Archive for August, 2009
August 31, 2009 @ 6:36 am | Filed under: Family, Soul Food, Uniquely Me
I’ve been the quietest I’ve been in years…maybe ever…these past several months.
As an aside - I’m sure if you were to ask Mike, he’d beg to differ with that last statement! I’ve been talking, for sure, as we’ve been planning, implementing those plans, and making various adjustments these past few months. But, other than journaling it and talking it out within our four walls, I’ve not been too vocal on much except surface…stuff.
When I shut out the noise around me, good or bad, I can truly focus. Regain some clarity, perspective. There is a tranquility of spirit these days and - while it is something new for me - it is definitely something I hope to keep.
There is one area though that I am resolving to bolster even more. It is one of my weaknesses: time management. I want so much to do well in so many different areas that I find I am constantly tending to the urgent and - in the process - often ignoring the important.
Putting out fires is necessary, goodness knows, but what I so often perceive as being a burning forest usually turns out to be nothing more than smoldering embers. And sometimes when I get back to the important, the passion, the energy and the drive has already been spent.
My heartbeat lately has been to find God and then join Him in what He is doing. In this protected, tender space that is my life right now, I feel a real need to maximize the time. To not only be productive in my work, school, church and family life, but to really be cognizant as I go through my day of the people around me. What they are facing. Decisions they are making. Hurts they have.
My life has slowed, for sure. I don’t know that I will ever truly understand the scope of what this time is about for me. I feel almost certain that, at the very least, I won’t glimpse the meaning until I’ve faithfully trodded this path until I come to the next leg of the journey.
The last thing I want to do is to fill this time with busyness instead of progress. There are some things - some people - that I can do nothing about, nothing for. Some things just need to be left alone. I’m trying to learn that, accept it.
Only then can I cultivate the important. I want to grow a garden during this time, and nourish it with time spent with Him, time spent in reflection, time shared with loved ones, and time in knowledge and understanding.
Today begins the new fall term and, with it, I am starting a new book. I’m excited about both…and also nervous about both. Beginnings - as fresh and fun and exciting as they can be - aren’t really my forte. But they are crucial and I know that these first days will set the stage for the next weeks and months. I want those months to be productive ones. And I know what it will take for that productivity to even have a fighting chance.
This morning I lay it all down, all the components that make up ME.
I ask for eyes to see the realities.
Ears to hear His voice.
A heart to love without borders.
And arms strong enough to cradle it all.
Family, living simply, school stories
August 27, 2009 @ 7:08 am | Filed under: Uniquely Me
“The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.” - John Pierpont Morgan
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It was the Friday after the New Year. 2009.
We drove east on I-30, headed towards TAMU-Commerce. I had a two-o’clock with my new advisor, and Mike tagged along just for the ride. For several months I had kept a running list of pros and cons for switching schools. There was a huge part of me that resisted. Probably the part of me that normally can’t stand change. But it had become all too clear that I had two choices: change schools or settle for the major that I didn’t really want.
Sometimes I question my decision to even go back to school. As much as I enjoy it, the time and energy it takes sometimes exhaust me. I miss the massive amounts of writing time that I used to take for granted. I miss spending lots of time with friends. I could live the rest of my life without finishing school, without teaching…and my life would still be full, vibrant and happy. It’s not as though I need to do this.
Yet…I do need to.
I’m not sure when or where I knew it, I only know that somewhere along the way I intuitively knew that this was something I was meant to do. As the first couple of years slid by, I have alternatively loved/despised school, but I’ve not wavered about the fact that it was something I needed to do.
So on this Friday I was scheduled to meet with Dr. Bolin and chart the remainder of my school career. Even as we drove, I commented several times that - really - the drive is not bad. Already I was assimilating myself to the realization that I would be on this very road a lot as I commuted back and forth.
Looking back, we have no clue who made the first move, spoke that first word…For someone who marks milestones by emotions and feelings, I have no memory of this particular milestone. It’s very odd. I only know that something happened along the drive that day. I looked out the window as we passed a certain section of town and I felt a pull. A sense of somehow belonging. Of somehow having a sense of purpose there.
I couldn’t identify what it was that I was experiencing and it never occurred to me then to voice it. I simply attended my meeting, made academic plans and then we drove home.
It was much later - back home - that the surreal began to take place. We looked at one another and it was Mike who spoke first.
“I…I felt something today.”
I didn’t question his words or the tone with which they were spoken.
I knew.
life lessons, living simply, school stories
August 26, 2009 @ 9:19 am | Filed under: The Solid Rock, Uniquely Me
“The optimist sees opportunity in every danger; the pessimist sees danger in every opportunity.” — Winston Churchill
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Be still and know that I am God. - Psalm 46:10
I knew that change was coming to my life.
Normally, I don’t do change. At least not with any kind of ladylike grace at all. It usually involves a bit of kicking and screaming, asking why, and - more often than not - results in lots of hot tears.
Why is it that some lessons are just so hard to learn?
My heart is a tricky place. Just when I think I have all its rooms cleaned up and ready to pass inspection, I trip and fall over something I thought I had already picked up and put away properly.
When I want too much, I become a very unhappy woman. And it’s never things that get me twisted, it’s matters of the heart, a longing for that one, single, solitary place inside of me that has yet to be satisfied…
It was during times alone with Him that I began to ask for simplicity.
And it was in the darkness of those hours before Him, when I could no longer hide and found myself stripping off everything that was trying to bind my mind, my emotions, my purpose, that His voice found me.
He began to uncover the makeshift bandages I had placed over bruised spots. His fingers caressed the scars, and He spoke whispers of comfort that moved a long-needed breeze through my soul.
For the past year I have been so acutely aware that I was being prepared for something. In almost everything I took a part in, it was shown - again and again and again - that I was to walk out into the deep and that I was to do just this one thing.
One thing at a time.
I have found that if you do that ONE THING and then the NEXT one, and then the NEXT one…before you know it life has evolved, situations have evolved and…I have evolved. And evolution equals change.
One day that still quiet voice penetrated to the depths of my heart; I listened, sensing an important message.
Simplicity, I can give you.
I instinctively knew I should stiffen at those words, but I no longer had the energy. Wasn’t I on my face, tears streaking my face, my throat raw from the time spent with Him - acknowledging that my ways needed to fade away so that HIS way could be made clear?
The struggle within me died in those moments of surrender. I didn’t know where He would lead. I didn’t know what He would have me do.
I only knew that I could no longer hide. Could no longer numb the pain. Could no longer live a life that was merely reactive.
I rose to my feet, not knowing anything more than I had said yes.
To what, I didn’t know.
August 25, 2009 @ 10:32 am | Filed under: Uniquely Me
(Hey Robyn. Hey Denise. Here ya go, ladies… 
I posted this song here a while back, and also to my personal online journal and - I have to say - it’s the song that has lived in my heart since.
Waiting is sometimes the hardest thing to do. Ever.
I’ve been quiet here for a while. My friends think I’ve abandoned blogging. I’m not sure what my readers think. This is my effort to share the story of a true revolution. And one in progress, at that. This is the story of the past few months and what has happened, and is, happening in the Wilder home and hearts.
This is the story of a home that gave up ’simply living’ in order to begin ‘living simply’ and what we’re discovering in the process.
There is so much more woven into the fabric of this story than mere catch phrases of the hour. It is more than a return to the simple things; instead, it is a return to the First Love, to His call on our lives. It is the tale of our journey of faith. It’s a journey that changes just a bit everyday, just enough to continually surprise us in good ways, in uncomfortable ways, and in all ways in between.
I think that God must surely look down on me in some of my less-than-finer-moments and wish that this daughter of His wasn’t quite as feisty as I can be at times. The truth is that He’d been trying to talk to me for a while, but I’d not really cared to have the type of conversation I knew He wanted.
I was in hiding.
But it didn’t work. Not for long. My soul can only take so much distance before I run to Him, fall on my face, and cry out for His touch once again.
I needed to be quiet for a while; needed to get to that place of solitude where His voice was all I heard and His touch all I craved.
And so I got quiet. Got quiet here, and got quiet quiet in life, trying instead to tune in solely to the people and responsibilities that He’s placed in my hands, my heart - my life.
In upcoming blog posts I will endeavor to chronicle what happened next. I’m not quite sure in what order, if any, they will be told.
I’m a work in progress.
My God is amazing, the guiding light of my life.
This is not the journey I thought I’d take.
I don’t know where I’m going. I don’t know what will rise up to greet me along the way. I know…nothing, really.
Except that I am waiting - always waiting - and, for the first time in a long while, my thoughts have stilled, my heart has quieted, my soul has found peace.
This is the story of how it began.
How I gave up simply living, in order to begin living simply.
