Community

I got to go home last weekend, and since it is my favorite season, fall, and the weather was perfect, my family and I went hiking. What I love about hiking, outside of the views it provides, is the sweet time I get to process my thoughts in the beauty of creation. The picture you see at left is one I got to take on that hike, once I looked back over the picture something hit me. The difference in the trees and their process of losing their leaves. You might be think, obviously Blair, trees loose their leaves at different times, it's not the revolutionary of an idea. But something hit me for the first time unlike ever before. As we walk through different seasons in this life, so do other people, again not that revolutionary of an idea, but as we do, so do these trees. AS some are still in full bloom, leaves golden and beautifully painting the mountain scape, to others with just a few leaves still holding on, and lastly the ones that are barren standing almost void of any life. That started me thinking, what a sweet picture of the community we get to experience. Because the Lord places people in you life who aren't always at the exact same place as you, and what a blessing for that. Because when I am at my barest, I know that I have people in my life full of joy, hope, and perspective, and vice versa. And that is the beauty of community, the Lord places people to walk through life alongside and share in this journey. As I walk alongside them in their seasons that look so different than mine, I know that they do the same. We stand together, connected in the deepest way, at our roots because of our love of Christ. WE are not alone, nor do we have to pretend to be. Our community is a gift, and though it changes as we walk through life, there is always someone there to share life with different perspective, to share in our joy and suffering. What a BLESSING!!!!

Be Still and Know that I am

If any of you know me very well, you know that since I had any freedom over my own schedule I have been going non-stop. Almost as if I assumed my life would fall apart if I let myself stop. And now, when more than any other season I long to be filled with days that take me from dance, to class, lunches with friends, to rehearsal, to this activity or that, instead I find myself STILL. Knowing that each day for a while, I wake up to face stillness. But, I have to trust that in this season more than any other, stillness is exactly what I need, what I want no, but it is what I need. I need to sit in this beautiful season of change and be there, not wishing I was rushing off to this, or that. I need to be here in the moment, not hoping or trying to get to what is around the corner, but really being exactly where I am. And where I find myself tonight is being still and quiet before the Lord. Taking in the depth of the realization, that I am Not, but I Know I AM. And that my friends, is a beautiful place to be. I need this, this moment, this breath, this day, this stillness, because it has a purpose and I don't want to look back on my life wishing I hadn't rushed through it, trying to get to the next best thing because I was afraid of being still.

What I asked for.....

I keep thinking that this season was brought because this is what i asked for... because sometimes when your a believer it is almost trendy to ask to be the Lord's only. SO that's what I did without fully realizing all that it would encompass.  I spoke without ever looking back and now I am here. With those words almost echoing in my ears, " It trust you with this...., I trust you with that....., Do what you want with this...." But as I am finding I am actually getting what I asked for. When actually what I asked for sometimes seems like a punishment in some respects, I know it's the furthest thing from that. That getting to that place of totally surrender and trust is the best thing and worth the deepest heartbreak and hardest struggle. But I look in great anticipation of what this season will bring. While sometimes everything with in me would rather avoid this than deal with it head on I trust that this season is good to. SO I am saying it again... I trust you with this season, that at times it is unbearably painful but I know that you alone have a purpose and plan beyond the pain and confusion.

The Greatest Risk

I think there are few things scarier in life than the risk of being vulnerable enough to let someone "know" you. I am not talking about surface level know you, but really know the heart of who, the parts of you that few people ever do know. To be known in that way can reap great rewards, but when people who know you that well walk out of you life it can leave you feeling vulnerable and raw. There are a handful of people in my life that know my in's and out's, and I theirs. Who have looked at the depth of who I am and said, yes I know your flawed and I know you aren't perfect but your worth the risk, and I love you. That is where the greatest love and the greatest risk comes from. Because when your fully known and loved for exactly who you are, in whatever moment or season you are in there is almost no greater joy. I am finding that this is so much of what I am created for, while I know there other things mixed in with that, the Lord is revealing that his heart in being known, is also my heart. As I have walked through various seasons of self image and self confidence issues, the idea of being loved for exactly who I am, brings tears to my eyes. To not have this feeling of needing to be anyone or anything else. But above all else to feel like who I am, however I am, is enough. Through out the years that group of people I was talking about before has changed, some have gone, some have stayed, and as people have left I always find myself in a reflective place of looking back and wondering what caused them to not hold that place in my life anymore. For some I feel it was because time apart got to be to great to continue to make the risk, some because naturally as one grows and matures people grow apart, and some because they looked at the depth of who I was and said, I am not sure your someone I can love or do love. And that is why I call this the greatest risk because when you risk all to know and be known, to love and be loved you take a chance that people will know you for the depths of who you are, and say no thank you. But I am learning that, that is what Christ did for us, he risked everything came here as a human spent his life knowing people and letting them know him only to be crucified  and rejected over and over again, and he is still is taking that risk today. So if I just claimed that much of the Lord's heart and desiring to know and be known, love and be loved, is also my own, and that he risked everything just so one person would know him and love him, then I think its worth the risk. It worth the rejection, tears, and heart break to find the people in your life who do truly know the depth of you and continue to love you through the seasons of life. SO Jesus thank you for risking all to know us and so we could know you, for allowing us to model that through friendships and relationships you place in our lives. 

Wisdom from Sweet AVA!

 I recently started nannying for a family with two precious daughters, Ava( who is pictured at right) and sweet Addison. Ava is two years old and has recently had her world rocked by the new addition of Addison, her two month old sister. While Ava posses such a sweet disposition naturally, adding a new little one to any family is sometimes a hard transition. I learned very quickly the difference, according to Ava, between her things and Addi's, a line which shouldn't be crossed if you ask her. I was talking through the day with their mother today, and sharing with her my observations of Ava's lack of wanting to share with her sister. She started telling me how her sister studied early childhood development and told her, that children don't even begin to understand the concept of sharing fully until they are six. SO while that doesn't exempt us from starting to instill those virtues in her earlier, it does help to understand why her two year old self can't quite comprehend it. But that idea started me thinking how much am I

like that in my own life. The concept of sharing the things the Lord places in my life seems so foreign at times. Why should I think I have to share with him things that I have been given. But that just it, they aren't mine in the first place, my heart, my dancing, my relationships, my friendship, my life and everything in it is the Lord's. And if he is the author and perfecter of all of life then why wouldn't I want to share these things with HIM. Probably because I was fearful that it would land me here, but regardless of how tightly i tried to hold he still shook it loose. And even as tender and vulnerable of a place a find myself it is far better to be in His hands, than my own. Because I am guessing he has a little bit better grip on reality than I do and than Ava does. So as I have these moments of trying to teach this sweet girl how to share her things, I bet the the Lord is laughing thinking, I am trying to teach you the exact same things. So silly it was for me for to think I was above letting go, and how thankful I am that I serve a God who has enough patience.

Stained Glass Windows

So the Lord has been so funny with His imagery lately. I think its partially because I have a creative mind that these images resonate so clearly but regardless they do, and to day it was a stain glass window. In case you couldn't gather I have been walking through a season of brokenness and change lately. If I am being frank, almost everything I thought my life would be has been flipped and stripped and I am getting to the heart of who the Lord wants me to be.  The beauty of the image you see here is that it is the epitome of broken things, and on a day like today that brings me so much hope. The idea that there is beautiful things that come from so much brokenness is music to my ears today. And the fact that you don't get masterpieces like that from just breaking one piece of glass. It takes many pieces repeatedly being broken that allows for the masters work to be accomplished. So who am I to say that I am exempt from that. And as hard as it is to say, who am I to say that I don't actually need it. There is so much beauty in brokenness that brings healing, grace and peace. There is nothing quite like being face down at the father's feet and broken. So that's where i find myself today, face down in need of my savior and in need of brokenness that will create a masterpiece of brokenness, a stained glass window.

Sour Patch Kids

So who knew that the Lord could bring so much wisdom from a candy. As I was thinking over the last few months of my life and processing the things that have transpired, I was hit with the image of a Sour Patch Kid. You might think I am crazy, but stay with me here....In their truest form a sour patch kid is a candy that well, at "first their sour then its sweet". Then it hit me, so is this season I find myself in, at times things on the surface seem sour, pucker lips, eat to much your stomach hurts sour, why God am I walking through this sour. But I realized that isn't all this season is, it isn't just sour, there is sweetness lying among the times when my heart is broken and I find my self asking the proverbially "WHY?" and "WHAT DO I DO FROM HERE?" But the God I serve is one that brings clarity among hardships, and even on the hardest of days gives a peace that surpasses all understanding, and sweetness in even the sourest of circumstances. SO I am vowing to live my life in search of the sweetness. Knowing that sour things, events, and circumstances are bound to happen, but we can't stay there in the sour we must continue to search for the sweet. And trust me sometimes you really have to search, but it always comes, and its always just the right amount of sweetness.