Just walking the trails

So, I could say that I've had an adventurous winter break. Over the last 9 days, I've walked trails in Los Angeles, California, through five little towns in Italy, in New Zealand, Canada, British Columbia, and even Argentina! I've walked through woods, through rocky trails, on the tops of mountains, and right along the beach. 

Okay, so I wish I got to do all that. Actually, I just joined the new gym that opened right around the corner, and when I press the virtual tour button, the screen takes me on famous trails all over the world. It's kinda cool.

Now you have to understand, I hate the gym. I hate working out with other people around, I hate having to change my clothes in order to exercise, and I hate crowds. 

But I love my boys and my family, and I'm always trying to be super intentional about finding ways to hang out with them and stay connected with them. I had no intention of joining a gym, though I knew the stress of last year had gotten the better of me physically and I needed some accountability to get back on track with more healthy decisions. 

So when David started talking about joining a gym, it was a no-brainer to do it together as a family. He researched gyms close to us, and we found a new one that just opened up by the mall around the corner. I've already seen big benefits for me mentally (if I'm feeling overwhelmed, I can go tune out on the treadmill to recharge), not to mention the physical benefit that comes with being active, the dietary benefit (because it's harder to eat a bunch of junk after you just worked so hard to burn calories), and the bonding benefit of working out side by side with your sons. 

I'm looking forward to how this impromptu decision is going to help us become a healthier, more connected and bonded family in many ways. 

And I am excited to keep walking such famous trails all over the world. Any opportunity to see the world keeps my spirit motivated. 

Unexpected beginnings

2020 started much differently than other years.

We usually bring in a new year by playing card games, eating 12 grapes (a Colombian tradition), drinking a sparkling drink of some kind, and watching the ball drop on TV.

This year Juan drove to DBU to celebrate with friends, and David went to Atlanta to attend the Passion 2020 Conference.

It was David's first opportunity to attend Passion, as it's for 18-25 year olds, and he just turned 18. Juan hasn't ever gone, so we knew little about it.

As soon as it started on Tuesday evening, David sent me a text saying that we could watch the sessions live online and even on certain TV stations. 

So Mike and I pulled it up online while we played cards, and we sat and watched almost the entire first session of the conference from the comfort of our home. Then we sat and listened as 65, 000 young adults brought in the new year and new decade while singing praises to God, while worshipping with song. We even sang along here. It was beautiful, and I am so thankful that David had the opportunity (and desire) to be there. I can't think of a better, more memorable and truly meaningful way for him to bring in the year 2020.

 While this went on outside...

 this continued on inside, without skipping a beat. 

 Powerful.

 Day 2, while Mike was at work, Juan and I sat playing cards and watching more of the Passion sessions together. 

I ended up spending the following two days watching as much of the conference as I could along with him. And each session made me more thankful that he had the chance to be there. You know God worked deeply in his heart when he came home with a new book by John Piper and said, "Mom, you can read this book after I'm done with it." (This is the child that's super smart, but won't crack open a book unless absolutely necessary.)

Expecting God to show up big in 2020. 

A few highlights of the last year

 The opportunity to dine over the ocean

 A few hours of relaxation on a private beach in Cozumel--an excursion that we won! Before the beach, we got to go snorkeling.

 Visiting a small school in Belize

 Visiting an orphanage in Belize

 Finally experiencing the "floating city" behind all those little windows on the ship

 The clearest of waters in Roatan, Honduras. 

 Sunsets over the ocean

 David finding his natural ability in the accounting field, surpassing all the kids in the grade above him in his class.

 Unexpected FC Dallas game tickets

 Another successful butterfly release with 2nd graders

 A surprise strawberry pie for my birthday from my mom

 David earned his letter and letter jacket.

 Free concerts in the park

 Impromptu coffee date with BOTH my parents

 My dad published another book!

 David got accepted into DBU

 My mom and I got to be part of a Lifeway taping of Mary DeMuth's upcoming Bible study, Into the Light

 Our Gratitude Wall in second grade

 Bringing in the new year while worshipping, singing praises to our God, along with 65,000 college age students at the 2020 Passion Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. 

2020 Word for the year

As I realized that my year to shine quickly began to close, I also realized that I hadn't even thought about a new word for 2020. I started to toy around with a few words and just came up empty. So, I prayed for God to reveal a word to help define, direct, and lead the coming year.

At first the phrase "let go" flashed across my mind. But a phrase just didn't seem right. I asked myself what word might capture the act of letting go, and as soon as I spoke it aloud, I knew God had given me my new word.

Release.

As a verb, it means to allow or enable to escape from confinement, to set free. Some synonyms and synonomous phrases included liberate, set loose, let out, allow to leave, unchain, unleash, liberate, let go. 

Looking back over 2019, I can say it held more darkness than any other year of the last decade other than walking through grief in 2010 over the failed adoption. I ended 2018 on a spiritual high, ready to celebrate all that God had in store for our marriage and family. Yet some of our darkest days as a couple loomed on the horizon, precisely at the time we'd already planned a big celebration. 2019 was a hard year. Period.

I won't go into detail about any of it because I'm still working through and sorting out a lot of the trials that truly blindsided us. I'm thankful for the buds of growth that I've seen come through those trials, I'm thankful for unexpected and unexplained financial stability, I'm thankful for employment, and I'm thankful to be teaching the grade that my heart wanted to teach (when even that threatened to be taken from me). I'm thankful for an amazing class of second graders that have already surpassed many of my expectations for them. I'm thankful that so far this current school year has been one of my best years ever as a teacher with a class of kids that absolutely love coming to school and working together as the "family" that we are in my classroom.

But despite all the good I see and am claiming, there's still a lot I need to release into my Father's hands. Hurt, anger, disappointment, unanswered questions, unmet expectations, changes in plans, etc. I need to open up my tight fist and let things go.

In addition to releasing the past, there's an 18 year old boy in my home awaiting his upcoming release from high school to college, from dependence to independence. My heart is fighting hard against this new word, yet knows the time is coming soon. I don't like any part of it. He's my little buddy, the one who's accompanied me on nearly every adventure over the last 18 years. I hate that his childhood has slipped away, yet he's everything I could have hoped for in an adult son. We raised him to be responsible, independent, caring, with a heart for the lost and a passion to serve. He's completely devoted to his church and serves at every opportunity that comes up. He's incredibly independent and carefully plans out every minute of his time between his church friends and activities, his job, his truck, and his family. He manages his money carefully and lives frugally to stretch every dollar. He's currently with the young adult group (one of only 8 who are still high schoolers) in Georgia at the Passion Conference, and he's eagerly awaiting his first international mission trip (without his family) to South Africa this July, hoping he might also have the chance this summer to return to the Rio Grande Valley in Texas to serve the families in the valley. After that, he'll be driving his truck off to Dallas Baptist University to start his freshman year as a college student. He's a natural born leader, very confident in who he is. Ready for release, whether I'm ready or not.

I know from experience that the act of releasing something is freeing and liberating to the soul. I also know that God asks us to open up our grip from whatever it is that we're white-knuckling and release it so He can fill our hands with something greater. But releasing my first-born son is not going to be easy on this mama's heart.

Yet I began the last decade learning to let go of two children, and God filled my open, empty hands with more blessing than I ever could have seen coming through that act of release. I'm looking forward to seeing what God has for my son and our family in this new decade to come as I learn to release what is no longer mine to hold onto.

2020. Graduation year. It always seemed so far away, yet here it is. As reluctant as I am to show emotion, you might just catch a few tears on my cheeks at unexpected times over the course of this year. 

A year to SHINE

When the word SHINE came to me last year, I kind-of liked the sound of it. A year to shine sounded nice and honorable.

Yet light shines brightest in the dark, and 2019 held a long road of darkness that literally pulled the rug out from under me and knocked me to the ground. I barely spoke of the inner turmoil I experienced this last year to anyone other than a few very close friends. While I may have held it together on the outside, inside I fought a silent battle that left me grasping for any strings I could hold on to in order to survive. I'm a private person, and I share very little of myself with those around me unless I write about it or I talk about it in a small Bible study group. However, I stopped writing, and I gave up attending and teaching women's Bible studies this year in order to work on the main relationship in my life that matters the most (besides Christ)--my marriage. So my world got pretty quiet and pretty small. I never imagined that the year we planned to celebrate 20 years of togetherness would be the year that I would fight the desire to give up. Satan fought hard against us and probably felt pretty successful for several months, but God ... 

Two things kept us together (besides the prayers of the few people who knew this battle was going on): Daily gratitude and a church that pours into marriage for the sake of the gospel through a program called ReEngage. I can't say enough about either of those two things.

Daily gratitude keeps me looking for anything positive I can find and keeps me thanking God for His daily gifts of grace. It keeps my focus on God and off of myself and all the problems surrounding me.  It keeps me looking for the good that can come out of the bad. 

One Thousand Blessings Journal, Ann Voskamp

ReEngage is a program we've been through before, just not while in crisis, so it was a comfort to know we could jump in at any time to get the help that we needed. There's so much power in numbers, being in an auditorium full of other married couples who are actually admitting their faults and talking about their mistakes and their struggles. For the last nine months, we've spent every Wednesday night hearing messages on God's plan for marriage, listening to testimonies of how God redeemed marriages that the world would have considered hopeless and written off, learning from other couples how to communicate with each other in a healthier way, and walking away with tools to help us continue walking forward through a difficult season. It's not magic, but we watched so many couples reconnect and reunite. You can't sit through ReEngage and not leave with hope and a renewed desire to make your marriage work. One of their popular mottos is, if God has the power to resurrect Jesus from the dead, then He has the same power to resurrect your marriage.

Wednesday nights used to be sacred to me because it was Bible study night with my lady friends. Now Wednesday nights are sacred because it's date night, our middle of the week chance to reconnect and focus on us. We're still a work in progress, but it's progress. I struggled giving up teaching Bible study, but I felt like God was going to use this struggle to equip me to help someone coming through one of my Bible studies in the future. Little did I know that He'd use our current involvement in ReEngage to reach out to another couple very close to us also facing a silent battle in their marriage that no one knew about. God never wastes anything, even our struggles when we're still in them. So, like I said, my world got pretty small as my focus surrounded one main relationship. I wondered how much I really lived up to my word for the year. Did I even have much of an opportunity to shine?

Then God gave me a devotional that pointed out something I never noticed before, and I knew He breathed it over me that day. Proverbs 31:30 says that "charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised." Which also means to shine. I see it as "she glows". The more you fear the Lord, the more you radiate His light.

I ended the year getting these unexpected messages from friends around me who didn't even know I was looking for evidence of having lived out my word or not. 

 And also a text from another friend that I have honestly spent very little time with that said, "I love spending time with you, the holy spirit radiates off of you!!"

I'm truly thankful for these late year messages and consider them gifts from God, His way of speaking to me and letting me know that He sees me and hears my need for affirmation. Gifts I already added to my 1,000 Blessings Gratitude Journal.

So with that, I bring 2019 to a close and welcome the year 2020 with a new word. Stay tuned.

          

I'm a FIVE

I'm a very naturally reflective person. I think I'm much better at reflecting than I am at living. That's actually kind of bothered me for most of my life until more recently when more awareness has come out about the gift of introversion versus extroversion. My family thinks I'm weird, but I actually love to read articles about introversion and join introvert groups on Facebook with people just like me. It's a comfort to know that I'm not the only one who hates talking on the phone, who prefers silence, who craves time alone, who thrives with one-on-one conversation and companionship rather than being with a group, and who prefers to listen and observe over talking and participating.

But then I attended a women's event at my church with a close friend, and we stumbled across the Enneagram. I'll admit, I'd never heard of it before, although now I know just how popular and widespread it is. As I've read, studied, and pondered over these nine personality types in the book The Road Back to You (Ian Cron and Suzane Stabile) over the last month, I'm left mesmerized as to how well the number 5 described me and helped me understand myself so much more. It's more than just a Meyer's-Briggs ISFJ personality, more than an introvert/extrovert explanation of who I am. It helped me see my strengths, my weaknesses, my needs, and even the why behind certain odd behaviors that I demonstrate quite often.

According to the Enneagram, as a five, I truly NEED time alone. I live so much of life in my head, that without time alone, I am not able to process the events in my life nor how I feel about them. I am emotionally detached and need time in private (sometimes days) to process an experience and know how I actually feel. I do not feel in the moment. I often have to go back in my head to process the emotions from an experience and feel them later. This suddenly made sense to me why I tend to push people away when I'm going through a difficult time. How can I talk to someone about what I'm going through if I haven't even processed it yet myself? It also made sense to me why I don't cry during movies, why people can pour their hearts out to me in tears, yet a single tear never enters my eye. It also revealed to me why I write.  I love to write poetry because I have no idea what I'm going to write, but by the time I finish a poem, I understand how deeply I truly feel about something, and I find Scriptural or spiritual healing by the end of every poem I write. I always used to say that writing poems was my way of processing my life. Now it makes perfect sense.

As a five, I'm very defensive with my time, constantly seeking security, independence, and privacy. One of my classic traits is to withhold personal information. Yep. Super hard for me to open up personally and share the depth of my heart unless I do so in writing. And if I took the time and showed the courage to do so in writing, then I most certainly do not want to talk about it, too. If I open my heart in a written way, take that as a gift from me and leave it at that.

As a five, I found that I am known for staying calm when everything or everyone around me is falling apart. Fives are knowing for their calmness in crisis. (At home I would not say that's true, but when I'm at work, that's incredibly true of me. A coworker of mine recently told me that when she sees me, she senses peace. Others also comment that they come into my room because they just need some calm vibes to get through their drama of a day. I've been told I have a soothing voice, too.)

At home, as like many other fives, I have to have a special place to be able to withdraw and recharge, a place that's filled with books, journals, articles, and special mementos from my travels and/or experiences. I crave simplicity and am not very attached to material things. I am a minimalist, which can often show up in my appearance (thus why my non-minimalist friend gives me so many cute clothes because she knows I won't buy them myself). Too much social engagement wears me out, which is why I keep a calendar so I don't overbook myself and spread myself too thin. I literally have to plan my energies around a big social event. I'm not so withdrawn that I don't participate in life socially, I just have to mentally plan for those events ahead of time. If you invite me somewhere last minute and I go, know that you must be pretty special to me because spontaneity is not my gift.

I hate to be interrupted while I'm working on something--especially by a phone, and I plan my time to the minute because I know just how much energy I have before my battery is going to run out. If I know an interruption is coming, I plan far ahead how to handle it and still get what I need to get done.

Fives are the most misunderstood of all the personality types. Since I am so quiet and reserved, I am very often mistaken for being snobby, stuck-up, or thinking I am better than others. Every time I get a new teammate at work, I have to explain from the get-go that I'm just not a very social person. It's not that I don't like to be around people--I do. But I need time and space to recharge in silence, plus I think and operate best without noise, so I keep my door closed a lot. Teaching 22 seven-year-olds takes a lot of energy, so when they've all gone home for the day, the last thing I want to do is try to socialize with someone. When I'm at work, my focus is work, not social relationships. I do build relationships at work, but they usually have to start outside of the regular work day (during a luncheon, a team-building activity, on a staff development day, a lunch out, etc.) But if we plan a get together outside of work over a cup of coffee, you'll see a whole different side of me and learn so much more about me. So when I read that my life is compartmentalized, I totally got it. Yes. Every person in my life fits into a different space and purpose. And it's all about learning how to manage my limited social energy before I just need some silence and solitude again. It keeps my from getting overwhelmed.

In the second book they wrote (The Path Between Us) that guides you to understand how to work the best with each different personality type, the one thing that stood out to me about working with a FIVE is to use as few words as possible. The less words, the better. That made me chuckle because it's so true. Talking to extroverts and long-winded or repetetive people wears me out. Once I've heard the main message of the conversation and then it starts to repeat itself, I tend to tune out. Lol. Sorry.

I learned so much in both of these books, not just about myself, but about all the different personality types and what makes them act the way they do. It gave me a different sense of compassion and understanding for my husband and all his quirks, a sense of forgiveness toward myself for all of my own quirks, and a better perspective about my boys and my other family members and why they do and say certain things.

I also finally understand why I started this blog and why I need to write on it more often. It's my processing page, my quiet space to attach emotions to my life, my way of letting others in when I would normally push them away. So my goal for 2020 is to get back on here more and share what's really going on inside me. It's a win-win, I think. I process more and know myself more, while at the same time I let others in.

This journey into the Enneagram was not something I pursued or saw coming, but I believe God led me to it for a purpose. (It really all just started out as wanting to spend an evening one-on-one with a close friend). I'm thankful to know myself and my family in a new and deeper way as I say goodbye to the last year and decade and step into the year 2020.

(**The bold phrases are traits of FIVES that I got straight from the books.)