I’m a survey junkie. It’s my firm belief that leadership begins with self-awareness, so any discovery about how I operate is such a buzz.

Every time I’m in a group that has done a personality test, or leadership review, or strengths test I love to see how people light up. My favourite is when they realize that what they previously considered a universal human trait is actually something special and unique to them – a strength.

The next penny is not as quick to follow, sometimes it doesn’t even drop. But the other day my husband articulated it so clearly:

 

Maybe what I expect of everyone else is what I’m called to.

 

Our familiarity with the importance of language, or innovation, or working structures, or deliverables, or compassion (or whatever your bugbear is) is so ingrained in us, that we often do subconsciously expect that most other humans should also have this basic understanding of/passion for the same thing.

We really should have realized by now (but are still shocked to discover) that the IT guy doesn’t care about the big picture. We are dumbfounded when colleagues burn relational bridges and roast marshmallows in the flames. We wonder why no one else notices that there is still boxes to tick and i’s to dot.

And we shove this Obvious Thing down and get resentful and don’t mention it and in that moment there is a danger to forget that…

Their lack is my abundance.

Their strength is my weakness.

Their oversight is my focus.

Their chore is my joy.

This mess of humanity, we fit together somehow. We’re better together.

Yes, it sounds so correct and we nod our heads. I already know that, we say, and turn right round to grumble that no one else can do the Really Easy Thing that everyone should be able to do.

 

Next time you catch yourself thinking this way, reframe it.

The expectation I put on them, is what I’m called to champion.

And go right ahead and champion the heck out of it, for your sanity and for the sake of all those around you. We’re all stronger when you do.

 

You know, when I first met you I thought you were so weird…

 

I can’t count the amount of times this has been said to me. More than I care to admit, but here I am, admitting it anyway. Zac said this to me while we were dating.*

What I will admit, however, that the first few times people said this, it sent me spiraling damage control. Uh oh, what did I do now?

As a result of these well-intentioned comments (well, now that I know you better, you’re not so weird!) I limited myself and how I interacted with people for a long time. I constantly worried about how I was being perceived, about being misinterpreted. Better to say less, show less, than risk being pushed out because of my weirdness.

Over time, I’ve grown to realize something that made me put an end to all that self-limiting: the qualities that I was worried would push me out, were the exact same qualities that were giving me an edge.

 

“I swear, you are so random” gets celebrated as ideation.

 

“You don’t understand the ‘way things are'” gets celebrated as creative thinking.

 

“You just don’t let up” gets celebrated as being persistent or strategic or able to doggedly solve problems.

 

Given the right experience, given the right training, given the right timing, given the right situation, what makes you odd can also be what makes you oddly brilliant.

 

 
Sometimes what you feel most awkward about, is the same thing that sets you head and shoulders above the status quo.

 

Sometimes the skills that cause the most pain when you’re learning to wield them become your weapon of choice.

 

Sometimes people let slip they thought you were weird when they first met you. And in the exact moment where the old you wanted a Sinkhole Event to happen, you now raise your chin, smile cheekily and say graciously, “you wouldn’t be the first to say that.”

 

You then ask them, “How exactly was I weird?” Because holy smokes, you’re about to discover another thing that could set you apart from the rest and you. can’t. wait.

 

 

*Joke’s on him though, because he ended up marrying the weird human. So who’s weirder now, huh?

 

When I met Christ, I felt that I had swallowed sunshine.

E Stanley Jones

“Faith” in the language of heaven, is

“Love” in the language of men.

Victor Hugo

There are moments where I become keenly aware that I’m not just body and mind, I’m spirit too. Moments where something deep in me connects with something much, much bigger. It feels like…

Deep Awe.

Irrepressible Hope.

Illogical Peace.

Quiet Love.

The Celts had a great description for these places – they called them ‘thin’. As in, the divide between natural and supernatural seems thinner than what we normally experience. For those celtic seekers, ‘thin places’ were locations. For me, these moments are strongest as I…

 

Stand beside death-beds, as loved ones slip from life to death.

Birth my children into this world.

Lay awake in the dark of the night, asking questions about life and purpose and meaning.

 

How often do we rail against these moments? We fight death, we fear birth and we do our damndest to make sure we’re too busy, or too drunk, or too social in the hope we can ignore what’s happening under the surface of our skin.

But the noumena calls out loudest in these moments, grabs our face with both hands and forces us to look at the spiritualness of our humanity. These moments arrest us and remind us that there is more. And we are more. And this life is not all. And death is not all.

 

For a Christian, it isn’t enough to visit thin places a few times in a calendar year, ignoring the relationship between physical & spiritual the rest of the time (I’m looking at you, Sundays and Christmas and Easter)

For a Christian, the invitation is extended to us to live every single day thin. We are called to, daily, visit the thinnest place of all – the foot of the cross.

 

Here we can plumb the depths of true, fierce love.

Here we can surrender the smallness of ‘me’ into the immensity of Him.

Here we can experience life as a divine collision of heaven and earth.

 

Two questions for us all to consider…

Firstly, what helps you get to a thin place? The ocean? Singing at church? Star gazing? Meditation?

And, when was the last time you allowed yourself to truly pause, sink in and visit your thin place?

 

“He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”

― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

Here is Felix’s birth story, which we can laugh about now, but was certainly not funny at the time. It was a bit fast and furious… He was fast. I was furious.

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Heads up. There is a moment in this post where I get swear-y. I know, it’s not great, but it’s my foible and I’ll own it. Besides… I reckon birth is one of those times you get a hall pass to do whatever you need to do to get through. So if you didn’t swear in labour, that’s AMAZING, but if it offends you, stop reading and go shine your well-earned halo. I’ll post something else next week.

0100
Water breaks. Initial thought: “I’ve peed the bed.” Guess agaaaiiiin! We leave a cancellation message for the day spa where I was meant to go to tomorrow to get a massage : ( I wouldn’t get to enjoy that massage for another 5 months.

0130
I have a shower, wash my hair,  shave my legs and blow-dry my hair. Why not? Dog is very confused as to why we’re all awake. Zac calls the birthing unit to see whether we should go in.

0230
We go in because there is so. much. liquid. Zac is speeding on the freeway… even though I’m not having contractions and I’m not in pain.

0330
No contractions, but water has definitely broken. I’m 38w3d so that means we’re good to go and deliver the baby. Midwives set us up in a double bed to ‘get some rest’ overnight. Ha. Hahaha. Haha.

0730
Midwife walks in, grabs my belly and says, “Good morning! Let’s have a baby!” Spends rest of morning filling in charts and swapping war stories with the other midwife about weapons they kept under their pillows back in South Africa. Highlights include: a scalpel, a metal pipe, a gun.

Continue reading →

When our women fail in courage,
Shall our men be fearless still?

L.M. Montgomery

This quote reminded me of you. 

I’m on pins and needles to see what crazy stuff God has planned for you next! Take your fearless nature into whatever he has for you, and know that your courage changes the world. It has certainly changed mine.

xx

Two weeks ago, a neighbour on our street pulled us aside, so angry her voice shook and she had tears in her eyes. Turns out, all year long, she’s been recording the number plates and arrival time of our guests. Some of whom have parked in front of her house. Not on the verge (public land anyway) but just on the street. Apparently she doesn’t like it… She really doesn’t like it. She finally confronted us only because when she went to the council and they didn’t do anything. Because unfortunately for her, it’s perfectly legal for people to park on the street.
The last 5 days and nights, Felix has had my number and he’s called it every. two. hours. to eat. It’s frustrating, and super exhausting.
Honest moment: I didn’t live up to my own standards when these things happened.

I rehearsed the most epic burns in our kitchen about the parking.
I thump the pillow with my fist when I see it’s only 10:40pm, and 1:20am, and 4:05am and 5:50am.

But in my head, I want to be a good Christian, hell, I’d settle for being a decent human. Someone characterised by love. So after the rant-rehearsal ends and my feet swing out of bed and hit the floor in the middle of the night, I’m left with a choice:
Do I do what they do and carry these feelings into the situation, let them define the experience? Or do I live higher?

…I’ve made my choice (for this week at least:)

 

So if you visit us, please don’t park on the street opposite our driveway.

And tonight when his little mouth drops off and he belly laughs his way to dreamland, I’ll kiss his cheek and whisper I love you… 

Because love, I’m reminding myself, is something proved again and again by choice, not by feel.