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January 5 - January 22, 2025
As I was driving here, my mind started dreaming of all the places I could run to and drive to and fly to and be right now. All the other places but HERE. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that even if I did run away, there is no getting away from my insides. It’s as if the sadness has taken residence, and it’s not going to be left behind just because I leave.
How often do we call escapism “fun”? That’s the real question for me. When I’m looking to define fun in my own life, to figure out how to handle the thing I don’t know how to handle or how to process the pain I don’t know what to do with, I wonder if I’m actually planning fun or just using fun to describe running away.
WE FEEL SOMETHING lacking in our lives. We sense that this place in us that used to be filled just isn’t anymore, even on our best days. It may just be a squeak sometimes, but other days it is a roar in our ears that something has been lost and we don’t know how to find it and won’t be able to find it. But we miss it. Because we know it used to be filled.
We have lost Eden, we have lost peace, we have lost the foundation upon which genuine fun can be built. And we have to go search for it.
I THINK when we go looking for fun what we are actually looking for is home. We are looking for peace. We are looking for simplicity, something to fill that spot that has been left by growing up or growing out or moving on. While we think we want fun, what we really want is Eden.
If you have eyes for providence, you will always see it. If you look for God’s movement in your daily life, you will see Him.
One of the kindest things I’ve done for myself in the last decade is learn to pay attention to myself without judgment.
It’s everywhere, if you’re looking. If you let God gift you a glimpse of Eden, He will.
It is important for us to start finding the glitter on the days that hurt too much.
“How do you get through the hard times in life?” Dax didn’t even pause. He looked her right in the eyes and said, “Just remember it always ends. You never get on a roller coaster and think, This is so fun, I will be here forever. The best things end, and so do the worst things. This will end.”
In fact, I would say it is more necessary the more you understand that neither joy nor pain last forever, and it is far better to hold them both at the same time than to lean your life too heavily on one or the other.
If I think I can only do something I’m great at, or something I can fake greatness in, I will live a very limited life.
The voice of fear says it is better to say nothing at all than to speak up and risk saying something unprofessional or offensive.
And when you listen to their advice and turn your fun into profit, suddenly you have a business, not a hobby. There’s a demand that drives you to promote your product or idea, instead of just doing it—say it with me—for fun.
Some things are meant to teach us and grow us and bring us joy, not income.
Fun is never meant to replace pain, or better said, fun will never replace pain. But fun can walk alongside it. You can hold them both and see what happens when they dance together.
What I thought I was gaining in better food and faster service by eating out and having food delivered, I was losing all along in healing.
It is fun and all, but it mainly makes space for connection and time. Fun often breeds that.
