Skip to main content

Beautiful Tension

In my life and my work, I experience a lot of tension. I usually find it where things are not as I would like them to be.

September has seen lots of extra space in my work week. My beautiful tension is found in receiving these gifts of time in the midst of my desire to have a busy practice. I spend some of the time catching up on tasks that need done, while other moments are spent more leisurely.

So many of the people that I see are suffering from painful experiences, past and present, and my challenge is to help them find joy through relationship with God even as they wait for Him to shift their difficult circumstances. There is sadness and anger toward God for allowing them to experience such distress. There is also real comfort as He connects with them in their aching.

I want to use my gifts to produce and create even as I experience fatigue and desire rest. I love the work that God has given me to do and still prefer to be on vacation. I want more and I want less.

I have been taking piano lessons for almost a full year and am excited by how God has been developing my abilities even as I lament the dramatic decrease in my writing. The beautiful tension is accepting that every time I say yes to one thing, I am saying no to others.

Being married has meant weighing more than I ever have before. My beautiful tension is in learning to receive God's declaration that I am beautiful at this weight even as I recommit myself to pursuing healthy eating and exercise so that I can live at a healthy weight. I can believe my husband when he tells me that I am beautiful and really feel beautiful even as I make plans for healthy changes.

I take great delight in consuming delicious foods and recognize that my body does not respond well to some of them. I experience tremendous tension between the desires of my mouth and the healthy operation of my body.

I love the feeling of my body working as a strong machine when I run and I would rather stay snuggled in my bed than head outside. I love to experience God's nearness in worship and prayer and I still regularly choose other forms of entertainment and relaxation outside of connecting with him.
My goal is not to rid myself of all this beautiful tension. I desire to appreciate it for the richness that it adds to my life. I want to recognize that my ambivalence and strong feelings are all a part of my unique experience in this world. I want to learn to move graciously between different opposing positions and to find my home more in the balance of the middle.

Still Counting Gifts: (Today's gifts are inspired by Ann Voskamp's Joy Dare: Gifts Paired)

  • #1008: Coffee and cream
  • #1009: Cool weather and running
  • #1010: Fall and apple cider donuts
  • #1011: Sunday night and Foyle's War
  • #1012: Darker mornings and stronger desire to sleep in
  • #1013: Mondays and new beginnings
  • #1014: Free time and opportunity

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

3 weeks ago today

I got married three weeks ago today. I’ve been thinking a lot about our wedding since that day. This was my first week back to work, which meant that I got to talk a lot about that day and show pictures, because everything is still fresh and new and people are anxious to know how it went. I have missed writing. Several times during our honeymoon, I almost grabbed my laptop because I had the urge to write. I never did, but I wanted to. I think that it felt too intimate to record in some ways. And, in others, I was just enjoying being lazy and carefree. I plan to write about what I remember from my wedding. (Maybe even some things from our honeymoon. We shall see…) I don’t know what I will share, but I want to make a record of my memories and experiences from that day. Just three weeks later, but the feelings are less vivid and the mental pictures are less crisp. Fortunately, our photographer did an amazing job and I am thankful that I have those images to remind me....
2 comments
Read more

Praying is what I do

Isn't it encouraging when God reminds you of who you are and what it is that He has called you to do?! When I was at Fire in the Night, I prayed a lot and I loved it. I realized that I really have been created as an intercessor and that is my primary mandate. Now, I am also really gifted in counseling and helping people, but that's second. Praying is what I do first. This is what I was made for: to encounter God through prayer. I cry out to Him and He answers. I quiet myself and listen to Him speak to me too. My time at IHOP-KC affirmed this prayer calling and started me down the path to living as a committed intercessor in a HOP. It's been almost a year since I did Fire in the Night and I have started reversing my mandates again. You see, I had wrongly made counseling my primary mandate way back in graduate school. And, I had continued this way for years until I got completely burnt out. The snatches of time that I would get in the prayer room when I was home from Chi...
Post a Comment
Read more

Unfairly blessed

I have been feeling ridiculously blessed in the past week. I actually broke down when I was talking with my sister one night because it felt unfair that God is blessing me so extravagantly while other people I know and love are hard at work counting blessings because they are tempted to think that they aren't really receiving any at all. One of the things that I love about counting blessings is that it helps each of us to recognize just how blessed we really are. But, it is still painful when certain people seem to have everything come so easily to them and I think that I am continually going without. It's also hard when I have identified myself an unfairly unblessed person for so long and only recently, I have been trying to make the change to seeing myself as richly blessed. It feels awkward and scary. While it's true that my biggest unanswered prayer of finding a godly man to share my life with still hasn't been fulfilled, I have become that person who has things com...
2 comments
Read more