Donald Miller's Blog, page 11

What’s So Wrong With Being High Maintenance?

For most of my life, I prided myself on being low maintenance. I was always more likely to go camping than shopping, hated the idea of asking for help (especially if it meant playing the “damsel in distress”), and tried to be the kind of person who never needed too much of anything from anyone.

I thought this made me the best kind of friend, sister, daughter and even girlfriend anyone could ever ask for. I was “so easy to be around,” I thought. I never took more than I gave. I never took much of anything.

Who wouldn’t want to be friends with me?

Then, one day I was telling a friend about a relationship I was in where I felt like I was being manipulated and taken advantage of.

Actually, I didn’t use those words.

I just told her story after story about how my needs would somehow get overlooked, how I felt I was constantly picking up the slack for this person, and how even when I did something really kind or generous, it seemed like my kindness and generosity were dismissed.

She asked me a question that stopped me dead in my tracks.

She said: Have you told this person what you need?

I paused.

The truth was I hadn’t asked for what I needed. In fact, even just the thought of asking for what I needed made me feel sort of terrified. I knew she was right, but her words touched a tender place in me and I broke down into tears, exclaiming:

“I don’t want to be high maintenance!”

Her response will stay with me forever. She said, “you’re not high maintenance.” Then she went on to say that there’s a difference between being needy and having needs.

“You’re not needy for having needs. You’re human.”

Suddenly, in that moment, I realized something important.

My tendency to pretend like I didn’t need anything from anyone wasn’t healthy. It didn’t make me low-maintenance. It made me a liar. Because I did need some things.

I needed to be treated with respect
I needed to be appreciated
I needed to be seen and acknowledged
I needed to be cared for as much as I cared for others

But in order to get those things, I had to admit I needed something.

Since that conversation, my relationships have begun to shift.

Some of them have ended, actually, which is painful, but not nearly as painful as being in relationships where my needs are ignored or overlooked. Not nearly as painful as it was to perpetually ignore my own needs.

And in addition to learning to speak up for my needs, I’ve learned a few other things.

I’ve learned it doesn’t make me needy to have needs. I’ve learned that people like doing nice things for me—if I can just tell them what I want and need; and accept those gifts when they come. I’ve learned that we teach people how to treat us—so if we don’t like the way we’re being treated, we have to play a role in changing those patterns.

I’ve learned I’m not a burden just because I need something.

We all need things, want things, and are hungry for things. Relationships take maintenance. People take maintenance. And when we try to act like we don’t, one of two things happens to our relationships: we either grow resentful, or we grow invisible.

In both of these scenarios, relationships wither and die.

So go ahead, be a little more high maintenance. I dare you.

Are You Playing the Victim to Manipulate Others?

To some degree, every one of us has been a victim.

We were either neglected by our parents, picked on at school or ripped off in a business deal later in life. When we are healthy, we can learn from those experiences, forgive and move on. But when we’re not, we tend to re-victimize ourselves, over and over.

What I mean when I say re-victimize ourselves is we play the “recording” of the event again and again in our minds because it actually gives us some morbid form of comfort.

When we are somebody’s victim, we actually have a little bit of power over them.

Control freaks love to play the victim, for example.

If they are victims, they can control the person who hurt them because that person “owes them something now” and they can also control everybody around them by draining sympathy and attention from their community.

I doubt there’s anybody reading this blog who hasn’t done this. I certainly have.

In fact, it’s difficult to even realize we are doing it.

Playing the victim shows up as complaining or whining about some task we have to do, or having a really negative attitude toward life.

Henry Cloud and John Townsend define a real victim as a person who is completely and utterly powerless.

That’s a tough definition, because it means you and I aren’t often victims.

We almost always have some power in a situation.

If we are a victim to a person, we can move away from them, even though it will cause a great deal of tension. We can quit our jobs, we can create better boundaries, there’s more often than not something we can do. We just don’t want to.

We want to remain victims, because truthfully we are getting something out of the role, even if we don’t admit it.

The truth is, though, when we play the victim, we are actually making partial victims of the people around us. (tweet this)

We are using them and manipulating them.

In order to play the victim we need an oppressor.

And when we manipulate by playing the victim we turn people who are otherwise innocent (or perfectly human) into a bad person in our minds. Instead of forgiving somebody who has wronged us and moving on, we demonize them in our minds and play them up as a villain so we can be their wounded victim. It’s an unhealthy game.

What is amazing, then, is the person playing the victim is often the real villain. What I mean is, by demonizing others and portraying them as oppressors, they themselves become the oppressors.

But it’s a tough pattern to get out of.

For me, it started by learning to turn the other cheek.

Forgiving people for their minor transgressions and just “getting over it” is not something a victim does easily. They see “being wronged” as an ATM machine spitting out cash and it’s tough to walk away.

The truth is, though, most victims don’t want to be oppressors themselves and when they realize what they’re doing, they feel awful.

They thought they were the weak ones but really they were strong all along.

Not playing the victim will take a lot of practice, but it’s worthy practice. I promise you, playing the victim is holding you back, hurting others and taking needed attention and resources away from real victims, those who are truly oppressed and can’t do anything about it.

Why It’s Often Better to Say Less

I am finding that the older I get, the less I need to say.

It’s not that I don’t have thoughts about things. I have plenty of them. But these days as I edge toward my sixth decade, many of those thoughts simply do not need to be expressed. Most of my black and white firm opinions of my youth have faded to gray, and with the fading has come a quiet grace that doesn’t need to force its way out front.

Being right, making my point, or being heard and noticed, is losing its appeal. I find myself quieter these days, desiring an economy of words. I want my words to matter and bless and help.

I’ve learned more about this from my wife, Nita, who is gifted with many creative things. Often she tries ideas out on me. I love being her creativity guinea pig. One Saturday morning, she introduced me to a writing exercise, giving me a random page from a long essay. My assignment – read the page several times, underlining certain words and phrases that stand out. Then, interact with those words for a while. And after that, black out the unnecessary words. “Something,” she said, “will arise from the page.”

Here’s what it looked like before (left) and after (right).

And here is what formed from the remaining words:

It will arrive.

In the stillness, I know I’m going to find myself.

In that moment, just before all thought –

I know I’ll find that which seems suspended,

motionless,

strange and different and indefinable.

I’m carried along.

The infinite comes into view.

See the wind, the sun, the river with its many tributaries.

Its water burns in the course of my dreams.

The world before me-

Someone made that.

I belong.

This brief exercise taught me something. Out of the plethora of words available, there are a few which – if unearthed, selected, and spoken – truly matter. But more than that, they bring with them a beauty that calls the heart to more.

When I consider the creation story in the first few verses of the Old Testament, it tells how God hovers over the swirling chaos and the void, and then he speaks into it – one or two sentences a day – bringing beauty, order, and a place for relationships to flourish. One or two sentences a day.

I think he was onto something.

There’s more that I could say. There always is. But I think I’ll stop here.

Of all the words available to you today, what are two sentences that someone needs to hear you say?

Are Cell Phones Ruining Our Relationships?

Does this bother you as much as it bothers me:

A person is pushing a stroller, with the child facing the adult, and the adult is doing something on his or her phone, oblivious to the child?

If the child is a baby, he or she is invariably locked onto the face of the caregiver, looking for those cues like facial expressions, sweet sounds, songs, maybe even a little monologue about what they’re seeing and hearing together.

Photo Credit: Abi Porter, Creative Commons

That’s how babies learn stuff. We all know that.

I saw it again this morning.

I was walking back to my house after a run, and I saw the tell-tale signs from a couple of blocks away. A young lady was pushing a stroller slowly. The baby was facing her. The lady was going slowly because she had her phone out and was writing with her thumbs, pushing the stroller with the heels of her hands.

My already overheated body began to boil.

Welcome to Zombieville, I thought.

Our phones, our status, our updates, our “Daily Me” posts have taken over. The next generation doesn’t have a chance. We will all be taken up into the sky, not because of the rapture, but because of our own weightlessness.

I so badly wanted to say something.

I so badly wanted to blame her for the demise of civil society. I so badly wanted to hurl her phone into traffic, take the stroller, and say, “I’ll watch your kid for you until you get done telling the world how awesome it is that you’re taking her for a walk in the neighborhood.”

But I didn’t.

I was very sweaty, and probably a little scary looking, and lately I’ve been trying to avoid saying things that I’d regret later.

So I crossed the street before we got to each other. As we got even, though, I looked over to see one more time what was wrong with the world, and, sure enough, she had stopped. In an intersection! Typing away. Words started to form in my head. Before they got to my mouth, though, I saw what was on her screen.

It was a GPS. She was lost.

She looked up at the street sign, her face brightened, and she turned purposefully, putting her phone away and picking up the pace. She seemed happy. She talked to the kid. She had figured out where she was, and she was headed home.

Have you heard the commencement speech given several years ago by novelist David Foster Wallace to Kenyon College?

There’s a great Youtube video that uses excerpts from it, called This is Water. It is a brilliant speech that counsels us all to stop presuming we know what everyone’s motives are, to stop putting ourselves and our own outrage in the middle of everything so that we can maybe understand someone else’s story.

I thought of that speech as I expressed gratitude for not being a jerk to that lost lady in my neighborhood.

This happened one time before, too.

A couple of years ago I was speaking at a retreat for college-age students in Kansas. I was speaking on not being conformed to the world but being transformed, through the renewing of our minds.

It was organized in a very cool way so that after each service when I was done speaking, the audience would go into an adjoining room where there were icons, candles, low lights, and recordings of Greek monks chanting.

The purpose was to go into that room, adopt a physical posture of worship on the floor, and let the message sink in.

A setting for quiet reflection and renewal.

After the last service, I entered the room with the others and sat down. In front of me was a very large young man, wearing his college football letter jacket. The room was so quiet and so beautiful. Then the guy pulled out his phone.

“Seriously?” I thought to myself.

“Did you hear nothing I said about spiritual depth?

Is this really the time to be checking scores and texting?” He ignored the toxic vibe I sent his way and kept scrolling. It annoys me when college students do this during class, but dude—we’re at a retreat on the theme of not being conformed to the world.

Finally I moved a little closer to him.

I wasn’t going to confront him, it was in a silent place of worship, he could take me easily and I was the guy who had just spoken about being transformed. But I just had to see what was so fascinating that couldn’t wait until he got back to his room.

Here’s what I saw on the screen: “Paul’s Letter to the Romans.”

He was reading the text from which I had been speaking.

I heard that the PBS star Mr. Rogers carried a note in his pocket that was given to him by a social worker. The note said “There isn’t anyone you can’t love once you’ve heard their story.”

Even people on their phones.

Why We Love Those Who Don’t Love Us Back

A few years ago I wrote a blog post called, Why Do We Love Those Who Don’t Love Us Back? It is consistently my most-read post, and the most common search term that brings people to my blog is a variation of that question:

Why do I love someone who doesn’t love me back?

People Google that. A lot of people Google that.

Unrequited love is a mystery we are asking a search engine to solve for us. Loving someone who doesn’t seem to return our feelings is painful, and when God doesn’t make the pain go away when we ask Him to, we ask Google.

I dated a guy in college I was over the moon for.

I loved him, no question. But then he broke up with me. And a year after we broke up, I still felt like I loved him. I needed to move on. Friends agreed, it was time. But I didn’t know how. I couldn’t decipher the steps to take to stop loving him.

One night in a Phoenix hotel room while I was traveling with my family on Christmas break, I confessed this to my parents. I confessed as I cried and then I apologized for how stupid it was that I was crying, and then I cried about the stupidity of crying, and then I just kept crying.

Until my dad provided the most simple of responses that would be the catalyst for my recovery. He said,

“You can’t help who you love.”

I realize now that maybe those words were so helpful because my dad was using the plural “you.” He wasn’t saying, “You, Andrea, are unique and can’t stop loving the person who broke your heart.” He was saying none of us can stop loving the people we don’t have any business loving.

The power of this—realizing your problem is shared by many others—can not be underestimated.

A few years ago when I first explored this question, I drew parallels to the Gospel.

I decided we felt unrequited love because that mirrored the cross so well, and that’s where our solace is in the midst of this. I still believe that, but now that I’ve seen how many people need an answer to this question and how much peace I felt in that Phoenix hotel room when I realized I wasn’t alone, I think the comfort can be found just as much in the communal element as it can in the Gospel.

In Mere Christianity C.S. Lewis explains that opening our eyes to this community is what opens our eyes to God:

For that is what God meant humanity to be like; like players in one band, or organs in one body. Consequently, the one really adequate instrument for learning about God is the whole Christian community, waiting for Him together.

Look around you.

How many are suffering from loving an ex-boyfriend or girlfriend?

Or a family member who has said so many hurtful things and missed so many birthdays that they no longer deserve love? Or a child who ran away and never looked back?

Or a parent who never said “I love you” to her child? All of them are loved by someone, and that someone is uncertain as to why they still love them, the one they have no business loving.

And maybe they are asking Google why, but they can be certain they are not alone and in that certainty they will see God.

Is God Really Good All The Time?

Sunday has always been a special day to me.

For a lot of us, it brings up memories of growing up going to church, or having a regularly scheduled lunch with family or friends. Maybe it takes you back to that feeling of easing into a pillow, stretching out on a couch, and dozing off in the first quarter of the afternoon football game you really didn’t care about anyway.

Photo Credit: amanda tipton, Creative Commons

For me, it brings up years of memories of being with family, sitting around a table with a full belly and empty plates; laughing so hard until my stomach hurt. 

June 12, 2011 was a Sunday.

The day Jacob, our three year old son, passed away. 

Our family had gone to church together that morning and then Jacob and I went to eat lunch. He and I headed home while the girls stayed at church to help with VBS. We went through our nap time ritual. Like many toddlers, he wasn’t ready to go to sleep, but it was time.

We talked a little while in bed and then I got up and went and laid down myself.

While I was asleep, he got up from his nap and went outside without me knowing. At 5 P.M., Brea and I found him in our car, unresponsive. 

From that day on, Sundays became a brutally tough day. From the time we got up we would be stuck in a loop, replaying the events of the day. Hour by hour, I would visualize and remember where I was and what I was doing. The closer it got to 5 P.M., the higher the anxiety level would get.

When it turned 5 P.M., I was transported back to the scene.

We find him and open the back door of the expedition. I pick him up. I remember what he looks like and then what it feels like to do CPR. It’s so hot outside. I can remember all the sounds that contributed to what felt like pure chaos all around our house.

It’s 5 P.M. on Sunday and I’m back in it all over again.

Would I never have a normal Sunday again?

After June 12, 2011, my faith, theology, and understanding of God started breaking down with each day. Throughout my life, my faith was built around a theology that worked in the context of my life experience.

For example, I believed God was totally sovereign, good, and loving even though the world is full of evil, pain, and innocent suffering. For ages, humanity has wrestled with this issue. How “in control” or “interventionist” is God when there is so much pain and suffering? In the context of my fairly comfortable life with little heartache or struggle, I hadn’t been forced to face this paradox.

Now I wondered, “If God is totally in control of everything that happens, then isn’t God ultimately responsible for the death of Jacob and the way he died? Even if I say God allowed this to happen but didn’t cause it to happen, isn’t He still to blame, because He could have done something to prevent it?

Is God really good all the time?

Over time I did start pointing the finger at God and blaming Him. My anger towards God grew as the months went by. I prayed for God to give me peace and to help me with my faith.

But all I experienced was silence. That made me even more angry.

So, I stopped praying altogether.

Going to church didn’t help either.

I found myself getting angry listening to sermons about how God loved us or had a plan for all of our lives. I didn’t feel very loved. And, I certainly didn’t think it was God’s plan for Jacob to die at age 3. One Sunday after another, I walked out of church not wanting to ever go back again. As the months went on, my faith continued to break down and a new set of questions came up.

“Do I even believe in God anymore? If I do believe in God, how do I find a faith that makes sense of a loving God, who may or may not intervene in this world, after what happened to Jacob?”

Over time, we did begin to heal.

We decided to make Sunday a day of the week to have friends and family over for dinner. This was how we were going to reclaim, or redeem, that day of the week. Instead of being alone to experience those devastating memories of Jacob,we were with friends and family.

Instead of letting the house be filled with grief and sadness; we welcomed laughter and community.

Instead of being stuck inside our own heads; we forced ourselves to move, to cook, to talk, to laugh, and to cry.

Consequently, the sting of the day faded over time and we weren’t paralyzed at 5 P.M. on Sundays anymore. 

I also needed to redeem my personal faith.

My faith needed to be something I could work with in light of my experience.

The faith I had constructed before fell short when I needed it most and left me feeling incredibly disappointed. Over the last five years, I’ve slowly tried to rebuild what faith looks like to me. It is different and I don’t have all the answers I wanted. But I can say that I have at least found a foundation from which to start.

I do believe in God. And, I believe God is first and foremost operating from a place of love. I know this faith stuff is a life long journey, so I don’t pretend to have it all figured out.

But with baby steps, I feel like I’m moving in a good direction. 

If you’ve had something devastating happen to you, and you’re wondering if you even believe in God anymore, here is what I want to say to you:

It was important to us to not let this turn us into a victim of our pain.

As we look back over the last few years, redemption has been a big piece our story. Redemption of what happened and redemption of the pain and suffering our entire family has experienced.

The reason we started working with and supporting orphans, why we want to share our story with others, why we make a daily conscious effort to choose to find the good in life rather than dwell on the bad, the reason I’m writing about “Redeeming Sunday.

Don’t let your pain turn you into a victim.

By looking for ways to redeem your suffering, you can lessen the power it has on your life. Use your circumstance as fuel to do good for others. It will help you heal while you are helping others. (Not sure if the last sentence is necessary or if it can be worded better?)

I believe it’s okay to question or doubt God.

I wasn’t able to find a path towards peace with God until I gave myself the freedom to let go of the God and beliefs I had built up in my mind before Jacob’s accident and start over.

For church leaders and friends of those who are struggling: don’t feel like you have to rescue us from our questions. We need to have communities of faith where our questions and doubts are welcomed without judgment. Otherwise, you risk alienating those who need the grace and mercy Jesus speaks about when they need it most.

Your Growth May Threaten Others, Grow Anyway

Every story is about one thing, the arc of the character. What I mean by that is unless the hero changes, you’ve got no story. They have to be cowardly at the beginning and brave at the end, or selfish at the beginning and altruistic at the end. Something in the character has to change or the audience loses interest.

The reason an audience is attracted to a character that changes is because, intuitively, they sense their own desire to change and live vicariously through the character arc of the hero. That’s one of the many reasons we love movies.

But that brings up a powerful point.

You were designed to change.

And if you think about it, it’s irrefutable. Everything God created, from poppies to puppies, changes. Nothing stays the same even for a second. Grass grows, clouds wisp by, water flows into the ocean, guys grow beards, girls become women, and some of them moms and grandmas. Everything God made is always in motion. The only things that aren’t changing are, by definition, dead.

It’s true of you and me, too. Remember the first time you went back home after going off to college? Or that first time you went back home after a long, summer adventure?

There was likely a dissonance. Suddenly, after a series of experiences that had changed you, you went back and felt a chasm between the way people were treating you and who you really were.

They hadn’t realized you’d changed.

In fact, you likely “felt” like the same person you used to be. Even in their thirties, some people spend the night back in their family home and want to let everybody know they made their bed that morning.

For some, that God-given, pre-programmed process of change is stunted. And it’s stunted for several reasons, all of which should be ignored.

Here are a couple of the big ones:

Other people don’t want you to change because the relationship they have with you is comfortable. If you change (become successful, famous, strong or whatever) their relationship with you has to change. So it’s not in their best interest for you to change.
Other people have a relationship with you in which you play an inferior role. If you change, they are no longer comfortable because they really like you because you’re submissive.
Some people need you to play the role you’ve always played in their lives, a support role or a child’s role or whatever. You changing means that role will no longer be fulfilled and they find this threatening.

Here’s something I learned, though.

People who don’t change anyway become mentally unhealthy. They become weak and lack integration. By that I mean inwardly they begin to change but to keep the peace play an outward role. This, by nature, is a lack of integrity (the inner self integrated with the outer self) and will be the end of you. Healthy people are integrated and unhealthy people are not.

So what do we do about all this? How do we change anyway?

Of course each situation demands its own course of action, but in general, in the grandest of sweeping terms, we must be willing to make others uncomfortable to become who we were meant to be.

This is God’s path for us.

And God is fine with us making other people uncomfortable. He does it all the time.

Sometimes this means people you used to see as wise counselors will now have to accept you as an equal. Sometimes it means those you submit to will have to deal with your new found authority and autonomy.

It’s true some people won’t be comfortable with this. They’ve made an unspoken agreement with you that you need to be weak. But that’s not an agreement you should keep. They may want out of the relationship and in my opinion that’s a relationship you should let go of. Nothing should stop you from changing.

If a caterpillar becomes a butterfly and a seed becomes a tomato and a babbling baby grows up to become a prolific professor, all by design, what were you supposed to become?

So what’s stopping you from changing?

Why You Should Stop Trying to Do It All

Have you ever seen a one-man-band?

After strapping various musical instruments to his body, he begins to make music by simultaneously playing them all. When done well, it is impressive: one person doing everything. Yet, it is more of an athletic accomplishment than a musical event . . . more side show than concert.

One-man-band music does not top the charts and is not purchased on iTunes.

Too many of us buy into the idea that we have to do it all.

That we have to do everything well without breaking a sweat and always looking like things are under control.

I think this springs from a distorted understanding of independence.

In the name of autonomy and individualism we can fall into trying to live our lives like a one-man-band. It takes a lot of extra work. Although we may hit all the notes, without community we can’t make beautiful music.

I think we were created by a community for community.

To be with the people in our lives.

Photo Credit: Парки Татарстана, Creative Commons

We were designed for engagement more than isolation. To live full lives we must rely on others and others must be able to rely on us.

Depending on others can be messy and scary – they will let us down. Yet, building walls to protect ourselves from the rough edges of community condemns us to a life of lonely rugged individualism.

What would happen if we admitted this?

That we cannot do it all? That we cannot be our own harmony?

Instead of playing every instrument, what if we learned to play the instrument of our lives with excellence and relied on other people to play theirs? We would find moments of symphony instead of a disengaged life of fragmented solos.

Living in community rescues us from the self-imposed pressure of living like a one-man-band.

Healing A Life of Fear With Creative Expectation

Fear kills creativity.

One of the things I’ve found over the last few years with how quickly life seems to be changing is that many people I interact with are operating out of a deeply anxious space.

They’re anxious about the health of relationships, their career track, their future. Anxiety kills creativity.

Just picture this:

The more anxious or afraid we are, the more we back into a corner and begin to close our hands, hold tighter, and think defensively.

While it’s true that fear kills creativity, it’s also true, on the other end of the spectrum, that faith breeds creativity. Faith is opening our hands. Faith is a posture of expectation.

Faith hopes, it dreams, and it struggles to believe that, with God, all things are possible.

In walking by faith we embrace our potential to shape culture instead of react to it. Through faith we can dream of new solutions rather than trying the same old techniques, and we can embrace change rather than being crushed by it.

There’s a massive difference between living life as Christians by formula as opposed to living by faith.

There are two kinds of people in this world:

Those who create and those who copy.

I first thought of this in reference to leadership.You see, no matter how effective best practices or learning from the competition can be, ultimately we’ll never be on the front edge of leadership if we’re walking down a trail that someone else has blazed.

Over time I’ve come to believe that creating vs. copying is actually a difference in posture and mindset not merely in leadership but in all of life.

Some proudly use the word “copy” as a kind of bravado of honesty and transparency.

In this vein, Picasso is attributed with saying, “Good artists copy, great artists steal,” and Einstein with, “The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” Or as Voltaire more mildly put it, “Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another.”

I think we all understand and can appreciate this sense of the word copy.

After all, only God creates completely from scratch. The adage for us is this: If it works, borrow it. If it doesn’t, ignore it.

It’s an honest admission that we all have been shaped by a thousand hands, and much of our creative energy takes inspiration from what we have seen, experienced, and appreciated.

I recently heard Cornel West say it like this: “Nobody steps into the Hall of Fame alone.”

The sense of copy I’m using is neither the playful one nor the authentic one just described.

Rather, I’m talking about “copying” as a mindset that refuses to consider new ideas and new relationships. This kind of copying is a habit of never thinking outside the box, never adapting to rapid change, never being willing to fail. This kind of copying simply takes what is known and safe and repeats it ad infinitum.

Creators, on the other hand, do borrow much . . . but for the purpose of making things new. The Renaissance artists of Florence borrowed from Greek myths, humanism, and Roman architecture, but always with the mindset of transforming—not merely copying—what had come before.

That’s God’s call to us as well:

Don’t just be copiers, but creators.

We’ve all been given things from which to borrow: family histories, jobs, talents and skills, interests and hobbies—even our race and gender, the country we live in, our language, schooling, and stage of life.

Out of this raw material God invites us to create, to move forward into the fullest expression of God’s creative image in us. We are being asked to reject copying in order to create, extend, and breathe life into what is meant to flourish.

So we find things that work.

We study our heroes and learn about best practices. But we maintain a mindset of creativity and always look to transform rather than merely replicate.

In fact, there’s a close correlation to our creative mindset and our understanding of who we’re called to be and who we are as made in the image of God. Artistic ability may be a talent that some possess but creativity is a human trait. As Dorothy Sayers once said, “Man is never truly himself except when he is actively creating something.”




One of the fascinating things about creativity is that it begets more creativity. This isn’t just a great pragmatic insight, it’s also something deeply spiritual.

Our walk of faith, the practice of exercising the creativity of the image of God in us, and looking at the future through the eyes of imagination and possibility are all ways of talking about finding our humanity and aligning ourselves with God.

Life may be changing fast, you may be worried about your career, and the future may be uncertain, but as a deeply creative being made in the image of a creative God you can walk forward and dream.

Three Things My Mom Taught Me About Hope

My mom has Parkinson’s.

Photo Credit: Monik Markus, Creative Commons

A little over ten years ago her body was behaving strangely. I remember it well because, at the time, my husband and I lived next door to my parents.

I remember getting home from work and walking the dirt path that connected my backyard to theirs. I remember going into the house through their back door and sensing a heavy fog of uncertainty and frustration as she and my dad sat in the unknown of her mysterious lack of health.

Then she got the diagnosis: Parkinson’s.

It was handed to her like a new script for her life.

It was as though Parkinson’s itself entered our family as an obnoxious and unwelcome guest, forcing itself on my mother and saying to her, “here you go, here’s the new you,” and as hard as my mom fought against accepting her new role, the forcefulness at which it was thrown at her made it unavoidable.

As the days passed by, they took with them the ease of daily mundane tasks.

Things such as vacuuming, grocery shopping and walking across the room became huge, steep mountains my mom was forced to climb, or tumble down trying. Parkinson’s did its darnedest to steal away all joy and hope and in all honesty, some days it succeeded.

This was the life my mom had no choice but to live in.

Frankly, it sucked.

Her new life now consisted of neurologists, tiny red, blue and opaque pills, special diets, and a motorized scooter. For a time in the beginning years of her diagnosis, friends and family would call daily offering her fragments of hope,

“Did you watch Doctor Oz yesterday? He said a cure for Parkinson’s is less than ten year away.”
“Did you see the interview with Michael J. Fox? Look how active he is.”
“Here, try this supplement/herb/essential oil.”

But this strange illness trying to take over my mom’s life did not seem to care about scientific advancements, and the supplements, special diets and essential oils, which never seemed to do the job they claimed they could do. The offers of hope being thrown my mom’s way always seemed to fall flat.

We quickly had to realize we could not place our hope in doctors or medication, in special diets or scientific breakthroughs.

The only place for our hope to find a home was the very place it sprang from—Jesus.

Maybe you are in a place of hopelessness today.

Maybe, like my mom, you are battling an illness that is trying to take over your very life.

Or maybe your hopelessness is in the form of a severed relationship, loss of control, unmet expectations. All of us have either been there or will be there at some point in our lives. Here are some things to remember when hope seems so far away:

Hope is a choice: Some of us are clinging to hope like a lifeboat, holding on tight with both hands, trying to pull ourselves onboard. For others, hope is the pin sized hole of light at the end of an all-consuming tunnel. Either way, we’ve got to hold on. It’s one step in front of another, breath in, breath out, repeat. If there is one thing my mom has taught me during the past ten years of Parkinson’s, it is that you cannot have hope if you do not choose it.
God is a God of Hope: While hope is a choice, there will be moments when choosing hope seems impossible. I know for my mom, and for our whole family, there were moments, especially early on, when the only feelings floating around our lives was one of hopelessness. I believe in those moments we need to remember, God is a God of hope and He has already chosen us. When it is seemingly impossible to choose hope, have peace siting in His good graces and His love for us. The hope will come…it really will.
It’s okay not to be okay: So you’re feeling sad or overwhelmed or frustrated. It’s okay. Maybe you’re going through something where one day you feel great and the next as though you are falling off a cliff, it’s okay. Sometimes trying to fix a tough situation is more difficult than just sitting in it and letting things be hard. Hard is not necessarily bad, sometimes it’s just hard. So often the hope we are looking for is waiting for us there, in the muck and the mud. My mom told me that once she sat in the hard, muddy places Parkinson’s forced her into, she discovered beauty in the form of compassion and empathy. Sometimes the only way to discover hope is by sitting in the dirt from which it blooms.

Today, my mom still has Parkinson’s.

But because of the hope she has in Jesus, Parkinson’s does not have her.

The past ten years have taught her hope is going to win, every single time.

She knows this life is a blink and she knows from where her hope comes. She has learned and taught me along the way, when you place your hope in Jesus, no matter how far away it may seem, it is always right there.