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Archive for the ‘Faith’ Category

Posted on February 15, 2011 - by Megan

How to survive feeling awkward

My mantra when I’m trying something new and feeling awkward + goofy: Effort + the courage to show up = enough. –Brené Brown

I am afraid of trying new things. I am an introvert and often feel conspicuously awkward, especially in unfamiliar situations.

Recently, I asked myself, “What would I do if I were brave?” Yesterday, I got the chance to answer that question and act on my answer when I joined a local Zumba class.

I knew I needed a new solution for exercise that was a better fit for my life, and Zumba seemed ideal. If you aren’t familiar, Zumba is a Latin/hip-hop/world dance inspired group fitness class.

When I arrived at the gym for my class, I wasn’t sure I would make it out of the car. It felt like the first day of middle school all over again. I was certain to make a fool of myself or be the fattest one there. Surely, everyone would know what to do but me. I thought my thirties were supposed to cure me of these silly insecurities?

Well, I did make it out of the car, into the gym, and into the group fitness room where I sat nervously “checking something on my phone” until the class began. Success.

As I watched the instructor (my friend Jen) move her hips in ways that should not come so naturally to a white girl, I realized I was way out of my league, but I was having fun in spite of how ridiculous I looked.

If you’re like me, trying something new—particularly when the potential for embarrassment looms large—does not come easily. Here are a few things I’ve learned that help me get out of my house and into the game of life.

1. Just Show Up

Half the battle is just showing up. Per Brené Brown’s quote at the top of this post, I tell myself that it is enough to just show up. I don’t have to be good at it, I don’t even have to have fun. I just have to go.

2. Expect to feel awkward

Personally, I feel awkward a lot of the time. If I accept that those feelings are just feeling, it helps. They do not signal that I’m in danger. I will survive feeling awkward. Nine times out of ten the feelings dissipate after a period of time and I feel comfortable.

3. Commit to staying for 30 minutes

When I want to try something new, something that scares me, I make a little deal with myself: “If you hate it after 30 minutes, you can leave,” I tell myself. I rarely walk away after half an hour. Knowing that I have an “out” helps me stay put long enough to get comfortable and find my sea legs.

Thankfully, Zumba turned out to be a blast. I expect I’ll still feel a bit goofy for the next few weeks, but that is okay. I’ll survive.

Posted on February 8, 2011 - by Megan

Is God’s Heart Good: A Reckoning

For as long as I can remember, I’ve struggled to believe God’s heart is good. In times of vulnerability—when my heart is open, my desire exposed—I doubt him.

I think I began struggling with the goodness of God’s heart in the wake of several painful break-ups earlier in my life. Nothing cuts to the quick like the pain of betrayal, abandonment, or dashed hopes. The story of my twenties was punctuated by those themes.

A False Story is a Dangerous Thing

As a way to make sense of those experiences, I told myself a story. Weaving stories is a way we try to make sense of experiences that defy comprehension. They help us bring order to chaos. But, if our stories are untrue, they can be dangerous to our souls.
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Posted on January 28, 2011 - by Megan

Living Wholeheartedly: Embracing the Freedom of Vulnerability

Ever feel like you aren’t enough? I know I do. I can’t get enough sleep, exercise, laundry folded, water drunk, time praying, people served, inches off my hips, encouraging words spoken, or hugs wrapped around my kids. Just plain not enough. All this “not enough” leaves me feeling like a failure on my best days and ashamed on my worst.

Yesterday, while attending the Blissdom conference for women bloggers, I had the chance to hear Brené Brown speak on the topic of vulnerability and living wholeheartedly. It was supposed to be about writing, but it was really about life.

Brené is the author of The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are. She is also a research professor at the Graduate College of Social Work at the University of Houston in the area of vulnerability, authenticity, courage, and shame. She is a mother, a wife, and Episcopalian, and a Texan. She is our people. (more…)

Posted on January 26, 2011 - by Megan

The Minivan is My Prayer Closet

Sometimes I feel like being a mom is one of the least spiritual stages of life. Consider Sunday mornings. While everyone else is lifting up their voices to the Lord, I’m just trying to keep my kids from lifting up their voices to one another. Church feels much more like herding cats than entering into mystical communion with the Almighty.

And then there is the holy grail–the quiet time. Personally, my morning is anything but quiet, I don’t know about yours. I run around trying to get everyone together, make sure lunch are packed, teeth are brushed, homework is checked. In all honesty, I can’t think of the last time I actually had a “quiet time” per se. And yet, my prayer life is flourishing. How could that be, you might ask. (more…)

Posted on January 24, 2011 - by Megan

What would you do if you were brave?

When faced with hard decisions, how do we make the right one? More to the point, how do we know God’s will for our lives?

Last Friday, Joel and I stood squarely at the juncture of two possible paths, both good, both with huge implication for our lives and for the life of our future child(ren). As I wrote in an earlier post, we have the possibility of being matched with twin girls from Uganda, but we have to wait until mid-February to find out if all the documentation necessary to adopt them can be obtained.

Meanwhile, another possible match came up. We hoped the timing would work out differently, allowing us to know about the girls before being faced with another option, but it hasn’t. A quick decision was required.

How could we make such a decision? How could we choose between children—real human beings?  You could certainly argue either side. Waiting seemed risky, foolish, and even ungrateful; accepting the new referral felt like it would be motivated out of fear and desperation to force a resolution to our situation. (more…)

Posted on January 10, 2011 - by Megan

Finding peace in the quiet seasons

Last night, we had a big snowstorm in middle Tennessee area. Big by Tennessee standards, anyway. In Nashville, we got about 4”, further south, they got as much as a foot. As a result, much of the city is shut down. Joel and I are home from work, unable to safely make it out of our hilly neighborhood. On the one hand, it’s beautiful. On the other hand, the temperatures are frigid and I’m ready for spring.

On the heels of Christmas and New Year’s, we crossed the long-awaiting adoption fundraising finish line. It was a huge high after a season of highs. And then—it got really quiet. Quiet because the money is raised, the paperwork is turned in, and there is literally nothing left to do but wait for the phone call that we have been matched with our baby. We are in a season of winter.

Winter can feel like an endless season of waiting. It’s as though the whole world has gone to sleep for a while, and will not be awakened until its time.I wonder if it’s possible for us to find rest, instead of frustration and anxiety, in our own quiet seasons too. (more…)

Posted on January 1, 2011 - by Megan

Digging for our Souls: Lessons Learned In The Dirt

“For the gardener, the first signs of spring are an irresistible invitation to make the earth a paradise once more.”  Vigen Guroian

Is it a coincidence that seed catalogs arrive in the mail near the beginning of the New Year? A couple days ago, I headed out to retrieve the mail, hunched over in the cold, and found a Seeds of Change catalog waiting in my frost-covered mailbox. The timing seemed strange to me at first—why would I think about gardening when the first days of winter are still visible in my rearview mirror?

I brought the catalog inside and began looking at each page, captivated by colorful, dewy images of ripe fruits and vegetables at harvest. I found myself dreaming of a garden, imagining what I would plant in each of the raised beds I intend to build. I could almost feel the earth between my fingers and see the tender shoots rising from their incubation beneath the dirt.

Maybe it’s no accident that we start thinking about gardening in the dead of winter. The promise of spring offers hope when we find ourselves in a seemingly endless and dormant winter—the spiritual metaphors are hard to miss. Gardening is all about life and all about death. It is about seasons of quiet, of weeds and toil, and seasons of harvest. Gardening reminds us that there is purpose to each, sorrow in each, as well as joy. Is that not also the story of our own existence? (more…)

Posted on November 16, 2010 - by Megan

The Advent of the Heart

Truth be told, waiting is not my thing. If I were to be graded on my aptitude, I would get a big fat “F.” I’m a doer, an action-taker, a make-it-happen-er. And yet, life if full of seasons spent in the proverbial waiting room. Whenever I find myself there, I usually regard my time in suspended animation as a necessary evil, undesirable, and extremely frustrating.

Yesterday, our church began the season of Advent. In our tradition, the season starts earlier than in the rest of the Christian world, spanning a 40 day period. I’m beginning to see the wisdom of the extra time, since I could apparently use a little practice.

Advent is a season of yearing, preparing, and waiting expectantly. It is a liminal season of peacefully resting in the tension. (I struggle with the peaceful part of that.) During advent, we are between two places. We hope, but our hope has not yet been fulfilled. It is a quiet time, a time of reflection and stillness, a time when Christ seems both far away and just around the corner. In the season of advent, much of life seems dormant, but things are not always what they seem. We wait for an invasion of joy as the incarnate Savior appears before us as a babe when we sing, “Oh come oh come Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel.” (more…)

Posted on October 30, 2010 - by Megan

Reconsidering Halloween

I wasn’t allowed to trick-or-treat as a child. Like many of us who grew up in the 80s, my parents felt it was their duty as Christians to not participate in Halloween. Fast-forward 30 years. The hard line my parents took now seems cliché, a little small-minded, silly even. But, I wonder, as a new generation of parents, do we need to check ourselves and make sure we aren’t throwing the proverbial baby out with the bath water?

Last night, I went on a walk through my neighborhood trying to burn a few calories. Along the way, I passed a group of high-school-age boys, hanging large banners on their garage doors. “Trick or Treat” was written in ghoulish script on one. The face of a witch, as large as a single car bay, decorated the other.

A couple houses down was one of those blow-up yard ornaments of a Dracula-era coffin being drawn by horses, driven by the Grim Reaper himself. There was a moving corpse inside the windowed casket. It’s easy to dismiss all this as “getting into the spirit of the holiday.”

I don’t necessarily have a problem with my kids dressing up and asking the neighbors for candy, but I wonder if we should stop and consider how we square some of the darker trappings of this holiday with our faith—all clichés aside.

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Posted on August 26, 2010 - by Megan

Political Correctness: A Cheap Substitute for Relationship

When white folks think about race relations, their minds often jump to what is appropriate to say or not say. At least, that was the case for me at the beginning. We either scoff at political correctness as a ridiculous mechanism of societal control or find ourselves paralyzed by fear of saying the wrong thing, communicating prejudice unintentionally.

Whether we resist or cling to political correctness, we are misguided. The problem is this—a preoccupation with political correctness is self-focused, not others-focused. It is concerned with protecting oneself from embarrassment, professional blunder, or public scrutiny.

There is a certain safety in political correctness. There are rules and clear boundaries that make it easy for me not to step on your side of the line and vice versa. But, it is not relational and not focused on reconciliation. Instead, political correctness is a superficial band-aid to the problem of race relations. It fosters racial division by undermining relationships.  (more…)