HERE GOES...SOMETHING

The first step is often the hardest.

I opened up the blog and sat down to write multiple times over the summer. Each time, I thought I had something to write, but then I would end up staring blankly at my computer. Nothing. Just...nothing. My heart and my mind were numb.

It has been a difficult summer.

Today, once again, I find there is nothing. But today, I refuse the nothingness. Today, I will write, a first faltering stutter after a too-long silence. So, here goes...something.

I posted a couple of years ago about the difficulty of making "space to be human." You can read that post HERE. And if you are curious: I did learn to set more appropriate work boundaries, and I now have a lovely job that allows more time for doing "human" things.

On that note, I want to share a few small ways that I have enjoyed being human recently -

This summer, I registered for and completed my first-ever seminary classes. The coursework was incredibly challenging and I was way out of my league among the other students. Still, I felt like a fish in water, albeit a very small fish in very deep water. I enjoyed every lecture, every assignment, and every small group discussion. Second term begins Monday. I can't wait!

Over the past couple of months, I was given three of the most encouraging compliments that I have ever received:

• "You are one of the most humble people I know." (When I asked a friend to pray that God would humble me deeply and show me clearly my dependence on Him. BTW - do NOT pray that prayer unless you really, really mean it. God will answer, and it won't be easy.)
• "You are a very strong person." (From a co-worker who knows something of the difficulties of recent months.)
• "That is the most beautiful woman I have ever seen." (In sixty-one years, no one has ever said that about me. Every woman should hear those words spoken about her at least once in her life. It made me cry.)

Today, I have celebrated being human in small ways. I had breakfast with my family. I enjoyed a personal yoga session with Mr. Ron. I washed mine and Mom's laundry and changed our bed linens. I wrote a letter to a friend. I sat on the porch swing and read another chapter in a book. I made BLT's for lunch; this evening, I am making gumbo for dinner, Daddy's recipe.

And I wrote.

A LITTLE WINDOW INTO MY WORLD

A Happy Place

I saw a post on Facebook recently where an interviewer asked individuals what they were learning in therapy. Participants' one-word answers included: Accountability; Empathy; Resilience; Patience.

Foregoing the one-word stipulation, here's my go at answering the question.

Things I am learning in therapy:

I am developing a larger emotional vocabulary.

Other people's emotional regulation is not my responsibility; my own emotional regulation is my responsibility.

Being assertive does not equal aggression, insubordination, or manipulation.

I cannot change others; I can work on changing me.

Being honest about my hurts, weaknesses, fears, and failures is hard, but it is also one of the first steps toward moving past them.

* * * * *

Switching topics, what are some things I am changing in my life?

Recent changes to my day-to-day:

Biggest change is undoubtedly the new job: work is much less stressful, I am loving learning new things, and staff actually take a break for lunch together each day. (How weird is that in the nursing profession?!)

I have reduced my caffeine intake from half a pot of coffee in the morning and a super-size Diet Coke in the afternoon to 2 cups of coffee or tea per day. I've also added a "green drink" to my morning routine.

Alcohol consumption has been slashed to practically zero. This physically hurt the first week; today, no longer craving the daily bourbon or gin-&-tonic. (Thank you, Jesus!)

Mom and I are eating our evening meal earlier in the day (before 5:00 pm), and portions for me are significantly smaller.

I am sleeping at least 8 hours each night, even when I have to be up at 4:00 in the morning. It is  wonderful to be free from the shrieking night-time on-call alarm.

Aiming to do yoga twice a week, walking at least twice a week. So far, so good!

Y'all, I bought new scrubs for the new job and, this past week, I ordered a few items of fall clothing for myself without overthinking it and without feeling guilty. That is huge. (In the past, I would consider a purchase for several weeks or months, often talking myself out of the purchase altogether or feeling guilty for buying something for myself if I went through with the purchase.)

* * * * *

What about writing?

I am not writing as much or as consistently as I'd like, but I am also not beating myself up about that. On days that I can write, I am thankful. On days that I am not able to write, I shrug it off and tell myself, "Oh, well. Maybe tomorrow."

I'm trying to post once a week consistently here at the blog. Sometimes, however, it is a struggle to come up with ideas to write about. Suggestions?

I am also working on another fiction manuscript. It is a story I feel compelled to write, an exorcism of sorts. I am not especially fond of the story line, and working on the project - because of difficult themes within the story - often makes me angry. I'm struggling with the resolve to "just be angry and get it done!" so that I can move on to pleasanter projects. Prayers appreciated!

* * * * *

What about YOU, Dear Reader?

What are you learning about yourself? about others?

What positive changes have you made recently in your daily routine?

What hobbies or passions do you desire to pursue? How are you making those things happen?

I've given you a little window into my world today: I would love to have a little window into yours!

WHOSE STORY IS IT?

As I slowly recover from the soul-sucking trauma of nursing school and struggle to figure out how to function as a 21st-century adult female - with full-time job demands, concerns for adult children, responsibilities of caring for an elderly parent, social commitments, etc. - I am also trying to resurrect at least some semblance of consistent writing. There are so many stories to tell!

A couple months ago, I committed to writing here at the blog once a week on Sundays. Weekly blog posts have proven hit-or-miss, but thankfully, this small effort at consistent writing seems to be knocking rust off the machine and greasing the gears.

In late May, the idea for a new book budded.

I need to detour down a bunny trail here to give you a glimpse into my rabbity brain. I love to write. Writing helps me process and make sense of life and the world around me, and often - because God is very kind - writing enables me to connect with other people. This is a precious, precious gift, because connecting with other people is a challenge for this severe introvert.

Sharing thoughts and experiences here at the blog is pretty easy, when I have the time and I am not so completely exhausted that my day-to-day consists of waking sleep. Writing a story is very different. Story writing requires consistent, disciplined, focused time submerged in a story idea that captures my attention and holds my imagination.

I have been praying for a spark! - a captivating idea for a story - for months. Late May, God answered that prayer. With my brain buzzing with excitement, I sat down at the keyboard and began to write.

Chapter One...

Forget Stephen King's writerly advice: 1000 words a day x 100 days = first/rough draft. I am grateful for 400-500 words a day, two or three days a week. My engines are slow. I'm okay with that - I'm just glad they are running again.

Six chapters into this new story, I sat studying the main character one evening this past week, wondering where she would take me next. I like her. I care about her. I hope she will make it from the difficult place she is now to some place more solid, more joyful, more life-giving.

Contemplating this new character, I asked myself a familiar question: "Whose story are you telling, Camille? Her story? Or yours?"

All the characters in the fiction I've written before are, well, fictional. They no doubt contain bits and pieces of individuals I have encountered over the years, plus larger chunks of myself, but the characters are not real people. Their stories may resonate with my story, but their stories are not the same as mine. Still, so much of myself is poured into these characters, how could they not think and sound and act at least a little like me?

So I wrestled with that question - "Whose story are you telling?" - and I wondered: "God, is there a point to this? Is this really a story worth telling? Does anybody even need or want to hear this story?" (I went back to God because I truly believe the story idea came from him in the first place and because, whether it did or not, he is almost always the first one I run to with questions. God doesn't always answer my questions in ways I understand, but I know he hears them all and I know he cares.)

The next morning in my daily Bible reading, I read Acts 2, the account of the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The people gathered in Acts 2 began to "speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." Verse 6 tells us that "at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language" (emphasis added). The conclusion of this massive outpouring of the Holy Spirit: "there were added that day about three thousand souls [who believed]" (verse 41).

I have been told multiple times over the course of my 60 years that I over-spiritualize everything. And frequently, I over-personalize things, too. Well, there it is. Thankfully, God knows me and he knows how to communicate with me. He does not dismiss my questions; he answers them in ways that speak to my over-spiritualizing, over-personalizing heart.

I read the first half of Acts 2 again, and then I read it a third time. I felt like God was saying, "Camille, I have given you a distinct voice, a particular life experience, a language that will speak to the heart of someone else who does not know me yet. Press ahead."

Whose story am I telling? I am telling my story, and the story of a fictional character named Marietta Louise Mosby, and the story of a person I have never met, and ultimately, God's story.

Because every story is God's story.

And so, I will press ahead, 500 words at a time.

MAKING SPACE

When visiting one of my kids recently, my heart smiled to find this... 

...and this...

...lying about the house. Whether is it's playing music, painting, baking bread, writing, drawing, blending spices for smoked meat, sewing costumes, or designing farm plans, when I catch glimpses of my kids engaging in creative work, I feel like the world is a better place, like I can breathe a little deeper. When they are creating, they are reflecting something of the beauty and delightfulness of their Creator God.

One of my prayers for my (now adult) children is: "Lord, please give them space to create." I pray this because creative work requires time, thought, mental and physical energy, and the demands of life easily strangle creativity.

Life in this broken world is hard for every single one of us. It is exhausting. The demands on our time are never-ending. Whether you work 8-, 10-, or 12-hour days, there is always more that needs to be done, more that our consciences or our families or our employers or our churches tell us should be done.

If you have read this blog more than a few times, you have undoubtedly recognized a common theme to many of my posts: I. Am. Tired.

I run hard all day, then come home to pull in a different harness every evening. As I explained to my boss recently, "There is no quiet space in my life. Zero."

CAN WE PLEASE JUST TAKE A BREAK FROM ALL THE INCESSANT DEMANDS?!

One of the many things I miss deeply in all this work-work-work is space to write. It occurred to me recently: I pray regularly for God to give my children space for creative work. Why don't I pray the same prayer for myself?

And so I started praying for God to provide consistent space in my schedule for me to write. Through the very practical advice of my therapist LeCretia, God answered that prayer and gave me a tiny window in which to write: 9:45-10:30 every Sunday morning.

This small gift of time was enough to reignite the engines and get rusty gears turning again. But once the creative juices began flowing, I quickly realized that 45 minutes each week was not going to be enough.

"Lord, I need more time to write," I prayed.

Again, He answered: "Well, then, make time."

Make time. Yeah, right, like that is even possible. I've been banging my head against this one for a couple of months now.

I have a thick skull.

After months of head-banging, a new thought began growing inside my slow mind: perhaps what God is telling me is not so much "Make time" as "Trust me."

God gives me - and you - 24 hours each day, 168 hours each week. If God is telling me to "make time" to write (and if I don't have a time turner, like Hermione Granger), then He must be telling me to spend less time someplace else.

That means giving up something that I think is essential, 'cause I ain't got no free time at present. Whether it's giving up full-time work as a nurse (and the benefits that go with full-time employment) or giving up full-time responsibility for Mom-care, that thought terrifies me.

In fact, it seems downright impossible.

And so my prayer has morphed from "God, please give me time and space to write" - to - "Lord, please give me faith to trust you and courage to act."

Because I understand now that making space to write is going to demand a leap of faith.

IT'S SEPTEMBER!

I am loving that September begins with a holiday weekend this year. Well, sort of a holiday weekend...I'm on call Monday evening, so no wild parties on Monday for me. But still, the idea of a holiday weekend is a nice start to the month.

September 2nd miscellany...

A friend at work shared some homegrown peppers with me. They are beautiful. I do not remember the name of this variety of peppers, only that it has the word "peach" in it. For pepper connoisseurs, these peppers have a "fruity" flavor. Jesse said they have a heat level similar to habaneros.

The peppers are beautiful, obviously, so of course I took them. But there's a problem: I don't do spicy hot.

Soooo, timid me had the idea of toning things down with a few additives. I used the peppers to make a peach-mango salsa.

Fresh peach-mango salsa

This stuff is DELICIOUS. Peppers, mangos, peaches, fresh tomatoes, cilantro, garlic, lime, red onion...YUM.

I was having so much fun playing in the kitchen that after making salsa, I tried another new recipe: New England Iced Tea. It's like Long Island iced tea but with cranberry juice and lime instead of cola and lemon. Soooo good. I'm on my second glass.

Anyway, since this is technically a holiday weekend, and since the just-past work week was such an absolute bear, that means I should be able to do fun things besides getting groceries, doing laundry, loading the dishwasher, paying bills, and feeding the people in my house, right? Right?!

Somebody, please tell me that's right...

For me, doing something fun, something besides the never-ending list of grown-up-people responsibilities, means...I get to have some time to write. I LOVE to write.

So here I sit, sipping on my second New England iced tea, with Ryan Gosling's I'm Just Ken looping in my brain, waiting for the muse to speak...

What a wonderful beginning to September.

I'M NOT WHO I USED TO BE...

Before

A new reader sent me a sweet message last week stating she had been enjoying reading through old posts and she was glad I was back writing new posts again here at the blog. Her words were such an encouragement to me.

I write, primarily, for myself: writing is a way for me to think through things and process life. Writing allows me to get thoughts and words out of my head and put them down in type so they don't knock about in my head late at night keeping me awake.

I write primarily for myself, but I also write for others. Perhaps my struggles or experiences, shared here, will resonate with another and provide some small measure of hope, encouragement, or simply a sense of "I'm not alone in the world." (When that happens, it's magic. It makes me feel less alone, too.)

But, honestly, when this reader said she had been reading through old posts, my first thought was, "Oh, no! What has she been reading?! What on earth did I write?!"

You see, I have been posting on this blog for 15 years. And, well, I am not the same person I was when I started this little endeavor.

My hair is gray now and my middle is thick. My kids are grown and my nest is empty. I used to know a great many things absolutely. Now, I know very few things absolutely...but those few things, I know with greater certainty than ever before. If I had time or inclination to read back through 15+ years of posts, I feel certain I would discover much that I regret in hindsight, opinions and attitudes I no longer agree with, that no longer fit me.

If you are new to the blog, please be merciful when you read back through the years. This blog is a kind of documentation of the progression from who I was a decade and a half ago to who I am today. I'm still "in process."

I guess we all are, really.

Thank you, dear reader, for sharing the journey with me.

In Process

THE BEST KIND OF FRIENDS

Bathed in prayer.

That's about the best way I can think to describe the past several months of my life.

Just over two years ago, a couple of friends and I began meeting together every other week to pray for one another. There is something incredibly soul-strengthening about hearing a sister pray your name out loud to the Father. Those coffee shop prayer meetings have been life-changing for me.

Praying friends are the best kind of friends.

Recent posts here at the blog have been about my journey to return to school to pursue a degree in nursing. Every single step of that journey has been prayed over by sisters who know and love me well. Week after week, they have taken my questions, doubts and struggles straight to the throne room of God; week after week, we have rejoiced together at the amazing way God has answered those prayers.

But last time we met, it wasn't the prayers for my family or prayers about school or work that touched my heart the deepest. It was a prayer that I had not even requested:

"God, as she is busy with the demands of work and school and family, please give Camille time in her schedule to write."

This friend understands how important writing is to me and has often encouraged me to develop and use this gift. I haven't mentioned my writing in months at our little prayer meetings - too preoccupied with more pressing matters - but my faithful friend has not forgotten. Her unsolicited prayer assured me that God has not forgotten either.

Praying friends...these are the best kind of friends.

For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them. - Matthew 18:20

A 1-TALENT INVESTMENT STRATEGY

Who do you think is the best fiction writer ever? This question initiated a lively discussion at my house over the weekend. Most agreed that J. R. R. Tolkien was in a class of his own. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy is one of the best-selling novels of all time. Tolkien began writing his trilogy eighty years ago, but it is as lively, captivating, and relevant to readers today as when it was first published.

Who else is on your list of top/best fiction writers? The answer to this question was more varied. J. K. Rowling was a heavy contender, as was C. S. Lewis.

Mom, do you think that maybe one day you'll be as good a writer as J. K. Rowling or Lewis? At this question, I wanted to crawl in a hole and disappear. Maybe one day, if I work hard at my craft every day and if I live to be a hundred and fifty-nine...maybe one day, Son, I will write well enough to pen a foreword for the umpteenth edition of a Rowling or Lewis book. Maybe. Write as well? Ha! Such presumption!

Last week, I wrote about the temptation to be jealous of those who are more successful than ourselves. (You can read that post HERE.) No, I am not jealous of Tolkien or Lewis or Rowling, neither of their ability nor of their success. When I think of these amazing writers, I am simply grateful. I am grateful that God has extraordinarily gifted these individuals to communicate the gospel in powerful ways through the fiction they write. However...

This morning, as I recalled my family's best-author conversation, I got to thinking: with so many excellent writers in the world, why do I write at all? Why not get back to mopping the kitchen floors and leave writing to those who are so much more talented than I am?

So I asked God that question: "God, I love to write, but my writing gift is small. Should I devote my time to writing - and to learning to write better - or should I set writing aside altogether?"

God is so kind.

He took me to the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, to the parable of the talents. In this parable, a man entrusts his property to his servants before he leaves on a long journey. He gives one servant five talents, he gives one servant two talents, and he gives a third servant one talent. After a long time, the man returns home. Servant #1 invested the five talents, and earned his master five talents more. Servant #2 did likewise with his two talents. Servant #3, however, buried his one little talent and earned no interest for his master. And for this - for refusing to invest his one talent - he was punished.

Reading through Matthew 25:14-30, I was reminded: my job is not to compare whatever talent God gives me with the talent(s) He gives others, but to be faithful with the talent with which I have been entrusted.

I can look at 100-talent writers like Tolkien and Rowling, and think of my 1-talent writing: "One talent? That's too insignificant to invest. I'll just bury it in the ground." - OR - I can look at the small talent God has given me, and ask, "Lord, how can I invest this for you? How can I grow this for you, to advance your kingdom work?"

God doesn't call me to be faithful with what He has not given me. He calls me to be faithful with what He has given me...even if what He has given me is one small talent.

What "talent" has God given you? Is it big? Is it small? Maybe, like me, you think your gift is too small to even matter. I encourage you - delight in the small gift God has given you, and then invest your gift, grow it, and present it back to God with interest.

I think we will both be amazed, you and I, at what God can do with one small talent.