written into one’s life that weave a story of God’s goodness, His glory, and His perfect plan for us.

The specifics of our story are expertly crafted to work together for God’s greater purpose and our greater good. { <—- Tweet this! }

When we moved to Idaho in September, I hadn’t planned to work, at least for awhile. Though Tim would have supported me either way, we decided it would benefit our family most if I didn’t work straight away.

Turns out, I really needed that time to process the way our story had been written thus far. So much transition – new marriage, new location, new church community, and Tim’s new job – had been jammed into a few months. It almost felt like God had ended my story and started writing a brand new one.

Maybe in a way He did, but I like to think of it as just another volume in the set on Emily Catherine Gardner – this one entitled, The 9.0 Transition Earthquake.

I’m still processing, however, I’m finally allowing God to pen some joy back into my heart. I may prefer living closer to family and friends, but God has demonstrated time and time again that He’s a better writer than me and I should let Him shape my story. { <– Tweet this! } He’s certainly writing an interesting chapter right now, full of those subtle nuances I was talking about.

I got a job a month ago. The job simultaneously combines one of my favorite things and one of my least favorite things: traveling and talking to strangers. {I’ll let you work out which one is which.} I work for a marketing research company that does impact studies for a few major restaurant chains when they want to open a new location near an existing location. I travel to the site and survey customers.

When I got married, I thanked God that during my 24 years of single-hood I had the opportunity to travel extensively abroad for school and missions. He allowed me to explore the world while I had the freedom to do so. Though Tim is an adventurer like myself, the life of a youth pastor is not conducive to a ton of travel. I had my time of mourning for the end of my major traveling season and left it to God to help me be content in one place.

Not only has God provided a job that helps us along in our goal to be debt free {so close!}, I get to travel a lot! {Boston and Chicago last month and Orlando currently.} The travel bug bites and I no longer have to dose it in Benadryl cream.

{God’s plan – 1, Emily’s plan – 0}

author and creator

My only reluctance towards this job was the necessity of approaching countless strangers. I don’t have much initiative when it comes to talking and I generally avoid eye contact with surveyors in a restaurant or on the street. I figured this would just be the price I had to pay for traveling.

After walking up to almost 1,000 strangers {rejections included}, I have developed more confidence in my social presence. The “go say hi to people” time at church is less intimidating. Giving announcements and demonstrating absurd poses for a game at youth group {that one’s for you, Lindsay} aren’t butterfly inducing anymore.

As a pastor’s wife in a new church, I am so thankful for my new found ability to talk with strangers and be socially assertive. I’m no Chatty Kathy, mind you, and I still feel awkward at times, but I’ve made marked improvement. I’m not sure how else I could have developed that so quickly if it weren’t for this job.

{God’s plan – 2, Emily’s plan – 0}

The things that seem to just happen in life don’t just happen. They are written into the plot for a reason. Often, those reasons aren’t apparent at first. Sometimes they even appear distasteful, like talking to a bunch of people you don’t know. But God is the author and creator of our lives. He is a life-smith with a supernatural ability to write the perfect story for each of His precious kids. { <– Tweet this! }

Grace For The Good Girl

March 4, 2013 ~ Emily ~ 6 Comments

I have never found myself so accurately portrayed in a book before I read Emily P. Freeman’s Grace For The Good Girl. I tweeted as much in the midst of reading it and Emily responded with an apology. It made me laugh, but it was indeed a reminder that being a good girl isn’t always a good thing.

You see, what I was meaning as a compliment to Emily spoke more than appreciation for her writing and message. I had unintentionally admitted how much I struggle in my good girl identity. Finding myself in every word of her book meant that I still desperately cling to perfection. I’m still seeking value from other people’s perceptions and base my worth on living up to an impossible standard.

One of the most encouraging things about this book was discovering that I’m not alone. I certainly don’t wish the stress and anxiety of being a good girl on anyone, but I spent many years wondering if I was the only one who felt shackled to an image that didn’t necessarily portray reality.

I believe being a good girl is part nature, part nurture. It’s one thing to be inherently sweet, thoughtful, and compassionate; but it’s another thing when you surpress normal emotions, desires, and needs to appear that way.

My natural good girl tendencies became my own enforced norm when I discovered smarts and an illusion of perfection could get me attention. Little did I know that a dangerous pattern of internal pressure was developing. When my natural good girl failed, I had to kick my nurture good girl into high gear or I wouldn’t feel good enough. My classmates wouldn’t like me as well if I didn’t get an A on that chemistry test. I wouldn’t be the apple of my Sunday school teacher’s eye if I didn’t find Malachi 2:5 first. No guy would ever ask me out if I didn’t stay a size 4.

Of course, I didn’t begin to recognize this corrupted train of thought until a few years ago when my circle of friends grew into a community of honest and authentic sisters who weren’t adverse to showing their brokenness.

Emily reveals that same brokenness in Grace for the Good Girl. She is honest about the time her husband found her curled on the couch sobbing because she felt inadequate, how she felt like less of a woman because she had c-sections instead of natural births, and how she is sometimes crippled by anxiety.

I felt as if an invisible good girl was following me around wherever I went, showing up without permission to shame and blame and scold. She was omnipresent, like a pretty little goddess in a pink, shadowy corner. She embodied the good girl version of my current life stage and shamed me accordingly; good student, good leader, good wife, and good mom. She represented the girl I wanted to be but didin’t know why. I felt the heavy weight of impossible expectations and had the insatiable desire to explain every mistake. My battle with shame was constant and hovering.

Instead of recognizing my own inadequacy as an opportunity to trust God, I hid those parts and adopted a bootstrap religion. I focused on the things I could handle, the things I excelled in, my disciplined life, and my unshakeable good mood. These masks became so natural to me that I didn’t even know they were masks.

Emily P. Freeman ~ Grace for the Good Girl

Even in those broken moments, Emily offers hope and encouragement for all good girls no matter where on the spectrum they land, whether they are recovering or still covered by the mask of perfection.

Emily also wrote a second book, Graceful, geared toward younger women. When it launched in September, Emily encouraged people to write letters to their teenage self. Mine sheds light onto my good girl history and explains more about Graceful.

Find more of Emily on her blog Chatting At The Sky.

Bare {Five Minute Friday}

February 8, 2013 ~ Emily ~ 3 Comments

Oddly enough, I was in the shower yesterday wondering if “naked” had ever been the prompt for Five Minute Friday. Lisa-Jo and I must have been on the same wave length.

Naked speaks of the physical and bare speaks of the spiritual.

I would never be in a nudist colony, but if you can get past your own inhibitions, being naked is freeing. There’s nothing between you and the air. You’re open to the element and it feels natural.

Being bare is freeing too. Letting your soul take flight with no shame.

My friend Sarah was talking to a group of high school girls about womanhood a few years ago, emphasizing the need to be naked and unashamed. It was the first time I really equated nakedness with vulnerability.

It was good for Adam and Eve to be naked – they were bare to themselves physically, emotionally, and spiritually. When sin attached shame to their nakedness, they hid. They hid their bodies with clothes and they hid their souls from connecting fully with God.

Had Adam and Eve been open and honest immediately, maybe things would have turned out differently.

We were made to be bare.

We were made to expose our hearts without shame. God craves an intimacy that can only develop when we let Him uncover us. We crave intimacy with people that can only develop when we uncover our hearts to other people.

One of the greatest (and challenging) acts of service we can give to another is to be bare, to be vulnerable, to reveal our brokenness. In our spiritual nakedness, we shed the layers of us so others can see the core of Christ in us.

{Confession: I wrote for more than 5 minutes.}

A Spiritual Third Place?

February 7, 2013 ~ Emily ~ 4 Comments

My brother worked for the Big Green Machine (Star-biz-ucks or just The Bucks in our family’s vernacular) for years. We would laugh at the lengths to which Starbucks would go to create the perfect coffee shop environment. Tim (yes, brother and hubs have the same name) is by no means a corporate kind of guy so he found the “third place” concept a bit eye-rolling.

Starbucks’ goal was to be the place people went when they weren’t at home or at work, the place people chose to meet and hang out, the place you felt most comfortable. His vehemence at the third place protocol was definitely amusing and I, too, rolled my eyes at the effort Starbucks put in to being people’s home away from home.

Then I began to travel and realized just how comforting a little slice of familiarity can be when you’re in a different state or a different country. In a sea of quaint English tea shops or Italian cafes, sometimes you just need a green mermaid on your to-go cup.

I was working in Massachusetts this past week and after a few days alone in a new city, eating PB&J made in my hotel room, I yearned for a sense of home. I let my iPhone lead me to the nearest Starbucks. The familiar scent of freshly ground coffee struck me the minute I pushed through the doors. Computer open, Vanilla Spice Latte in hand, I was less aware of being 2,700 miles from home.

Starbucks isn’t my third place because I’m some sort of coffee snob, it’s mostly because I’ve built memories around being in a Starbucks.

Isn’t that what comfort derives from? Familiarity. Good memories. A sense of reassurance.

My Spiritual Third Place

As I was reflecting on my third place experience from the past week, I realized Starbucks wasn’t the only thing I turned to for comfort when I felt out of place.

God is a consistent presence in my life and has been a very real source of peace as I’ve traveled the globe. On a train, in a plane, or in a lonely hotel room, I find deep comfort and reassurance from reading Scripture.

The Psalms are my spiritual third place. Within the Psalms, I am reminded of God’s faithfulness to me and generations before me. Those memories make my heart feel at home.

My emotions find companionship in the Psalmists who let their songs flow with honesty and intensity. Whether born out of fear, joy, strife, or praise, the Psalms are melodies made of very human feelings. They are feelings I can relate to and the very fact that the words are there, printed in my Bible, draw me closer into God’s arms.

So, when I am slipping between the sheets of a strange bed, wishing the vast space to my left wasn’t empty, I can read a Psalm and know that I’m not alone.

Where is your third place?

A spiritual third place has been more important in my life than a physical third place.

Do you have one a spiritual third place? What about our Lord makes you feel at home?

When Someone Shares YOUR Gift

January 23, 2013 ~ Emily ~ 5 Comments

THE GIFT NICHE

Looking down at the plate of cupcakes, I was torn between admiration and envy. The ladybug toppers looked like they came straight from the pages of Hello, Cupcake!. I starred, wishing I could come up with a genuine compliment that didn’t have jealousy written all over it.

Those expertly decorated cupcakes were a birthday surprise for my husband’s supervisor. I may have been able to celebrate this pretty, petite girl’s kind gesture had she not innocently turned to Tim and asked when his birthday was, hinting he would also receive a plate of tasty treats come February.

My inner girlfriend (Tim and I were only dating at the time) was up in arms. This girl had inadvertently threatened my security. My hackles were raised less because she was doing something for my Tim, but because she was doing something (and excelling at it, I might add) that I considered my territory.

I was the stellar baker, the girl who gave good food gifts, the hospitality minded one. I considered these skills part of my specific gifting from God. Weren’t we always taught that there are many parts, but one body? (1 Corinthians 12:20). In the prideful compartment of my heart, I liked the thought that cooking/baking/hospitality was my niche in community. MY niche. I didn’t really want to share it.

The more my community changed – switching churches so Tim and I could worship together, moving to a different state – the more I encountered people with similar gifts. I could tell by my reactions of resentment and protectiveness that I had derived too much value from this self-prescribed niche.

My pride kept referring to verses about many members in one body, clinging to the part about differing gifts. I was striving to remain indignant about other people sharing my gifts. But, I couldn’t reconcile my prideful stance with what I knew was true about the purpose of community and how our gifts were supposed to operate within community.

THE TRUTH ABOUT COMMUNITY

Community builds up and encourages.

Community points others toward Christ.

Community is about Kingdom building not self-promotion.

Community shares.

Community fills in the gaps and works together.

Romans12.4

COMMUNITY AND THE GIFT NICHE

In light of what I knew was true about community, I couldn’t glaze over certain parts of the “many members, one body” verses I had previously used to support my pride.

Be honest in your estimate of yourselves, measuring your value by how much faith God has given you. Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ’s body. We are all parts of his one body and each of us has different work to do. And since we are all one body in Christ, we belong to each other, and each of us needs all the others. God has given each of us the ability to do certain things well. {Romans 12:3-6}

God had outlined the correct thing to do when people share your gift and I was disregarding virtually every bullet point.

Derive value from the faith God has given. Nope, I was busy measuring my value like it was five cups of all-purpose flour.
Each part has a special function. This was my defense, but I was ignoring the fact that our creator supersedes our gifts. We are merely parts of the whole, the whole being God.
We each have different work to do. Whether someone else has the same type of gift/niche that I do, we have different applications for that gift. Our sphere of influence is different and our personal history is different. My baking a plate of cookies for a neighbor is different than the cute cupcake baker taking a plate of her beautiful creations to a Campus Crusade meeting.
We need each other. As much as I love Simon & Garfunkel, we are not lonely rocks sitting in the sea, an island surrounded by nothing but water. We function as ONE body. I think I would combust under the pressure of being the sole arbiter of hospitality if only one person could fill that role. Our gifts are group territory, used to help carry the burdens of community.
God is the source of our gifts. It is only by God’s grace that I function the way I function. He gave me the ability to cook and bake well and it should be for His glory that I do those things.

So, the next time someone brings a dozen cupcakes that look like members of a big-top circus to a church potluck, I may have to swallow pride initially, but I will rejoice with them – rejoicing that they are creating in honor of The Creator, exercising their gifts for the benefit of His body (and my stomach!).