Last night I had a moment, well, several moments, really, in which I thought I had lost everything on snippets. Well, not everything. I do have all of the posts and comments and pictures saved in a backup file. I’m talking about the site structure itself.
Major panic ensued.
Obviously, you’re reading this, so I got everything sorted out, but for about four hours last night, I was at my wit’s end. Which is silly, really, because it’s just a website. But it’s a website that I built and customized for myself, and it took me a long time to get it exactly the way I wanted. I was seeing hours and hours of getting it just right again in my future, and the prospect made me shudder.
This is just the most recent of events that has set me back lately, and the more these little things pop up, the more I’ve noticed something about myself.
When things don’t go the way I have planned, I get bent out of shape. And when I say bent out of shape, I mean that I get twisted up into an unrecognizable form of myself. I obsess over “fixing” things when it’s obvious to everyone else that they can’t be fixed.
I don’t want to be that way.
I want to be the kind of woman who takes things in stride. Who never gets her feathers ruffled or works herself into a tizzy. I want to calmly step both feet into my big girl panties, pull them up, and just deal with it.
This, I know, is going to be a slow and painful process, and given some of my recent circumstances, I’m afraid that it’s an area that God really wants to work on right now.
He always does that, you know. Gets me in the gut.
I’ve been feeling overwhelmed lately with everything I’ve loaded on my plate. It’s piled higher than a styrofoam tray at Thanksgiving dinner, and when I dive in to tackle the butterbeans, I send my cornbread tumbling off the plate. It’s not pretty.
I called my mom Monday and asked her to come get Micah, who has refused to nap consistently for the past month, and when Micah refuses to nap, I can’t write, which is a problem since I have two major deadlines at the beginning of next week. I have to work this week. Thank goodness for grandparents, right?
I’m hoping that I’ll be able to get back on track while Micah’s at my parent’s house. That maybe these few days will be like pushing the reset button, and when I retrieve her, all will be calm, and my plate will have a few empty sections.
One can hope, right?
Until next time, grace and peace.
myMISSIONfulfilled has just posted my latest article. Keep reading for a teaser, then click through to myMISSIONfulfilled to read the rest of Sarah’s Laugh.
Please read Genesis 18:1–15.
My mother was barren. She and my father were married for 11 long years before my sister was born. When my parents attended my mom’s 10-year high school reunion, they held the distinct honor of being the couple who had been married the longest without having any children. Their prize? A live rabbit. My mother has never forgotten the humiliation of that moment, and when she tells the story, pain still flickers across her face.
God used the skillful hands of a surgeon to reverse my mother’s infertility and bring life to her barren womb, but for thousands of childless women, indulging the hope that they may bear children is a dangerous and painful activity. It’s easier to stop hoping than it is to have dreams dashed month after month, and, after years of unsuccessful attempts to have a child, some women simply give up.
That’s where Sarah found herself when she and her husband, Abraham, entertained some unexpected visitors. Abraham rushed about, preparing steaks to grill while Sarah kneaded homemade bread. As the visitors settled down outside to enjoy the meal under shade trees, Sarah hovered inside the door of her home and eavesdropped on the conversation…
I’ve been creeping back into the writing game over the past few months, and a couple of my articles have been posted on myMISSIONfulfilled. Thought you might want to hop over there and check them out.
First, the article about prioritizing relationships that I mentioned in my first crack of dawn post has gone live on myMISSIONfulfilled. Making Room: How to Make Relationships a Priority in Your Life was a challenging article for me to write, because I knew that I needed to make some serious adjustments in my own life, and I tried to be as honest as possible about my own failures to make the most important relationships in my life a priority. I also tried to celebrate my successes, and I thought the article turned out well.
The second article is about using journaling as a tool in prayer. Writing to Remember: How Journaling Helps Me Pray explores my own experiences with using a journal in my prayer life, something that I’ve done for over 10 years now. It’s probably the most important spiritual discipline that I practice, and it certainly helps me remember not only where I’ve been, but also where I’m going.
Hope you enjoy reading the articles!
Until next time, grace and peace.
In the months following Micah’s birth when I fell off the face of the planet, a few of my articles were published on myMISSIONfulfilled.com. I also had a couple of articles run in LifeWay’s ec, but I haven’t gotten those scanned yet, so if you’re interested in reading my latest published work, myMISSIONfulfilled will have to do.
When Mary (the former editor of MMF) asked me to write an article about life with a newborn, I thought it would be easy, especially since she asked for a journal-style article. Since I keep a journal anyway, I thought writing the article would be a breeze. Ha. Silly me. I neglected to acknowledge the fact that having a newborn changes everything, and finding the time to sit down and scribble a few lines in my journal was nigh impossible. But I did it anyway. And I’m glad I did. Newborn Life is the result.
Before Micah was born, I wrote a two-part series on God’s love for the nations. The first article, We, the People of the Nations, explores how God demonstrates his care for all the nations, not just the people of Israel, in the Old Testament. The second article, Talking with Ting, talks about opening our eyes to the nations that are among us.
Back in August (the last days of my pregnancy), MMF ran Working for Peanuts: How Microenterprise Gives Women a Hand Up. I was particularly excited about this article, since it gave me a chance to write about Northern Empowerment Association, one of the ministries we visited in Ghana. I also got to share some of the photos I took on the trip.
And finally, one day Mary was looking through leslieannjones.com and she found an entry that she liked. She asked if she could use Identity Crisis on MMF. How could I refuse? The article appeared on the site in late September, and I completely forgot about it until a few weeks ago.
Hope y’all enjoy looking through some of these articles. In the past couple of months, I’ve begun writing for MMF again, so expect to see some more links in the near future.
Until next time, grace and peace.
What a crazy time it’s been. Such is our life, I suppose. We’ve spent the past week with family, and it has been wonderful, but let’s admit it, everyone likes to get back into the routine of everyday normal life. Am I the only one who needs a vacation from vacation when we return home? Anyway, my parents left a few hours ago, and life is back to normal here in Iuka. Micah’s napping, and I’m poking around on the internet for a little while. I should take a shower. Or figure out what’s for supper. Or take more pictures of my notecards to post on my etsy site. But I’m not. Maybe later.
Last night I was flipping through a copy of Southern Living. I’m not sure what month. Maybe it’s January’s issue? Anyway, the magazine had a “Best of the South” section, and in it, it listed Rowan Oak, home of William Faulkner, as the best literary stop in Mississippi. I haven’t read Faulkner since my freshman year in college, and I admittedly didn’t have much of an appreciation for his style. Maybe it’d be different now. Perhaps I’ll revisit some of his stories. But I digress. I was intrigued by Faulkner’s hesitancy to leave home. Only at home was he able to write. In fact, the article said that when President Kennedy invited him to dinner at the White House, Faulkner actually turned down the invitation because he thought DC was an awfully long way to go just to eat supper. Crazy. But I understand. As a writer (who writes less often than she should these days), not only can I not write unless I’m in my own space, but I also cannot write unless my space is ordered. Right now there are magazines, notebooks, an empty ramekin, and a package of batteries on my desk. There are bills in the inbox. Baby food coupons tucked in front of an insurance statement. No writing will get done until those things are taken care of. Not that I have any assignments at the moment. But that’s beside the point.
I feel like I’m finally getting to a place in this new life of mine where I can return to being me. In an article I wrote for myMISSIONfulfilled about the first weeks of motherhood, I said that I never wanted to lose my identity after having children. So many women I know forget who they are. They leave behind their entire life to become known as their child’s mother. I was so afraid that I would become “Micah’s Mommy” and quit being myself. Don’t kid yourself. The danger is real. I never wanted to quit being me just because I had also become a mother. The past four and a half months have been a struggle because it’s a fight to maintain my sense of self when I spend all day every day taking care of my infant. It would be so easy for my life to be all about her. But it’s not. Being Micah’s Mommy is just one part of my life. It’s just one facet of who I am. And it’s just one task that God has called me to complete. He has also called me to write. And to speak. And to teach. And I’m finally in a place where I am able to do those things again. Thank goodness.
Another famous Mississippi writer, Eudora Welty, said that living, not reading, made her want to write. I have been living for the past several months. Now it’s time to write again. I’m itching to stretch my literary muscles. It’s time to blow the dust off my portfolio and start sending it out. Don’t choke on the cloud of dust!
