Big changes are coming. Its been in the works for a couple of years. In fact, it probably goes back further than that.

For a short time recently, I "hid" this blog again because of my job and what comes with it. That's just not me. And it can't be. I don't know that over the years, this blog will stay exactly the same. However, what I know for sure is that to hide it or to suppress what is on my heart to write is wrong. Very wrong. So with the other things that are changing, I'm coming out of my writing closet again. Haha.

I chose the picture above because as silly as it sounds, those lanterns at Disneyland say something to me about being free. I won't even try to explain it right now. But I took that picture because they speak to me about what I've always known to be true about myself, God and life.

I know. Sounds weird. I'll come back and explain more later. For now, I'll just say that I've needed to make this decision for awhile. I don't know how everything is going to work out. I only know that for the first time in a long time, I know that God has given me wisdom and clarity to make the right decision and has confirmed it over and over. I have held back because of fear of how it would all work out.

No more.

"Life is either a daring adventure or nothing." - Helen Keller

Balance? What’s That?

In January, I decided that my word f0r 2012 was “Balance.” Here it is, mid-March and I’ve yet to post about where I stand in this journey towards more balance. But it’s never too late to make a new start. Right?
Though I will admit to taking steps in the right direction, they’ve been baby steps. Have you ever seen the comedy classic, What About Bob? Every time I think, write or say, “baby steps,” I think of Bob. Infuriating, lovable, hilarious Bob.


Baby steps. I decided a week or so ago, to give myself an extra measure of grace. Why? Because  even though I wasn’t where I wanted to be, I had to admit that I was taking baby steps in the right direction.
I’m not where I wish I was at this point in the year. But I’m light years ahead of where I was a year ago. I’ve been cooking more (And I mean cooking. From scratch. Real food.) for myself which means healthier meals. I’ve been going to bed before 10:00 PM more often that I have in my entire life. Haha. I’m a night owl.

I’ve spent more weekends doing nothing and ignoring work until Monday (emergencies aside) than I have in the past. And I’ve said, “No” more often than I thought I was capable. I’ve stopped feeling guilty about the no. And I’ve stopped feeling guilty about ensuring I get what I need. I’m not where I want to be, but it feels good. It feels really good to be moving in the right direction.

Today was a rough day. Not horrible. But it was one of those days where everything seems to go wrong. My car is not drivable and there was a crazy set of circumstances that meant I had to get it towed to a new location but couldn’t do that unless I was there physically to sign off on the move but I didn’t have a car to get there. Haha.

It was crazy. Through the events of the day, I realized that this life that I’ve been living has left things like friendships out of the equation. I know a lot of people. But no one knows me. I don’t have friends here. Not in the way that I want them.

I have acquaintances. I have colleagues. There are the families that I serve. I know a lot of people. But kindred spirits that have become the family you choose? It hasn’t happened. I don’t have anyone that will speak up to say, “No…don’t take a taxi to the car repair shop. I’ve got you. I’ll be there in 20 minutes.” I don’t have anyone for the big stuff either. And I don’t have anyone to do that for. I am not sharing life in community with anyone. I’m constantly talking, emailing, and surrounded by people but I’m alone.

But it’s no one’s fault but my own. I don’t have it because I haven’t invested my time and heart in community here. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been to church (yeah). I definitely haven’t found a small group. My job is to take care of others. It’s not a reciprocal relationship. And it shouldn’t be!
For that reason, it’s even more important that I invest in what I need. I can’t run constantly without hitting a wall. I’ve hit that wall. And have been sicker than I’ve been in ages. It’s time that I really take care of me. I realized that in January but my follow through wasn’t so hot.

But back to what I was saying - in spite of the rough day, I hit a point where I knew I needed to make a few adjustments. I worked from home and then decided the computer work was ending at 5:00. And then I cooked. I made myself chicken with a mushroom/red wine sauce and risotto.

I sat down at the table! I didn’t eat standing. I didn’t eat on the couch trying to work while I ate. I sat down. I read my Food & Wine magazine. I enjoyed my meal while Otis Redding serenaded me! It was fantastical. And now, wonder of wonders, I’m writing a blog post! I think I’ll even work on editing my novel for a little bit when I’m done here.

Baby steps. I’m taking baby steps in the right direction. And it feels good.

Intentional

I haven't felt particularly inspired recently. Writing and searching out that inspiration have not come easy. I think this is one of the reasons my job is such a challenge for me sometimes. I love it...don't get me wrong. But in the midst of this schedule that doesn't seem to relent, I often feel like I don't have the time to write and create. Time to be me.

Reconciling that this is who God made me to be, yet having so little time to be this person is not easy. That said . . . I've slowly come to the realization that creating and being an artist are part of what feeds me. It's part of what keeps me going. To not be intentional about that, to not be disciplined about making that time is to waste what God has given me.

If the act of creating is part of what keeps me going, then it's not some superfluous act that can be left to the side. Nor is it an option. I need to see it as a much a part of my day as anything else.

I need to be intentional. And it is time that I come to see the things I need, the things that keep me going, as a necessary part of my day. This time to create, to write, to find beauty, they're just as essential to my day as He is.

More items for my list:
61. Spotify (Oh how I love Spotify.)
62. Otis Redding singing.
63. My dog "barking" in her sleep.
64. Fresh pink flowers:

65. Pink tulips on my desk at work.
66. Office Professional on my laptop (oh man...such a lifesaver!)
67. American Idol back on TV>
68. The ability to buy a new coffee table.
69. Days of rest.
70. Health insurance.
71. Answered and unanswered prayer.
72. Having enough money to share.
73. Freedom to make mistakes.
74. Music that touches my heart.
75. Feeling needed.

Quitter

I bought a book recently. I was convinced it was written for me after watching this trailer:



I've been reading it during my free moments and my initial impression was correct. I needed to read this book. If you're trying to figure out how to get from your day job to your dream job, you should read this book.

Nope. I didn't get this book for free to review it. I spent money that I earn on my day job to buy it. And Jon Acuff has no idea who I am.

But he's written a book that hits very close to home right now. When I'm finished reading it, I'll share more. But for now, I'll leave you with one of my favorite quotes so far, "More often than not, finding out what you love doing most is about recovering an old love or an inescapable truth that has been silenced for years, even decades. When you come to your dream job, your thing, it's rarely a first encounter. It's usually a reunion."


I love that! A recovery, a reunion. Yes. 

Wordless Wednesday (not)

I took the photo above in 2009 long before I moved here. It was one of my Wordless Wednesday posts.

I didn't think God would actually bring me here. He has.

Anyone who doesn't think God has a sense of humor . . . is wrong.

I took these in the spring of last year, while driving through Joshua Tree National Park.

I live near the Joshua Tree (the tiny little village I live in) entrance to the park. And sometimes, when the 

mood suits me, I drive through that place.

And I never cease to be amazed at His creation.

He is one creative Dude... 

Yep, that's a dude up there on the rock.

Content

The Apostle Paul said that he had learned the "secret" of being content in "every" circumstance. I used to wonder if he was being honest (really).

I thought, "Really? Every circumstance. Every?"


It doesn't always seem possible to be content with your lot. Whatever that may be. And yet, as I continue to read One Thousand Gifts and count out my 1,000 gifts, I have begun to believe, more than I ever have before,  that the secret is in the joy, the thanksgiving and in seeing the little, everyday graces.

With that realization is the knowledge that it's really my choice to be content. My choice to choose joy. My choice to live with a heart filled with thanksgiving. It's easy (really easy) to blame everyone and everything for a lack of contentment. Or because you're not where you want to be.

At least it's easy for me.

But the secret really is in the thankful heart. It's in your choices. It's in my choices.

When I choose joy, when I am thankful for what is in front of me, my heart is full. I begin to see that life here is what I make it. I can find beauty, meaning, purpose, rest and joy.

Why? Because it's not dependent upon circumstances, locations or any other passing thing. It's rooted,  rooted down deep, in the thick rich soil of choosing joy, choosing to be thankful and in remembering all of His tiny graces.

These tiny graces build and grow into a thing of beauty. Beauty right here in this brown, barren desert.
And so my list continues . . .

43. Handwritten letters
44. The gift of creativity
45. The ability to be compassionate towards others
46. A sense of humor
47. Sun shining through dark clouds
48. My soft bed
49. Cheese & Crackers
50. The handmade books my Mom has made me
51. My Reading List by Pat Conroy
52. Plan B by Pete Wilson
53. Seeing God's work of grace in my life
54. Making a life and home of my own
55. Memories of the sea:

56. The color blue:

57. Blue Ball Mason Jars:

58. Creating beauty & sanctuary in my home.
59. Reminders of the sea I love so much, all around me:

60. A friend's artwork:

To read an inspiring post by Ann Voskamp about the answer to anxiety, go here: http://www.aholyexperience.com/2012/01/whats-the-answer-to-anxiety/. This post is part of Ann Voskamp's Multitudes on Monday's. 

Broken Roads, Faith & Gratitude

I took a road trip on Saturday. It was a whirlwind trip from my little desert town, to the border town of Yuma, Arizona (also a desert town - only much bigger). I drove there and back for a wedding.

It doesn't need to be a secret, that though the High Desert has its charms: http://www.flickr.com/photos/elainamarie/sets/72157626784492230/ & http://www.flickr.com/photos/elainamarie/sets/72157626071974840/, I'm not fond of living in a place
so . . . so . . . brown. I'm working on being grateful for this place. But it's taking time.

I love green. Deep, deep green. Trees. Water. They feed the dry places in my heart. I'd rather look at fields of cotton and corn or windy roads lined with Loblolly pines. I'm a windows down, wind in the hair, kind of person. 

Living here, that's a sacrifice you have to make for a huge chunk of the year. During the summer? Too hot. Though we didn't hit 119 this summer, we got close. Too close for comfort. During other times during the year, the wind is intense and sandy, dirty dust storms pop up.

So when I get out on the open road, I kind of have a blast. I know that this is going to sound silly, but I don't even care. But driving back roads, past farms, cattle ranches: http://untitledname.com/2010/03/beef (apparently, cows outnumber people in Brawley, CA) and through tiny towns nestled up against railroad tracks, soothed me. It does make miss Eastern North Carolina - the home born in my heart. But more than that, I felt alive again. And I so needed that. Another grace to kick off 2012.

I waxed poetic. I got quiet. I listened better. Driving past those green fields, or one stop sign towns, I started to think about all I've seen and experienced - from one end of this country to the other. For the little things I learn about people and creation and God's character in these places, I'm thankful for:

38. Green fields and farmland.

39. The setting sun against open fields and towns so tiny, they boast only one stop sign:

40. For sandy dunes that are other worldly and remind me of a God that can't be easily understood or explained adequately:

41. For the grace of water in the desert:

Photo Credit

This isn't water you want to drink (more saline than the Pacific Ocean). But the view of the Salton Sea as the sun set, was a sight that touched my soul in this way that only God's magnificence can. Someday I'll go back and take my own photos.

And, most beautiful about the trip?

42. For a dear friend's wedding both because I could share in her joy but also because of the reminder it was of restoration and answers to prayer in response to dogged faith:

Her faith - her enormous faith - in spite of the odds and the past and all of the trials, is an example that I will never forget. Her smile and the way her husband looked at her prompted tears of joy co-mingled with hope that someday, perhaps this gift will also be mine. Their first dance to "Bless the Broken Road" gave me hope.


It's been a dry few months for me. I've felt like this barren desert I live in. When the beauty of God's lush creation inspires me to write and think and dream, I feel most myself. But here? Here with the brown and the pace that keeps me running? It takes a little more work.

I'm so grateful for the brief getaway. Though it still took me through desert towns, to yet another desert town, He revealed to me, His beauty is everywhere. And its stuck with me. For this I am so thankful.

This post is part of "Multitudes on Monday" hosted by Ann Voskamp at A Holy Experience.

Here

In the spring of 2011, I started reading Ann Voskamp's One Thousand Gifts. I even started writing these gifts down - recording them as sign posts and markers of His beauty and grace all around me.

And then I stopped. Life got in the way. My career took over. I stopped looking. I didn't see them anymore. When I did see them, I didn't write them down.

I thought about starting over today. But that would make it seem as though the first things I recorded weren't ever noticed.

So I'll pick up where I left off in just a minute. But before that, I wanted to mention that coming back to this blog has felt like coming home. I've needed this. But more than needing to write and record what's on my mind and heart - I've needed to come home to this Love - this Love that pursues me into the darkest, deepest places in my heart.

When I wandered before, it took so much for Him to get me back. This time, I wandered but not in the same way. I was just too busy to seek Him. It wasn't like before when I turned my back on His ways and His gentle, magnificent love.

It was subtle. Gradual. Quiet. Each day built upon the next until I looked back recently and realized how little I'd consulted Him in the last year and a half - how little I'd ached for Him to fill the lonely places in my soul.

Though not like before, it still reveals my adulterous heart that easily wanders after other lovers. Even still, He's here with me now, gentle and loving and kind. "I'm glad you've come back." I add the, "Again." And in only the way He can, He reminds me that it doesn't matter how many "agains" it takes, He'll pursue me still.

When I first moved up here to the High Desert, I jokingly thought for a second that maybe moving to this barren place was to signify some spiritual mile marker in my life. There are lessons this brown place - with all its dirt and sand have taught me but I'm not sure it was in the way I expected.

In this ugly stretch of land, I am learning that He is here. His graces are here. His beauty? Here. It may be a little harder for me to find them. And I may not see them as easily as I did in the lush south with water and green and rich soil everywhere - but they're there.

And as I pursue Him, I see them more clearly. So . . . back to the counting . . .

23. A breeze through open windows, on a quiet afternoon.
24. Avocado's
25. The pine tree in my back yard - it's green such a contrast in all this brown.
26. Tiny, baby pine cones that fell from my tree in the spring.
27. The days when work is what it's supposed to be.
28. The opportunities my Marine Corps life has given to me.
29. Rainstorms in the desert.
30. My dog falling asleep at my feet.
31. The people who take care of me.
32. Memories of salt and pine in the air.
33. God's unending patience.
34. Lemons, fresh from my Grandma's tree - and the scent they leave on my hands.

35. The little green plants on my counter. Giving me a little bit of green in a world so brown.

36. Green army men that remind me to be a prayer warrior - and of the group of women who gave it to me. It's a reminder of the grace extended to me in those Thursday morning's studying His word and learning to be real again.

37. Golden sun on country roads (like in the photo at the top of this post, that I took while at my Grandma's house this weekend).

To read other's lists, you can go here: http://www.aholyexperience.com/2012/01/what-the-new-year-needs-most/ or click the multitudes on monday button below.

To read the first 22 in my list, you can read up, here:

Eucharisteo

All Around

More Gifts

Streams in the Wasteland

“Forget the former things; 
   do not dwell on the past. 
    See, I am doing a new thing! 
   Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? 
I am making a way in the wilderness 
   and streams in the wasteland."
Isaiah 43:18-19 NIV


The Message says this:


This is what God says, 
   the God who builds a road right through the ocean, 
   who carves a path through pounding waves,
The God who summons horses and chariots and armies— 
   they lie down and then can't get up; 
   they're snuffed out like so many candles:
"Forget about what's happened; 
   don't keep going over old history.
Be alert, be present. I'm about to do something brand-new. 
   It's bursting out! Don't you see it?
There it is! I'm making a road through the desert, 
   rivers in the badlands.


I picked the photo above because that tree has a lot of meaning and significance for me. Sometimes we need a little reminder that He is in the midst of doing something new in us. 

The branches of the tree above had been so barren only a couple of months prior to me taking that photo. Watching it slowly bud into this glorious white blossomed tree, meant so much to me because it was a symbol of what God was doing in me.

January 1, 2012 - it's a new year. Let it be a reminder to all of us that even when we don't see it, He is doing a new thing.

Well . . .

The last time I posted on this blog o' mine it was September of 2010. Since I've been slowly taking back my life, I figure it's time to come on back to this space.

I've tried to write and start a few other blogs. But nothing felt like home. Because this is my blog. So what little content I wrote elsewhere, I'll merge over here.

The post below is the first of those.

It's good to be back.